Tag: thought

The Default

Post author By jrlsage
Post date February 21, 2016

We accept the default

It’s human nature. We normally accept whatever is in front of us. Our brains can’t do the math, we work with too many stimuli per second to figure out every single decision. Our brains take the path of least resistance because we are on the lookout for things that could harm us.

This isn’t a bad thing, nor should you think of it as such. If we considered every option we would be paralyzed by choice. If you thought going through your closet in the morning on a stressful day is bad, considering every decision that presents itself to us is that feeling times 1000x.

So, we take the default, and we should, for most things. The hard part of life is determining of what defaults you don’t want to take and doing the hard work up from in changing them.

Don't accept the defaults you don't want

Tags accept, decisions, default, ruckus, seth godin, thought, video

Blog Post

Pain Is Sharp & Dull

Post author By jrlsage
Post date December 17, 2015

Pain

Pain is interesting to me.

I spent the last few days thinking about pain, and how it affects us.

When pain hits, it usually comes in two flavors – sharp and dull. Both affect you in a different way.

Sharp pain is a quick. Put your hand on a hot stove, that pain is going to hit you in the hand, and its going to sting. Same thing with a bee, stubbing your toe, or getting punched. The pain hits you with a sharp sting.

What follows after is the dullness. That throbbing that just sits there, and sticks around. The burn that happens after putting the hand on the stove, the bruise after the stubbed toe, and the black eye are good representations of dull plain.

What are the effects?

Sharp pain makes you present. It connects the world to you in a, well painful, way. It’s why you instinctively go for a smack to wake someone up(not a great way to wake up a friend). As much as that person won’t like you, it will wake them up.

Dull pain works as a reminder. After a long enough period, its routine. Burned your hand, well, every time you get that dull pain, it reminds you of the stove you ought to avoid.

So whats the point?

Not all things that hurt are bad. Pain isn’t the problem if you turn the perspective. What I used to think was a bad thing, something hurting, just was a lesson I needed to learn.

Pain isn’t weakness leaving the body, as is so often said. What it is though, is a great reminder of what is happening in our lives and who we are. Don’t regret something bad when it happens, look for the lesson,and it you find that the world gives you a ton to learn, it’s just up for you to listen.

Tags dull, effects, lesson, Pain, sharp, strength, thought, weakness

Blog Post

Can’t Step In The Same River Twice – Or We Are AWFUL @ Memory & Prediciton

Post author By jrlsage
Post date November 24, 2015

[bctt tweet=”The way we think about ourselves … is as real as ghosts, and generate based on “bedtime stories” we tell ourselves.”]

A thought kept coming back to me – based on a saying from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus

You can’t step in the same river twice.

The river has changed permanently because you’ve interacted with it. You have changed permanently because the river has interacted with you.

We worry too much about the past. Outside of discrete lessons, everything else is fungible. Plainly speaking, most of our memories are wrong. In most respects, our past self is gone, and it isn’t coming back. We change when things happen to us. We can’t go backwards.

In the same breath, we think of the future. Our anxiety gets the best of us and we catastrophize. But, luckily, we get that wrong too. We are horrible at predicting the future.

The way we think about ourselves in the future and the past come from how we feel, what we ate, and what happened to us recently. They are no more real than ghosts, and they generate based on the “bedtime story” we tell ourselves.

All we have is the present. That is the gift. The river is the lesson, each time something happens to you, you change. Most things we brush off, but each instance comes with a teachable moment. Pay attention to it, and you just might find something interesting.

The past is the past and the future is the future. It already came and went. Your time is better served paying attention to the present, and listening to now. Take the lesson(the river) and recognize that you(the person) changed. That other person is dead. Embrace it. If you don’t like it, another lesson is coming shortly.

Tags Focus, philosophy, thought