ARTICLE ARCHIVE

Validation.

You want it, and that’s okay.

Whether it’s a pat on the back, or a card (virtual or print), or a hug, or some champagne sent to you in the mail (thanks coworker, you know who you are). Feedback is important because we are not only creatures of habit and feel the need to have a routine, but also because it’s just sort of how we were supposed to be raised. The problem comes when you are basing your actual personal value on what other people think about you, whether it’s good or bad.

I’ve been dealing with several scenarios in my life to which I literally have been able to pinpoint this need to “feed my ego” so that I can feel like I’ve done good for the day. Get that pat on the back. That “invisible applause”.

The problem is that I never feel good enough operating off of this mindset. I can try hard to justify why it’s healthy to look outside of one’s self and get good feedback to help with self definition or self awareness, but at the end of the day, you are in charge of you and the definition or meaning that you have placed on your life.

“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.” — Malcolm X

As a consultant, who is considered an “expert” in my field on good days, and as a UX Architect and artist, I am one that sadly needs a lot of validation and constantly have to keep my artist complex at bay. (ref: “I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my shit.”)

Thanks Fabien Barral for putting it so well.

I was on two conference calls back to back, and the first call went well in my mind. I was able to convey a message, they understood, were pleased and progress was made. However, on the second call, I felt like because of a lot of barriers that happened with the project, I felt that all of my “high” from the first call flew away. It all boiled down to my perception of myself due to the feedback with the way the project went, and I felt like I was the “bad guy” at one point because it felt like I was just complaining. This could look like self-victimization, but really it was about being present in the moment rather than creating a situation in my head in which I was allowing myself to feel disempowered. What’s worse was that I felt that I appeared distant and I couldn’t mention it to my team, because it wasn’t relevant.

What was relevant was the discovery of self-praise or giving myself permission to just not feel excited about something that everyone else was excited about. And that’s okay.

I read an article by my an awesome guy who spoke on the expert curse. For some reason I felt compelled to really live out the words in this post because it spoke loudly to the issue I deal with currently with not feeling fulfilled and just feeling “lost”. I believe a lot of that has to do with feedback, and not just externally. We have that lovely internal voice that sets the narration of our life and can cause us to feel like we are in action/adventure movie or in a melancholy documentary.

The choice is ours.

Feedback is important though.

So give good, constructive feedback when you can, accept what will help you to be positive about yourself and what you believe in, and throw the rest away.

Life is too short to be reserved. Learn as much as you can, and move on. Give feedback, receive feedback and patiently just be.

Even still, the courageous spirit would still choose the risky path of being free to choose their own work, own schedule and set their own rates.

I used to be an advocator for starting any business, but since working at my current company, I have been realizing that a trait was formed within me while working at this company for over a year. I have never worked at a company for over a year, because I just didn’t feel like it fit into who I was as an independent, disruptive, “not-by-the-book”, anti-corporate person. And the question has been coming up recently as to why I haven’t gone back doing my own thing.

Sadly, the only answer that I could come up with was: fear.

How DARE I becoming an even greater hypocrite by living the life in which I constantly tell people to walk through, and embrace the “greater the risk, the greater the reward” cliche of being somebody great. It’s been causing me to think a lot about how easy it is to become complacent in medicoracry, in which you know that there is something amazing in you that could do awesome things that could change the world, but the one thing that is stopping you… is you.

You that could do the awesome things that could change the world, but the one thing that is stopping you… is you.

Many of my weeks as an independent freelancer, involved a lot of trouble being superwoman. I wanted to be able to take on every project that comes my way, and can’t even complain that that they aren’t interesting enough. They are all unique in their scope and in their time required. One is a full vamp website redesign, another a mobile app from scratch, and another in house at an awesome company in the city working on a new product that’s launching soon and fixing the existing website to match.

All different beasts in their own regard.

When it comes to really deciding to go on your own, or to go back on your own, or to really just figure out what it will take to be your best self, it involves a lot of self discovery, self reflection, and discipline. All of which I’m working on, but it never seems like I’m doing enough.

But one thing we do have to remember is that, this is all our first time. Sticking to the norm, will give you the norm, and doing the extraordinary causes amazing results.

Challenge yourself to do one thing closer to a goal that you’ve been afraid of. What will that be?

