100 Habits

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  • Habit #2 – Make A Wish

    “If you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud too.”

    Three wishes

    So many stories tell about the three magical wishes. You get them by doing a good deed, rubbing one out for a genie, staying hungry and not baking the goldfish, you know the drill. Three’s a magical number and whatnot, I know, but do we really need three? Some people even go as far as to try to hack the system and wish for infinite wishes. But why? If you could truly wish for anything, don’t you really need just one? And get everything? Or get a fulfillment plan, you know, spread it out, so you don’t get all your shit all at once and have to deal with all the cardboard and bubble wrap.

    Like most people, I’ve also wondered what I’d do with three wishes. Heck, sometimes I’ve been dumbfounded by trying to figure out what to do with just one. Would everything be enough? Would it be too much? Do I deserve…all of it? Would it have value if I just conjured something out of thin air? Would it be “real”? Or should I be modest and just wish for a bigger pe…apartment? Bigger than what – my current one, or perhaps someone else’s?

    Playing with fire

    Wishes are a tricky business and they can be fulfilled in a variety of ways, often much to the chagrin of the wisher – I’m sure you’ve heard a number of jokes on that subject. Hence the saying “Be careful what you wish for,” and not just because of that. We often trick ourselves into thinking we desire something, only to be disappointed when we get it, realizing it’s not what we expected, or that we didn’t really want it. Or because we weren’t able to keep it around – which is all loosely paraphrasing a quote from one of my favorite books/films – The (Way of the) Peaceful Warrior.

    I’m making it sound like wishes are a bad thing, aren’t I? Well, that’s debatable – is fire a bad thing? It all comes down to how you use it. And boy, can that be fun – you can get all sorts of burned. You can also get warmth and safety. Sounds like roulette? It’s not. Not really, the odds are in your favor, you just have to know where to place your bets.

    Blue pill or red pill, Neo?

    So, now I’m going to go full Morpheus on you. What if I told you you can have all the wishes you want? That you have the power to make them come true – you’re just not using it to its full potential. Some might consider this notion crazy. Thank you, I am. It’s taken a lifetime of practice.

    It all started with a book I’ve read – which is a sentiment you are going to get used to really quickly if you keep on reading my stuff. It was recommended to me by a dear friend of mine (everyone wave to Vika) – Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Getting into the content of this book would be ridiculously out of scope of this piece, nor is it especially necessary to explain my point. Also I wouldn’t dare presume I understood it well enough to be able to explain it to you. But I can’t completely rob you of a trailer so here’s a couple of ideas that are a foundation of the whole concept I’m about to explain. Put your seatbelts on:

    * Time doesn’t exist. Everything in the world, the past, present and the future is happening right now.

    * We are all One – part of an all-encompassing entity. We are everything. We are immortal. We live purely for the experience.

    * Things cannot be truly experienced without their polar opposite (hot without cold, good without bad, happiness without sadness and vice versa). That is why an entity that is Everything cannot properly experience them without separating oneself from the whole and in a sense – becoming human.

    I understand that these are deep philosophical ideas that cannot simply be read and immediately understood. I hope they’ll spark curiosity in you, rather than dismissal and that you’ll be able to give them as much thought and reflection as they deserve.

    Wearing your wishing seat belt

    Back to wishes! So what’s the trick then? Are we all just magicians and now that we know, we can just yell ‘Asparagus’ and get everything we want? Well, yes, but not really. There’s a catch, because of course there’s a catch. In other words, it’s not that simple.

    Here’s how I understand and practice the concept, in no particular order:

    Wishes should be expressed with your full attention

    Not when you’re brushing your teeth. Or while showering. I like to make my wishes when I’m preparing for sleep. When everything in the house is turned off and quiet. The ritual is yours to make, it doesn’t matter what it is – it matters that it matters to you. I hold my palms together, wherever it feels natural, sometimes in front of my face and say my wish out loud. You can write it down, or sing it, probably even dance it. I believe what matters is that it is your true wish and that you are paying attention to it.

    Wishes should make sense in the world we live in

    For example, you could wish to be Spiderman. And shoot webs out of your wrists. Or you could wish to be invisible and walk through walls. All the power to you, I just fear you might be disappointed more often than not. Or realize, at one point, that shooting webs out of your wrists might not be all that fun in real life. Or that being invisible might be more of a curse than a blessing.

    Wishes should come from a true desire

    In other words, you have to really want it. Not rationally, not because you think you need it, or because someone told you that you should. But because you want it so much you cannot not want it (yes, it takes a double negative to explain this). And I’m not saying this because these are the rules. I’m saying this because I believe it’s the way to achieve the best results.

