The Sands of Time

Another post with no quote today, because there’s another concept I’ve heard before that I feel like needs to be addressed.

As we’ve discussed many times before, stress is a powerful thing. You can either use that stress to your advantage or you can let it consume you, and there’s ways to make the first choice easier. We’ve talked about that idea quite a bit as well, so if you want to know more about that then feel free to skim through previous blog posts.

With that being said, I’ve often heard people say something along the lines of “Your worries won’t matter a year from now.” It’s a strange phrase... and strangely enough a lot of people seem to have heard it.

Although it’s technically true most of the time, it’s not really a useful piece of advice. Sure, it *might* provide some comfort in the short term, but most of the time it doesn’t and most of the time it doesn’t even apply. It’s the same as saying “eventually it won’t exist” or “things will get better.” Like I said before, these things are technically true and can indeed provide comfort sometimes because of that, but there’s a catch… these sayings don’t exist in the present. They exist in the future. Saying that things WILL get better or that EVENTUALLY you won’t have to worry about something only reminds you of the future.

The real truth, or rather the underlying truth, is that your stresses and concerns and worries DO matter right now; that’s why you’re stressed about them. Of course this is assuming that you stress over reasonable things. If this isn’t the case, and you feel like you’re struggling in your day to day life, then I encourage you to reach out and find professional help. I do what I can to offer solutions to some problems, but at the end of the day I can only do so much.

We’ll explore ideas like these more in future blog posts, so definitely be sure to think of questions that you can leave in the comment section. Leaving questions and feedback allows me to understand what I should address next, which is a good thing for both of us. Also, be sure to follow me on Instagram, Tik Tok , Facebook, and Twitter @iamchrisgoode so that we can grow our community!

by Chris Goode

Divide and Conquer

100th Blog Post, yay!!

No quote for today though, because I wanted to focus on a specific concept that doesn’t really stick to any one idea that I could find a quote for.

I’d like to preface this by saying that most self help influencers assume that everybody wants the same things: a lot of money, a huge mansion, three kids and a lamborghini. Although I’m sure everybody would enjoy having those kinds of things in one way or another, we can’t all practically get that. Not only that, but most people don’t even genuinely want that, they just want to be financially stable. My point in bringing this up is to highlight this assumption that most self help influencers have, and then explain that I understand that not everybody wants that.

Knowing this we have to ask ourselves what we really want. Obviously we don’t all want the same things, if that were the case then everybody would have everything they wanted and there would be no need for capitalism or any other form of marketing.

This is especially true when it comes to procrastination. We only have so many things that we can care about, and whether or not we like to admit it we won’t be able to care about all of those things all the time. Trying to do that just sets us back further.

To animate this idea in your head I want you to imagine that you have 20 apples, and you’re told that for every apple you eat you’ll make ten thousand dollars. Trying to care about everything all the time would be like taking one bite out of every apple -- yes, you made a mark, but it wasn’t concentrated enough to do anything and you haven’t made any real progress.

We add another layer onto this if we think about certain apples being worth more than others. Maybe eating apple #1 gives you ten thousand dollars, but eating apple #17 gives you a dozen times that. It makes more sense to eat the apple that gives you more first, and if you can go back for the other apple later then even better.

This way of thinking is probably above anything else I’ve discussed due to the progress that can be made when combined with other methods I’ve talked about. Focusing on only a few problems and chipping away at those will get you a lot farther than trying to tackle everything at once, so keep that in mind today when you start trying to get things done.

by Chris Goode

Empty Mind, Wasted Time

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

This quote has actually been said by quite a few people, including T. S. Elliot, Soren Kierkegaard, Laurence J. Peter and others, which makes sense because it’s a good way of thinking.

In the last post I talked about how I wanted to begin focusing on procrastination and how it affects people's day to day lives. I still plan on doing that, but I realised that I didn’t explain much beyond the reasoning most people have behind procrastination. So today I wanted to give a broad solution to avoiding procrastination and preventing yourself from doing it at all.