What does it mean to be alive? Like… fully alive?

For the past 5 years, I had gone through many transitions in career, in relationships, in health as well as in enlightenment. The one thought that keeps coming up is the idea or reality of being “alive”.

I used to talk a lot about not wanting to merely exist but to actually be alive and each day it seems that when you have this desire in your life and seek understanding that the result will be painful but will elevate you—if you let it—to new experiences that could only come from growth.

And with growth comes pain.

One of the biggest challenges and questions that I was trying to answer was: “what is wrong with me?”. While I kept trying to figure what the answer was, I learned how negative it was to even ask that question in the first place, and how there was a power in changing my narrative. While this can be a great tool for living a positive life, sometimes certain questions will haunt us because parts we think parts of the answer need to be identified to know how to proceed.

I was in a very tough relationship, felt horrible about myself and others, and was emotionally immature rendering me unable to fully express who I was and gain respect at the same time. I was breaking down slowly and wasn’t sure why, and I blamed myself for not being good enough, I blamed my partner at the time for not giving me what I thought was their responsibility, and I sought suicide when I really just wanted to have a new life. When we broke up, my world came to an end, but I was still searching for what was “wrong”.

I have been told many times in my life that I’m different, sometimes too different, and try to find too many answers when I need to just be present. My mind is restless and always has been, even as a child I was asking who God’s parents were before receiving a hard slap in the face. While it took many years to forgive myself for being so inquisitive, I realized that this trait has not only granted me great jobs and fulfilling relationships, but it also came with great pain. The pain became not only emotional, but also mental and physical.

That’s right. I had a breakdown. And this breakdown hurt a lot of people around me, and even though a lot of them had forgiven me for a moment, there was still a bit of restlessness and uncertainty around the idea as to if I would “attack” and hurt again. I even felt that I may be a danger and wasn’t sure how to proceed and the hurt parties didn’t know either, so instead I stopped trying to explain (after all, we don’t owe anyone an explanation for living which took a long time for me to understand), and instead I sought understanding. Something that no one could give me, but I actually had to believe in my story, be my own friend, and forgive myself when no one else could or even wanted to.

We are never truly alone in this journey, and that’s exactly what it is–a journey. I’ve been reading This is How (again) by Augusten Burroughs and this time I’m gaining a whole new set of wisdom and information about myself, the world we live in and how we should approach it.

Life itself is not something that’s meant to be tough, the only tough part is actually in realizing that the more you surrender the happier you become. Once I finally gave into the idea that my therapist kept telling me that I actually AM okay, I was able to stop feeling sorry for myself, and take control of my career, my family, and most importantly my health. I sought the best doctor who told me that I had two diseases that attributed to a lot of the pain that I thought I was making up. It also answered a lot around my mood swings, and gave me a sense of empowerment that doctors, family and friends could not because they couldn’t walk in my shoes. Even though I have somewhat of a tough road ahead of me, I feel more free than ever.

The answer that lies in the gap between living and existing is consciousness. When we are fully present, anxiety can’t exist, our egos can’t rise and we learn to have a certain type of acceptance for everything around us. We start to fully surrender, lose control on purpose and truly let life introduce us to new experiences that we couldn’t see before because we lived in illusions.

When we live in the past, it’s an illusion of regret, sadness and remorse (if we aren’t excited about where we have come from), we question everything that we knew and wonder why we did it that way without truly acknowledging that it’s impossible to do anything with the knowledge we have today because it didn’t exist yet. It’s an illusion.

And when we live in the “what-ifs” or the future, we are filled with anxiety always trying to make sure we do everything right, cross every “t” and dot every “i” and then we try to plan everything that we possibly can to make sure we don’t mess up our futures, which is dangerous because no matter what, we can’t always control our outcome. It’s an illusion.

The present is what matters, and we can choose to be guarded, open, vulnerable, angry, sad, forgiving, understanding, loving, etc.. But the most important part is that we are present to feel it. Present to accept it. Present to live it.

I have no idea what’s coming next. I know that since I’ve left this old life that I can’t go back to, I have learned an incredible amount about myself that I couldn’t even go back to tell if it I tried. There are so many awesome things coming up in my life in which I almost feel hypocritical to talk about them because I’m speaking at SXSW, presenting at Launch, and a few other events that are pretty huge, and I feel like I don’t deserve it, and that’s okay.

