The end of an experiment

Well, this is it. I have reached day 15 of my tiny experiment in micro blogging. I would say there is not much micro about my blogging. The shorter entries are at least 500 words, and the longer ones over 3,000. Now that is very different from writing a book, or even a journal article; however, I do believe I have shared a lot of good ideas that are grounded in some pretty solid research.

Some topics are debatable. For example, I think Meta and Roblox are doing everything they can to refute the harm they cause. They might even believe it. When you study self-rationalization, you start to realize there is almost no behavior humans cannot rationalize.

As a matter of point, I really try to do my best to not ever consider myself a victim. Why? Because I have seen people use resentment and feelings of victimization to rationalize some really awful behavior. I am not saying there are not victims, and bad things don’t happen to good people. What I mean is that personally, the mindset of seeing myself as a “victim” usually leads to some undesirable behavior and generates more suffering than it cures. The book TED - The Empowerment Dynamic by David Emerald expands on this idea at great length.

For me, the rule goes something like this:

  • Treat others with compassion
  • For myself, live with humility, faith, and courage.

Now, Kristin Neff, a prominent researcher at the University of Texas and expert in self-compassion, wrote that your ability to show compassion to others will be gated by your ability to show compassion to yourself. Brené Brown wrote about her in one of her books, and whose website I have visited (https://self-compassion.org) and read content from convinced me that being excessively harsh to myself created conditions where I believed it was “okay” to be “less” harsh to others. I was doing them a kindness by not holding other people to the same impossible standards of perfection I was holding myself to.

Wow, talk about a load of self-rationalizing garbage. I had no business being so negative to myself, and definitely no right to treat other people even a fraction of the way I was treating them. If you struggle with perfectionism, negative self-talk, and in general treating yourself like hot garbage, I recommend the book Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine. However, in truth, the book that changed my life the most was The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. One day I stopped projecting myself into imaginary future fights and I stopped relieving my worst memories. I was able to calm down and get centered in the present moment. Morning pages (see The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, or better, just Google it, or Google Tim Ferriss’s and Morning Pages) gave me ways to get calm, grounded, and centered.

From the space of being grounded, I rediscovered my faith, not as a source of guilt and judgement. I am a fan of Rob Bell. (Love Wins). I personally believe the Bible was written by real men and women, for a real audience, at a real moment in time. They were all figuring it out (the humility to recognize they did not have the answers), with prayer (faith), and imperfect living (courage).

That is the most effective move of living I have found so far.

But nothing about that says, “I am a victim.” Nor does it say, “Do not take care of victims.” And nowhere in there does it say judge. In fact, the Bible is pretty explicit on that point. We are not supposed to judge. That is someone else’s job. I believe in discernment, evaluating, and sorting, but I believe the Buddhists and the Bible (Judeo-Christian) are in alignment with the ideas behind three Buddhist principles.

  1. Non-attachment.
  2. Non-permanence.
  3. Non-judgement.

If I recall correctly, the first parable that captures this actually comes from the ancient Sufi tradition. I will start this story, like all good fables start, with four famous words…

The King

Once upon a time, there was a king given to wild emotional swings. From the heights of joy to the depths of despair, daily he flew from rail to rail, wearing himself, his family, and his court out both physically and emotionally. He offered a reward to anyone who could help him with his exasperating life. A Sufi brought him a small box and explained that he had the resolution to the King’s problems. The king asked the mystic what price he wanted for the medicine. The man replied that it was worth more than his entire kingdom, but he would present it as a gift if the King promised to keep it with him always and follow his instructions without fail.

The king agreed. The man handed the king the box, then said, like a doctor prescribing a treatment plan for a patient, “First, you must wear this ring at all times. Second, whenever anything happens, before you declare it good or evil, you must pause for a moment. Then you must read the inscription upon the ring.”

The mystic then turned and left the king with his box and his ring. The king opened the box and saw the simple gold band tucked in velvet cushions. He lifted the ring and slipped it onto his finger, where it fit perfectly. He then read the inscription. It said simply, “This too shall pass.”

From that moment on, the kingdom knew peace.

The Moral of the Story

The moral of the story, as I took it away, was that it is a very human condition to assume that whatever is happening to us will continue to go that way forever. In fact, as a species, we do a really great job of trying to convince ourselves that whatever we do is permanent. We love certainty. We love predictability. Until they confine us, strangle us, and bleed all joy out of our lives. We love adventure, change, and variability until the unpredictable, the uncontrollable, and the unknown leave us exhausted and emotionally drained. The story is the reminder to take the larger view that nothing is really permanent and moments will change.