    You are, of course, free to wish for anything you like and you just might get it. And perhaps regret it afterwards. There’s no playing with fire without the danger of getting your eyebrows singed.

    Trust in your power

    The important thing to understand here is that this is not you making a wish and someone else fulfilling it. There’s no one else, there’s just Us! It’s you making the wish and you fulfilling the wish. Let that sink in for a bit.

    Believing that you are capable of bringing your wishes to reality is not just a change in perspective. It is also a way of taking responsibility. And not only for things yet to come, but for all things in your life. It is a way of finding acceptance, and reconsidering what is a blessing and what is a curse. Or whether there’s any difference at all. Or, to use a variation of a common cliché – if life keeps shooting lemon juice in your face, then maybe stop loading the cannon with lemons.

    Imagine it as a hammer in your tool shed. If you know you have it and where it is (and understand how it works, for the sake of your thumbs, all four of them), you can go get it and give that nail something to think about. If you have it in the tool shed but have no idea it is there, well, you’re going to have to use an umbrella, a toaster or your children.

    So now you know you own a hammer.

    Take action

    Action boy – the little culprit almost at the end, but he’s a tricky bastard, and probably the most important of them all. You might’ve heard the saying “God helps those who help themselves.” Well, you’re God, so what now? You might just have to get your hands dirty. In a very good way.

    No wish is truly real before it is sealed by action. It’s how we transport it to our reality. We give it our dedication, time and our love. Think of it as watering a plant or a flower. You can’t really make it grow, it needs to do that by itself. But you sure as hell can give it everything it needs to flourish. And flourish it will.

    Of course, not everything is up to you. But a lot of it is. So you do your part and leave everything else to…well…everyone else. Some people like to call that God.

    There’s nothing I can think of to offer a better description of my thoughts than this picture. I should put this on a wall in my living room, so I can see it every day. And you know what, I will.

    Be specific

    Let me tell you a story. Johnny was a boy with a crooked arm. He walked far and wide to find a magical well that would heal his arm. After months of arduous travel he finally found it and spoke his wish: “O magical well, please make both my arms the same.”

    So the well obliged, leaving Johnny with two crooked arms.

    I don’t mean to say that the universe is a mean old bastard, that gets its giggles from picking on unsuspecting wishers. But maaaaybeeee …?!

    Being specific is not here to get the most value for your money. It is an important exercise to iteratively make you realize what is it that you truly want. By being specific, speaking out the wish, you take responsibility and therefore breathe life into the wish you conjured. You show the universe that you know what it is that you desire.

    So long and thanks for all the wish (es)

    By now, you can surely realize how quickly things can spring out of control, when you’re not careful – like wishing for rain and then drowning in a flash flood when the riverbanks spill over. Or nothing happens leaving us to ponder which is worse.

    When you wish for the love of another person, are you sure you can handle it? Do you love yourself enough? If you don’t, no matter how much they give you, most of it will spill over and slowly trickle away.

    Sometimes, we give ourselves too much, just to show ourselves we’re not ready. Or too little to make ourselves humble. Nothing will stop us from burning our whole world down, if we so desire. We have the power. And you know what comes with great power, don’t you?

    This is a good news/bad news kinda situation. The good news is – you have immense power. The bad news is the same thing. Everything comes with a price and I’m sure you know I’m not talking about money.

    So be careful, Lennie, lest you crush the rabbit.

  • Habit #1 – Count your blessings

    Did you ever have your life kind of fold on you? Figuratively like a house of cards, no warning, just whoosh, suddenly it’s all just a pile of horizontal pieces. Stacked, with a sign “Sorry, we’re closed.” on top. No last call. Just the old “mkay bye now”.

    I’m sure you did.

    And I’m sure you felt, like all of us at one point, distraught, unwilling to build anything ever again. Words “Screw this, why am I even trying?!” come to mind, don’t they? If you’ve ever given up, you’re living the pure human experience. I should know, I’ve given up thousands of times. Sometimes my capitulation lasted for a few seconds upon which I couldn’t help but get back and try again, because I simply couldn’t handle walking away. Sometimes it lasted days before I shook free and took another bite. In a lot of cases, it lasts to this day. Some capitulations I regret, others I never did.

    When pillars break

    When particularly important foundations of our lives are shaken, the whole thing is compromised. So when I say that I believe we shouldn’t put so much weight into any one of those foundations, you’re going to think I’m crazy. I’m going to take a sidestep around the fact that I am, in fact, crazy, and tell you that I understand your sentiment. Actually, I kind of even agree with you. It’s hard not to. We each have our own foundations in our lives. And it’s exactly the fact that they can be lost that makes them so valuable. So my logic could imply that the solution is not to love anything. Not to care even.