I also have learned that I never stayed still long enough to even know what I want to communicate it to those around me. I learned that it’s okay to be selfish, and it’s okay to mess up. Badly. I learned that I don’t have to explain anything to anyone, because I don’t always have the answer, and that’s okay. I learned it’s okay to be hurt or sad even if I’m causing it, and it’s okay to be angry even if I don’t voice it. It’s okay.

That’s what being alive means, it means being okay with whoever you are in that moment, whether “good” or “bad” and remembering to breathe along the way.

You’ve read it probably a few times on the internet, or going about your day that failure is the building block to success. Perhaps it was phrased differently and wrapped up in some other pretty cliche paper, but you are starting to see the importance of getting this through your head.

I have conversations daily about the phenomenon of failure, and how much people try to avoid it. It wasn’t until this morning when I read a text from a friend that something ‘clicked’:

Failure is a part of success: Failing is a sign that you’re living and not just existing. Failure is a sign that you’re on the right track. There is no success without failure.

I have been preaching the gospel of failure to people on a semi-regular basis, but just rattling off the common anecdotes of failure didn’t seem to capture the main idea until now.

Failure is a sign of activity.

What do I mean? Well, focus on the part of the quote above, that failing is a sign that you’re living. When you don’t fail it’s sign that perhaps you haven’t risked enough, or made any movement at all. Without failure, success wouldn’t exist, and I started to see this in a very basic and linear way.

When you are actively trying to pursue a goal, you are on the forward track to being successful. You may not know exactly when it may happen, but overall, as long as you are in motion towards your goal, you are successful. Without failure, you are stagnant and not in motion, which can be perceived as worse than failure(not trying at all).

The best thing to do is to be in motion no matter what, and embrace the failures and remind yourself that you are living. With this insight, failure can not only be your teacher, but your friend.

After receiving my much anticipated OK Dork newsletter from my male twin, Noah Kagan, I was rerouted to view a video of a presentation he had given at Big Omaha 2013. In this video, he speaks about fear, failure, and the pursuit of happiness. One thing that stood out was after his speech was given, someone had asked the challenging question, after his ‘awkward re-entry’, that surrounded the topic of changing ones life for the better in spite of current situations.

To be more specific, we will always have something in the way, something to do, something we want more of, but how are we truly able to really knowwhen to start, how to start, or what we are doing to even get out of our rut? The two part answer first discussed mini steps to take and reminders to pop in your calendar to make sure you are constantly doing something that surrounds what it is you want to change. The second part resonated within me. Noah explained with a very sentimental pause that you need to know what the end looks like.

“You need to know what the end looks like.”

Whoa. Now that’s a pretty powerful thought (no wonder he paused). If we continue to state that we want to be successful/happy/joyful/etc… how we ever know we have gotten there if we never know what our ‘end’ looks like? I consult with people constantly about making changes in their life, whether it be on their job, with their health, but this one sentence of forcing someone to define their end goal has always been something that causes people to have somewhat of an ‘Aha’ moment, yet, I never did it for myself. How hypocritical right?

I was hanging with a couple of my best friends over the weekend, and as soon as I said this, their eyes lit up and my proactive friend decided we would define, before we part, what success looks like for us. It took us the whole day to really sit down and tackle this and really give it thought as to what it looks like. The results were astounding, surprising, eye-opening, and life-changing. Here’s what my definition of success was for me:

Success is defined by me, and not by the standards or systems of this world. “Success” is not a destination, but a journey that is ongoing that includes an ability to recognize and maintain, without effort, my essential self. It involves, but is not limited to: happiness (acceptance of my situation of where I am in life without regret), self-love, a heightened sense of courage, mindfulness, kindness, gentleness, self-control, patience, joy, and living simply. It is not based on

financial income, but on emotional awareness and living – not just existing. It is wealthiness, but not just being “rich”. It’s being my best self, at least in that moment, without apology and seeing a reflection of my most authentic self in the space and people around me.

The sheer act of writing out what I defined successful, since this was always the first thing I told people that I wanted to be, has changed my outlook to realize a startling fact.

I already am successful.