I noticed over the decade that I walked my dog, Cookie, every morning to the school track and back, about a mile and a half, sometimes two, **no two days were ever the same. I think it was healthy for me to spend that amount of time every morning in nature. I saw trees broken apart from storms, then heal, then grow again. Some days there were other dogs, some days it was just me on the Log Beast. But every single situation passed, and something similar, but new, took its place.

The Baby

Once upon a time, in ancient China, a wise and respected Zen monk lived in a small fishing village. He made his home in a comfortable cottage alone on top of a low hill. One day, a farmer and his wife knocked on the monk’s door early in the morning. The monk opened the door to greet the man and his wife and saw that they also had their daughter with a newborn infant in tow.

The farmer explained that his daughter had become pregnant and named the wise monk as the father. The monk simply replied, “Is that so?” The farmer insisted it was so, and then told the monk that he must raise the child. The monk said again, “Is that so?” The farmer insisted it was since the father must take responsibility for his child. So the monk took the baby from the miserable girl, and then proceeded to raise the child as his own.

He fed the baby, cared for the baby, and loved the baby as a true father would. His reputation in the village was ruined, but it seemed to make little difference to the monk as far as anyone could tell.

Then, one day, some months later, the farmer returned with his daughter (still miserable). The monk greeted him and asked how he could help. The farmer, now somewhat sheepish, but still very angry with his daughter, explained that the true father of the child was, in fact, a boy from the fish market. The child’s father was the son of the fishmonger. “Is that so?” was what the monk said. “Yes!" said the miserable girl, speaking for the first time. “So you must give us her baby back,” the farmer said roughly.

“Is that so?” The monk asked.

“Yes!” The farmer and his daughter insisted together. So the monk returned the healthy, happy baby boy to his mother and grandfather.

The Moral of the Story

The moral of the story, as I can remember it, goes something like this: the monk was never attached to his reputation, his solitary way of life, or even later the child. That last part seems rather cold to me personally, but he accepted what life offered him in the moment with love and dedication, and when life returned to demand back what it had given him, he released it without grief, moaning, or objection. The story does not ever actually say how the monk felt or what his thoughts were, but the reader (or listener) is left to ponder his words. “Is that so?” Maybe not all things are as they appear. And sometimes, when a situation (or a person) is brought into our life, they will not be with us as long as we hope or fear. In fact, and this is the moral of the story, like the King who knew that “this too shall change”, the monk knew the only certainty was change. Therefore, the best way to handle any situation in life is to make the most of it while you are in it, appreciate it for what it is, but be ready to let it go when its time has passed.

Now for the final story.

The Farmer

This is the most famous story as near as I can tell. I heard it in the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, it was in the book The Power of Now, and Anne-Laure Le Cunff included it in her book Tiny Experiments. This story is quoted more than any other fable I have read, and I’m certain it is in many more books in my collection than I have mentioned. (I should probably start linking each book I find it in to my digital second brain to get a feel for how often this story comes up.) I feel confident you have heard of it. It goes like this…

Once upon a time, a farmer discovered a beautiful black stallion in the woods and was able to lead the wild horse back to his farm. His neighbors saw the horse and immediately commented, “Oh, this is a sign of good luck!"

The farmer replied, “We shall see.”

A week later, the farmer’s son was trying to tame the horse by riding it. The horse was strong and wild, and it threw the son from the saddle. He fell awkwardly and broke his leg. The next day, upon learning of the boy’s injury from the doctor who set and plastered the leg, the neighbors agreed, “You are right, the horse is an ill omen. Look at the misfortune you have suffered.”

The farmer simply replied, “We shall see.”

Later that week, the king’s army marched into town looking for conscripts. The farmer’s son was overlooked because of his broken leg. The townsfolk, many of whom had lost their sons to the forced recruitment, looked upon the farmer with envy. “You are right,” they said, “The horse was a blessing. You still have your son!”

As ever, the farmer replied, “We shall see.”

The Moral of the Story

This story, like the others, contains hints and flavors of the others, but the core message is that it is in human nature to rush to judgement. We always want to determine if something is good or bad, and then assign it that value forever. The farmer’s refrain, “We shall see,” is a reminder to be patient, not to rush to judgement, and to be open to possibility. The farmer advocates for curiosity. We don’t know what things mean as much as we want to.