    Trust me, it’s not. I’ve tried. And I know just by talking to people that I was not the only one. Understand, that this is in no way an attempt to devalue anything you consider incredibly important in your life or imply that it shouldn’t be there. On the contrary, I’m arguing there should be more of it! What I’m here to say is that life is change and nothing ever stays the same. And sometimes holding on to things hurts us much more than letting them go, no matter how much letting go might hurt initially.

    Often times when we set ourselves free of things that have become chains, we open up space in our lives for something new. And I believe that by the rules of equilibrium, all vessels will eventually be filled to the brim. Except for those that choose to remain closed.

    I’ve come to understand that losing important parts of our lives is always part of a bigger story. A story we are in the midst of reading and therefore have no idea what comes next. In other words, I believe there’s a reason why those parts are lost. Not because some deity or all-encompassing force has a plan. But because through our own discovery of that reason, we reinvent ourselves and forge a new path in our life. The reason is ours to find, not for others to divulge. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Change is chaos, often unpredictable and wild. But also, uncontrollable and inevitable.

    A little gratitude goes a long way

    A habit I’ve found to be good at preventing my world from going up in flames is simply to practice gratitude. Like most valuable things I know, I learned this one from other people. Very often, life’s ultimate truths aren’t all that complicated. Instead, lessons learned are frequently accompanied by something like: “How did this take me so long to understand? It’s so simple!”

    So how does this gratitude work? How does everything else work, really – you can’t cross a river by talking or thinking about it. You’ll have to get in and wade, or swim, or row, or…well…walk, if you’re Jesus. In other words, you do it by taking action. Doesn’t matter how small, doesn’t matter how frequent as long as you do it. Once you find out about the magic this can do to your life, there’s no way you won’t enjoy every bit of it.

    So what does it look like, this gratitude, how does one do it?

    When was the last time you thanked your parents for all they did for you? Did you ever? Thanked your partner for being patient with you on your bad days. Thanked your boss or colleague for helping you out or for supporting you when you were stuck. Thanked your friend for being there for you when you experienced a loss in your life. Do you have a roof over your head? Do you worry whether you’ll have something to eat tomorrow? Do you have access to opportunities to learn and grow? Can you choose what hobbies to pursue? Can you choose what profession you’d like to pursue (in the long-run)?  I think you get the idea. Not all of these have to apply to you. I’d be surprised if none of them do. Even more if you couldn’t find any others.

    So should we be thankful for the most basic things, just because someone else has it worse? Of course not, that’s a really bad way of going about it. We should be thankful for the things we have, BECAUSE we have them. And of course, later we will get to that other point as well. We’ll wish others to have what we have, because we’ll want everyone in the world to experience what we can – this is called the abundance mentality. However, as my favourite saying goes “you can’t give out apples that you don’t have,” we must first find the magic inside of us before we can share it.

    You see, by not being thankful, we’re all implicit in creating a society that is inherently ungrateful – that doesn’t value what is already there. And if we’re not grateful for the things we have, how on earth can we feel we’re owed more? If we are, on the other hand, thankful, but we’re not showing it, this is almost the same problem. Similarly to knowing the truth and not speaking it. Or loving and not expressing it. You get what I mean. Without action, even the most valuable things are just dust in the wind.

    It’s all up to you

    The best part about this is that it is really a covenant between you and yourself. You’re not “reporting” to anyone. There’s no checklist to complete, there’s no bucket of gratitude you need to fill. You give what you have. You can trust me, running out is not an option. The opposite is much more likely – gratitude has the eerie ability of producing more of itself. Don’t take my word for it though, instead, I invite you to prove me wrong.

    Who are we thanking then? God? Other people? Ourselves? Nature? The ether? The universe? Does it matter? Call it what you will, I’m sure there isn’t too much of a difference. Ultimately, I think all that matters is trusting that the intended party can always hear you. With people, it’s trusting not that they heard what you said, but that they understood what you meant. With everything else, use whatever medium you enjoy. Writing? Singing? Dancing? Whispering? Your choice entirely.

    Gratitude allows us to find more foundations. A slew of them. And together, they form a safety net. So when one gives in, the others catch us. It also invites more foundations to take the place of those we’ve lost. No loss is really permanent, only change is.

    So let us be thankful together. I can promise that once you get good at finding good things in your life, you’ll be amazed at how many you can find. And how many more you can invite in just by being mindful of those you already have. All it takes is practice.

  • How HIMYM got me through my breakup

    Kids, I don’t know why I’m writing this. Hell, I’m not even sure what this is going to look like when I’m done. I just know that I can’t not write it. I cried more in the last 2 weeks than I did in the past 20 years. There’s a knock on the door and I’m opening.

    (more…)