If not there, I’m 85% closer than I thought I was and this has already changed my confidence, gave me a sense of ownership on my life, and has allowed me to be my most truest self, and continue on the path of success. It’s amazing what sitting down and actually writing out directed goals would do. It allows you to be your best self, and when you are able to do that, nothing or no one can stand in your way.

I wrote a post back in March of 2011 regarding this idea of “Idea Currency”. I felt that I needed to revisit it because lately, with the influx and embracement of startups and startup culture, I have had a lot of people come to me with their ‘brilliant ideas’ coupled with fear that someone will steal it and create a business/product/service, strike rich and laugh in their face.

Stop it.

First, do you know how difficult it is to build a business/product/service? Chances are, if you haven’t done it before and you are shaking with fear that someone will steal your prized possession of an idea, you probably don’t know the amount of stress, relationship damage, anxiety, sweat and golden unicorns go into something of this feat.

It bothers me every time I hear someone give an excuse as to why they haven’t started, and why they won’t even inquire to share the idea with someone else who could possibly help them. My post originated as a result of a conversation I had with an old classmate of mine who at the time was asking me if I knew any developers that could bring his idea to life. I suggested a few things. Back then there weren’t nearly as much options as I probably would have suggested today – his response was…somewhat expected:

“I don’t want to just throw my idea away to someone I don’t know.”

Insert blank face here. “Throw [your] idea”? Really? Even through the suggestions of NDAs, and speaking in parables to see if the function could be done, he insisted that he wanted to remain to himself. He ended it off with, “ideas are like currency, and I wouldn’t give money away to a stranger.” (by the way, his idea stopped in that room and you won’t find it in the app store)

I disagreed with my method, and I’ve actually spoke to a few people about my ideas. I learned from a lot of millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs alike that holding onto ideas sometimes is like keeping your money under mattress. How is that helping anybody and how are you helping it to grow? You can’t be afraid to share ideas because if it’s THAT good, only you can make it the best it can be. It takes way too much effort to take an idea, do a competitive analysis, do user testing, information architecture, create wireframes, etc…

“But what about Facebook?”

[Insert blank face here] Okay, so 1 out every 1,000,000 gets away with being grimy and turning into a billion dollar empire, but last time I checked, the guys who ideas it got stolen from still got a nice chunk of change and don’t have to put up with the stress of actually running a company. Everyone still wins. Stephen Key, a successful inventor and licensee explains that you shouldn’t be afraid to share your ideas, you don’t know WHO can help you or who will invest in you. Plus, if you are talented enough to have those few ideas, there is plenty more where than came from!

Just like one would give money to charity, one also shouldn’t mind sharing ideas, there are plenty more where that came from, and if not, team up with others who are idea generators and start creating more awesome. Trust me it’s worth it in the end.

Start creating more awesome

Every week, I am asked by at least 5 people how I got to where I am currently as an entrepreneur, and where to begin. While I love to help people personally, and create a customized roadmap for the wandering and curious, after reading about saying no, I realized I wanted to streamline/automate this process to help the masses without killing myself in the process.

Hence this product/curriculum idea called, Be Visbile™ which was formed by my biz partner Marie and I. But with so many projects to actually (read: full time job, and successful startup), I didn’t have the bandwidth to actually create and implement a curriculum at this time, but wanted to still help out the questioning population. I had to follow the same advice I was telling others: start where you are.

It may come as a surprise to many people that in 2013 we are in a unique place in time where it is actually a proven fact that you can make a really good living doing what you love.

The first and most important fundamental lesson you should know is the difference between selling yourself as a freelancer (or consultant) and selling your business as a creative entrepreneur. And no, it’s not about‘selling out to tha man’ by becoming someone you are not, or doing work that is meaningless in exchange for money. It’s about changing your mentality about how income works and creating ways for you to make money in a less strenuous, soul-draining way.