I read once that the reason we love stories so much is that stories combine three things and make them happen in sync that we get:

  • Events
  • Feelings
  • Meaning

All at the same time. Like, they happen simultaneously. We can see what happens, we know how the characters (and in a great story ourselves) feel, and most importantly we know why it matters, we know what it means. Life lived in real time is rarely so clean and clear. Often we’re not sure what the hell is going on while we’re right in the middle of things. We don’t have all the information, the context can be jumbled, and it is coming at us in real time so we are sorting it out as we live through it. What’s more, our emotions can be a mess too. As Pixar made so brilliantly clear in the movie Inside Out, emotions are complex combinations of often conflicting feelings. And as for meaning? How can we possibly know what something means when we don’t know what is really happening or how we really feel about it? Yeah, life is good, but it is also challenging and more often than not confusing. Or we have done such a good job getting our life under control that it feels completely predictable and boring and we begin to worry about its significance or the fear that it will never be different overwhelms us.

The bottom line is that we often have to reflect upon what has happened to us to sort out the events, the emotions, and the effect of it all. We just don’t know while we’re going through it. But later, with the advantage and perspective of time, we can piece it all together.

These three stories bring to life the principles that can help us overcome some cognitive biases that affect all of us.

  1. The tendency to project whatever happens to us in the present moment as a permanent condition. It isn’t. It will most certainly change.
  2. The tendency to attach to life’s conditions and resist unexpected (and unwanted) change.
  3. The tendency to rush to judgement.

In summary, the antipodes are:

  • Recognize that things will change and use that knowledge to appreciate fleeting joy, or endure temporary hardships.
  • Be open to what life brings you.
  • Live with curiosity and not judgement.

Life Advice

Wow, that’s a lot of life advice for a micro blog. I think these thoughts are sparked by my daughter’s graduation. Last night, thousands of kids and their families packed into the basketball stadium on Boise State’s campus and watched the graduation ceremony.

This marks the final of three journeys from infant to adult for my wife and me. Hopefully, there will be grandchildren to carry on the tradition, but for Stacy and me, our kids have completed a long and worthy journey to independence. And as I sit here, I realize that each of them is now engaged in their own version of the same journey I am on, and the one you are on. Figuring it all out. The prescribed answers are over. The clear path ahead is complete, and we are left in the wonderful, wild, woolly world where choices have consequences, we just can’t know what most of those will be at the times we have to make the best decisions we can.

College may have prepared us for a career (maybe), but what has prepared us for life? Each other, I hope. It is on that journey, I find that doing my best to keep faith, live with humility, and act with courage is surprisingly effective.

It does not prevent me from being afraid, frustrated, angry, or hurt, but neither does it leave me stuck, anxious, or bitter.

Compassionate, courageous, and curious to me feel like better ways to approach the world. Or as my dad put it,

  1. Set an intention.
  2. Get in motion.
  3. Pay attention.

Compassion orients me toward doing what I can to recognize the suffering of others, and if I can do that, I can do something about it. Courage gives me the motivation to take action. And curiosity keeps me in the present moment so I am aware that maybe, just maybe, life is offering me something better than I imagined.

Conclusion

I have found this experiment in sharing my thinking and my thoughts wonderfully liberating. It has also given me a… a space? A venue? A medium in which to explore my own thoughts and questions. After today, I will take a short break, about a week, then take the best of what worked and drop the rest.

My initial reaction is to slow down the posting schedule. And I haven’t decided yet, but I feel like I should take the best of this blog and migrate it to my speaking blog, but keep this one running, sort of as a kind of daily journal. Or rather, a daily journal.

I feel good about the commitment and the sprint. I honestly had zero expectations for what would happen here; I simply committed to doing it. I followed Le Cunff’s suggestion: Set a purpose, an action, a cadence, and make it trackable. Fifteen days. Fifteen posts. Done. One a day. The purpose? To learn and think very publicly. And then see what happens. And for now, what I have learned is:

  • I enjoy it.
  • I am having more interesting conversations with people.
  • Questions are more inclusive than conclusions.
  • When people feel like they can contribute, they are more likely to participate.
  • Focusing on only one thing and being known only for one thing may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
  • I have a lot more to say than I thought.
  • People value what I am sharing more than I expected.
  • I still have a lot of questions.
  • I created enough content to write a book.
  • I am going to write a book for parents and educators about kids and video games.