We can change the world.
You only get so many workouts in life. What may seem monotonous or even torture—we don’t live forever. I find it helps to cherish the little things, to find joy in the “annoying” drive to the store, or that really hard set, or the daily commute. It’s not easy, but wouldn’t you give anything to ‘suffer through’ such a moment one more time on your death bed? Life is short. But we can live all of it.
A week can be an eternity. I often think back to a year in the past to reflect on how I’ve changed, what I’ve learned. The same can be done on a weekly cadence. And it’s much more encouraging when you can say with confidence: I’m always learning. When we continuously learn, the future can always change.
Fog… on the water… today on the bay was absolutely beautiful.
We reflected how fortunate we are to live in such a paradise.
Experience equals your observations over the years, and I made them today.
We all live for the same reason.
Women withhold their physical pain, show their emotional pain. Men withhold their emotional pain, show their physical pain.
Gross overgeneralization? Yes. Applicable to many of us? Feels like it.
We’re more similar than we are different; yet we resemble a bimodal distribution. What interesting monkeys we are.
I was recounting my time in Texas last week and was speaking about the people. Southern Hospitality is a real thing.
But I also recall how similar our viewpoints were. Indeed many folks are more politically conservative down there, but not necessarily more conservative. In fact the friendliness represented a type of openness to experience, so to say.
And we agreed on more than the narrative would have you believe. Texans I talked with disliked the same things about the Bay Area that I dislike. They complained about the same local issues I found displeasing.
Most of us aren’t up North or down South, but somewhere in the middle. The loud minority gets all the media attention, but they’re not the bulk of the reasonable, considerate people in this country. We’re all American after all.
I write often about the oneness of humanity. How we are more similar than we are different. The most powerful connection we all share:
Everyone dies.
Every single person who ever lived, everyone alive today, and anyone who will ever be born, will all die. It’s our shared ultimate fate.
So while we’re here together, on this one planet—how should we live?
I said to a coworker today, “man I want to travel.” She laughed and remarked that I was “doing pretty good with it.” I didn’t question that in the moment, but have since reflected on it a bit.
There’s a difference between trips and travel. I just came back from a trip to Texas, and I throughly enjoyed it. I got to see a lot of the state, and it got to see a lot of me…
But it wasn’t uninterrupted, extended travel without an end date. The cities and sights were predetermined. And it was great; there was nothing wrong with it.
Yet my heart longs for the unknown, in destination and time. I’m confident my wife and I will embark on that type of journey again someday. Until then, I’ll be yearning for that irreplaceable experience no one but you will understand.
It feels as though there’s an inverse relationship between the amount of information we consume and the amount of thinking we do. At least with the chaotic nosiness of information bombardment that exists today. For centuries we had limited increase in opportunity to consume more data. That has accelerated exponentially in the past 2 decades, and we’re only just becoming aware of its impact now. How will we move forward with the balance of consumption and production?
Always back to reality on Monday, and it’s especially potent after a trip. But if you only look forward to the weekends, you’re only living a fraction of your life. Sometimes it’s the little moments on a Monday that can make life meaningful.
Travel is always an adventure. Even a “routine” flight to another state, just a couple hours of flying time, can be delayed or unique. So it is with going somewhere else: there’s always unforeseen circumstances and hidden adventure lurking where you don’t expect. After a lengthy flight delay and change of planes, we’re on our way to Austin. Back to Texas, and here’s to new adventure. Let’s hear some music!
The calm before the trip is better than the storm. When going somewhere new, you have nothing to expect. And in some strange way, it empowers you to fully live in the present.
As a species we have to be able to agree on information. Maybe it’s just that simple. It seems in today’s world we’re incapable of adhering to the same data, the same language. Perspectives can and should be different; it’s part of what makes our society so beautiful. But it should center around our best understanding of truth.
It always comes back to one quality: consideration. As we navigate this life experience, we can choose whether we’re alone or together. Considering how we weave within all of it—that’s kind of everything.
How far can we go from home? It was an interesting journey back to my own stomping grounds today. It offered an inquiry good for us all: who am I today, and would I be happy with what I see?
We really do move from circumstance to circumstance in this life. Or put differently, “nurture” has a lot to do with it—whether we’re five or forty.
That doesn’t mean there’s no agency. We can choose, as Viktor Frankl elucidated, despite any circumstance.
So the questions remains, pressing as ever since birth… what will we do with this one wild and precious depth of experience in the universe?
We all want the same things.
I’ve lived in 3 countries, all with vastly different cultures and histories. I was young and dumb in South Africa and learned everyone wants prosperity. I grew up in China and learned everyone wants good for their tribe. And as I’ve grown older in the U.S., I’ve learned everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone wants the same thing.
Uniting humanity is simple—we just need to acknowledge we all want the same things. These universal desires are also our deepest desires. They aren’t superficial differences, like skin color or language or environment. We all share our humanity.
So our mission is simple (but not easy): focus on our deepest desires, and recognize that we all share them. We are One.
My sister likely has limited capacity for empathy due to her circumstances. I’m sure it’s affected my own awareness for emotional intelligence, among many other ways in which she has changed my life. And I try to remember, in my worst moments, can I have a little bit more empathy? Can I place myself in another’s situation to try to understand their plight to some degree? I’m not always successful, but it’s accentuated my life experience, just as much as travel or anything else I often write about. Thank you Megan, you’re affecting the world in ways you might not even know.
The ability to organize is the hallmark of our species. It is what separates us from the other living things on this planet: to coordinate, to distribute resources, to distribute effort and labor. One would think our organization results would increase linearly across the rise of technology and civilization. That we would be many orders of magnitude further along the graph to our cohesiveness as one species.
And yet it feels we are more disunited than ever. We still engage in war, and prejudice appears rampant. Even while not fighting with violence, politically we could not be more separated, and the threat of violence lurks sinisterly.
We must step outside of ourselves and see the bigger picture, view our species across thousands of years. To come together is the only way to avoid peril. To see our species as one, to eliminate othering, is the only way we’ll manage organizing on a planetary scale, and thus be able to solve our global problems. We can take the leap to global consciousness. We have the technology and the tools. We only need to see.
“Life is precious,” is the saying. It’s the most apparent when considering our purpose, love. We can only emanate love through life. When the spark is done, this little blip of life we receive, we can no longer impact the world. Only through our actions in life do we make a difference. So easy to take for granted, so important to never forget.
Driving should be illegal. I think that often while on the road. Because we all share it together right? It’s a microcosm for our species. We share this one planet together—our individual actions affect us all.