Now take notes, this is a brief roadmap, just the basics, something to help you get started about how to think differently. You must put in the work to get to the point of seeing results. Here are the 10 steps to get you started (disclaimer — some referral links are spread throughout):

Define and discover your expertise and determine who your target clients are — Every field has competition and while being a jack of all trades may get you a few clients some of the time, defining an area of expertise will enable you push yourself above the rest of the pack by elevating yourself as an expert in your field. (action:http://freelanceswitch.com/start/minimum-viable-service)

Start today — The main element of any sustainable business is clarity of purpose, but for success in consulting it’s more so about using that clarity to turn your knowledge into a marketable service. In addition, figure out what type of services you will offer, how clients will benefit from your services, what your hourly rate will be, how you will find clients, how they will hire you, and pricing for your services. (action:http://100startup.com/resources/instant-consulting.pdf)

Buy a domain — If you don’t have a website, you should get one right now. Even if it’s using about.me or a free Wordpress site, you should use something highlights your services, who you are, and how to get in touch. Then forward it to your customized domain which shows you took the extra step and gives you instant professionalism cred. (action: buy a domain here.)

Develop your personal branding — would you walk out of the house naked? Exactly. So don’t walk into the world with services and no personal branding. Part of your personal brand toolkit should consist of the following: a logo, a website, and business cards. These are pretty easy things to set up (and you can change it over time, so don’t let perfectionism get in the way of getting it done),just set a goal and do it. If you don’t have a creative eye, get someone who does.

Show your experience — It’s important to focus on getting all the relevant tools you need to promote your relevant work experience and skills, you can do this on the about.me page (mentioned above), but be sure to include a resume or CV, cover letter, and portfolio (if applicable). You could also always put together a presentation deck to highlight your skill set and other valuable information.

Get in the mix — Depending on your consulting business, you should sign up for different social media accounts. As someone who has worked in your field, what social networks do you use frequently? Decide which ones you know that you will use, and figure out the best way to leverage that medium. This is how people will find information on you and your product. (action: Read this article on why social media is important for your brand)

Adult playdates — Adult playdates such as conferences, meetups,networking events, and conferences are a great way to: connect with people that need your skills, see how your skills match up with others, and see top trends in your selected industry. (action:http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2013/05/20/how-to-network/)

Teach what you know — Did you know that as long as you are a couple steps ahead educationally, you are pretty much an expert in your field. The best way to get people to know about your services is to show them firsthand that you know what it is you are talking about. Check out places like Skillshare or Udemy to set up some classes (or even take some) and earn money in the process. (action: think about what you are good at, and come up with an idea for a mini class and then ask 5 people if they would be interested in taking it.)

Set Goals — Once your brand is up and running online, now it’s time to set some goals on how to measure your success, re-evaluate your strategies, and have something to work towards. Make sure to utilizeanalytics to be able to track who and possibly why people are coming to your site. (action: read this article to learn how to set goalshttp://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226185)

Stay Educated — school shouldn’t stop when you were handed your degree or diploma. There are plenty of (cheap or free) places out there to stay up to date on learning the things you need to stay sharp in your field. (action: take classes at Skillshare, General Assembly, Coursera, iTunes U, etc…)

Hopefully this gave you a good sense of the fun journey that it takes to become more visible online. Whether it’s to start something completely new and quit your job and just do the thing you love, or even leaving the current job you are in to do something different… the next steps will always be the same:

Make the decision to change, educate yourself, and start.

This morning I woke up and realized something. I was bored. Bored with how life is going, not really having an interest in anything, and just having a overwhelming sense of hopelessness, and fear. I started to fear that it was my chronic depression creeping in, but I realized something else. I wasn’t really bored, but I just needed some sort of change. A new outfit? New shoes? Steak? I decided to go binge shopping, but in the midst of it, asked myself what the real benefit of spending money on some stuff that makes me look fabulous would have…

It was hard to really talk about this to my friends, because they see me as having all that I need for the recipe of happiness, but I just can’t see it. Sure, I am a Director of UX at a pretty prestigious company, and have a flexible schedule, but I still feel like I’m missing out on something in life. What could I do to come alive? Why did I feel I was bored?

What is boredom?

Great.. so I was bored. I’ve always been taught that boredom was a BAD thing. After reading this definition, I could see how it could be bad, but it doesn’t have to be shunned. It’s almost like the quote of pain being inevitable, but suffering being optional. I think boredom has a similar characteristic:

Stagnation/exhaustion CAN be inevitable, but boredom is optional.

Why? Because if one is lacking interest, the immediate answer is to change it. The only thing constant in this world is change, but it’s the heart center of a lot of fears that we have. So how do we change? How can we “become alive”?

One small change at a time — It’s intimidating to try to change your life overnight. Start by coming up with some things about yourself that you want to change, and act on it.

Learn a new skill — Whenever I start to feel like this, I think about what it would be like to pick up a new skill. Not just a new software to learn, but a skill in a completely different field, or a different area in my field. I’m a designer, and I’m thinking about joining Treehouse to learn how to code mobile apps to completely switch up my work day.

Read a book — When is the last time you’ve read a book? I am always reading new books regarding skillsets and other non-fiction books, but I’m challenging myself to pick up a fiction book to move my mind into something a little bit more light. Something that will allow me to be in a fantasy world.

Mentor someone — The best way to feel more alive, is to give to those who don’t. It’s the circle of life.

Start a business — This one requires a bit more effort, but the benefits are amazing. It’s not be as hard as it sounds, and you can find that starting business becomes a very engaging hobby.

Eat your vegetables — The benefits of a healthy diet outweigh the exterior benefit, but can actually change your mood, allow you think more clearly, and up your cooking game.

Relax — Need I say more? Ok maybe I do. Relaxing is actually harder for some. The best way to do is it to actually plan it in your schedule, and then do it.

What other ways do you beat ‘boredom’?

I have several conversations on a weekly basis about the concept of living, being present, and everything in between. One of my friends wrote me a very powerful email a few days ago, and my response made me want to capture these thoughts to hopefully remember these moments of clarity.

My friend was doing some shower meditation, and stressed over projects, fitting clients in, scheduling, money,etc… a thought hit him that he decided to share with me his pivotal shifting moment:

Then it hit me. Anxiety is a choice. It sounds a little silly thinking about it, but there’s always this little switch in my head surrounding people’s expectations of me, my time and so on, that I can just cut off at any time. I choose not to because I’m afraid of letting people down/being a problem/being difficult... But what if I did anyway? Accepted that I might be difficult to some people, may let some folks down and force people to be on my time/schedule.

The truth is, we let people down far less than we think, and far more often when we believe we’re going to.

I haven’t been taking the proper time for self-care, and I’ve been putting it off to help other people feel ok, or accomplish 

their dreams. And that makes no sense. Do you. We’re built to help people, to be caring and nurturing, so that’s going to happen almost no matter what.

So lets be selfish, yes? For me that means starting off my day alone, with some oatmeal and taking a little time to figure out what I need. Scheduling clients and friends around what I know works for me, and keeping my life as neat as I possibly can. And asking for more money. All the time. LOL.

What does it mean for you?

What a thought. Actually allowing time for myself without feeling guilty or selfish? I reread his email to me over and over again.

He’s right. Anxiety is a choice. As soon as I read that, I started thinking how it talks about “pain is inevitable, but suffering is option”, and anxiety to me is a type of suffering because it is long lasting and cyclical. I learned that the secret is the art of letting go which will in turn allow for a more present state of being and I’ve learned that when we are present, anxiety can’t exist, because it naturally can’t exist in the present.

The present moment is anxiety-less, Anxiety is created only by the past or by the future. So remember this, and spread it all over your being.

- Osho

I’ve been trying to keep notions like that in mind and let the “ball drop” on purpose to show just how much I actually do more than I think. I remember talking to a friend explaining that we juggle about 5 balls, the balls that are health, family, friends, etc, all but work are made of glass and the work ball is made of rubber. We must learn to balance the glass balls, but the work one we should let drop every so often, cause eventually it will bounce back. Some people agree with this logic of thinking, and some don’t. Whatever works for you is key in self-discovery, and also a beautiful part of the plan of knowing what works and what doesn’t.

I challenge you to be present. Maybe the first set of actions is to allow yourself to “drop the ball”, and discover the strengths in you that only come from being selfish. How will you be selfish today?

I received an email from my brother the other day after I asked how he was, and we shared our normal banter of if we are meant to live a certain life surrounded in the thing that affects millions of people: Anxiety. His response was real yet comical:

Yeah man, I’m wondering if (and accepting that) anxiety is never going to go away and it’s just gonna be there staring in the face with the fire of a billion tiny socks that don’t match.

How perfect was that statement. I replied with a rant that I felt was appropriate, and wanted to share. Hopefully it can generate a conversation around this debilitating monster that seems to rob people of the one thing we are meant to do. And that’s just be. Here’s the conversation:

Hey Bro,

Very good point. I have been wondering that same fact too. There seems to be a power in surrendering…. and not the kind of surrender that we hear about when we throw our hands up in the air for theatrical effect, but actually the proactive kind that just allows life to happen. It seems like for some, anxiety is always going to be a nagging bug that reminds you that you are human.

I was thinking about something yesterday as I attended this support group, and we were talking about the topic of numbing. I know that for me, I always turned to numbing whether in the form of food, alcohol, TV, something that allows me to not have to deal with the reality of my situation at that time — most of the time it was because I was running from anxiety. Of course I knew that this coping method would eventually fail, and it become more evident when I listened to Brené Brown (in her infinite wisdom) talk about the dangers of the banana nut muffin and a beer.

Brené Brown speaking on ‘Listening to Shame” at TED March 2012

“We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.” - Brené Brown

Damn.. I never thought of it like that, I mean I did, I just never wanted to hear it out loud. It’s a harsh reality to actually experience life as it is without any reinforcements, and I believe that since we are the “chosen” that we have no choice but to be painfully empathetic to our situations in order to create works that encourage people to come alive. So like Paul’s thorn, not even meaning to get religious here, I sometimes can’t help but think that we are meant to have this “thorn” to actually maintain a level of humility, a sense of power and creative accomplishment.

“So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.

Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’”

2 Corinthians 12:7-9 NLT

Rereading it, it’s rather harsh and almost self-pain inflicting, but I see the benefits of looking at life as one where an immovable challenge is placed in front of you (or in you) to get to a level of complete surrender which produces freedom. Sounds easy enough right? Of course not, there may always be a struggle in which we have to decide our next move that can allow us to eradicate comparison, impatience and self-hatred.

“Shame enters for those of us who experience anxiety because not only are we feeling fearful, out of control, and incapable of managing our increasingly demanding lives, but eventually our anxiety is compounded and made unbearable by our belief that if we were just smarter, stronger, or better, we’d be able to handle everything.

Numbing here becomes a way to take the edge off of both instability and inadequacy. [Also,] Feeling disconnected can be a normal part of life and relationships, but when coupled with the shame of believing that we’re disconnected because we’re not worthy of connection, it creates a pain that we want to numb.”

- Brené Brown

I believe that even though we appreciate struggle, we are taught to resist it. And if resisting causes pain, then you’re right, the only thing to logically do is to accept, don’t resist it, dance with it, and allow a peace to come into our lives from just being.

I was talking with a friend today about all the different blogs, websites and people that I follow online. He was amazed that I rattled off all of these websites with ease without having to really look anything up. I have been trying to find a place to house all of the awesomeness that I find on a daily basis.

“That way, I can share with you the journey of my findings in real time”, I joked.

As I was showing him foundation.kr (started by Kevin Rose, founder of Digg and other awesome sites), I started to feel by looking at Kevin’s list of investments, companies he founded and other achievements that I haven’t really done anything with my life. Now… if you ask those around me, they would definitely beg to differ. I’ll spare you the details of my life that will only result in a embarrassing need for validation, but as I started to look at his list, and at mine, I came to a couple conclusions:

I need to do more.

I need to forget about #1, and realize that I just want to do more, and desire a certain level of success that could come if I just focused more.

I need to not be so hard on myself with #1 and #2, and breathe.

Life can happen in the blink of an eye, no matter what age, so create the habit to build mometum.

There is a danger in comparison.

I had to actually take a step back from the dark road I was about to go down. I looked at my life and thought about all the things I could have accomplished as a kid that has had a computer since 1987. What was in my way? Why didn’t I achieve more? What was wrong with me?

The answer was simply this. I have been in my own way by creating a high standard by which I compared myself, measured myself and then downed myself all because I felt I had to be something more. Something greater. Someone other than.. well, me. There is a danger in never taking time to celebrate the small (or large) victories.

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

So what’s the point in all of this? I think the point is in learning how to simply just be. It’s difficult and I believe it takes a lifetime to master. Comparing is as much of a disease as perfection. When we learn to be ourselves, be patient, and how to be comfortable in our own skin, then – and only then – will we achieve true happiness.