Before I do that however, I’d like to go more in depth on today’s quote. Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. Sounds like a contradiction at first, but after tossing it around in my head for a bit I began to understand. Time that I enjoy wasting isn’t really wasted time because I’m usually getting something done or building up enough energy to get something done. Therefore it’s not a waste of time.

Okay.. that seems pretty simple. Doing things I enjoy does more good than harm, so it’s not a waste of time. But then that made me curious too… if no time is wasted, then how come we do things like scroll through social media or play video games all day? Those things don’t really allow us to fully recover from things like exercise and they also don’t help us get anything done. They genuinely seem like a complete waste of time.

Then I remembered that there’s two parts to the quote, and I was forgetting about the part where it said “enjoy.” The thing is, it’s not really the constant scrolling that we enjoy as much as it is the opportunity for us to step away from our responsibilities and simply exist without stress. With this in mind it becomes clear that constantly being on our phones and whatnot isn’t really enjoyable, it’s just numbing.

Now that we understand that, we can begin to think of different things we can do to genuinely help ourselves. However, each person recovers differently, so we’ll have to get into that more in a future post. Until then, take some time to ask yourself what you can do in order to rest and recover properly in order to prepare for future tasks.

We’ll explore this idea more in future blog posts, so definitely be sure to think of questions that you can leave in the comment section. Leaving questions and feedback allows me to understand what I should address next, which is a good thing for both of us. Also, be sure to follow me on Instagram, Tik Tok , Facebook, and Twitter @iamchrisgoode so that we can grow our community!

by Chris Goode

Risk it to Win it

“All procrastination is just fear.” -- Unknown

In the last post we talked about procrastination and why it’s important to just keep moving -- and eventually how those tiny movements will add up to contribute to your success. In fact, we’ve talked about that concept quite a bit about a year ago, and the more that I think about it the more I begin to realize that one of our biggest problems is procrastination. We procrastinate getting work done. We procrastinate speaking to people or having difficult conversations. We procrastinate learning. Because of this, I’ve decided it’s best to put a majority of my work towards discussing procrastination, why it happens, and how we prevent it.

Until then, let’s stick to today’s quote.

Procrastination is simply fear of the unknown, which is a weird concept to think about, and it might not even seem like it’s true at first. After all, people usually procrastinate simply because they don’t want to do something… right?

Well yes, but it’s important to take a step further into that idea. Why is it that we feel like doing some things but not others? This question can be answered when we think about the things we enjoy doing as humans: sleeping, eating, relaxing, and playing (because we’re all still children at heart). This reminds us that we enjoy doing things because of the positive benefits we can get from them -- sleeping gives us more energy, eating satisfies our stomach and nourishes us, relaxing gives us time to think, and playing allows our minds to wander.

When we think of things in this way, it becomes apparent that we procrastinate because we’re scared or worried that we might not be given those positive benefits that we desire so badly. Or even worse -- we might have to give up some of what we already have. People are made to seek out things with little to no risk in exchange for high reward. Although this is great at times and keeps us safe, it can get in the way. If we don’t risk anything then we might be safe, but we also won’t gain anything either. Knowing this, we have to ask ourselves an important question: do we want to push through a little bit of pain and be disciplined? Or would we rather choose to do nothing and settle for what we’ve got?

by Chris Goode

Tick Tock Goes the Clock

“You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again." -- Benjamin Franklin

Time is a tricky thing, because it seems to slow down when we want it to pass quickly and does the opposite when we need it the most. The only time where time seems to pass normally however, is before something important happens. Let’s elaborate on that.

When you were a kid and you had school, chances are you would have projects that were due weeks ahead in the future. They most likely made you a little bit anxious, but not enough to make you freak out. They belonged entirely in the future, and not a single part of them existed in the present. And thus we created something -- procrastination.

Procrastination is a problem that plagues most people in their day to day lives. Eventually they procrastinate on so many things that it all hits them at once and they freak out about it. Then they get paralyzed by stress, which drags them down even further towards procrastination, which then stresses them even more… you get the idea.

There’s a lot of things that go into procrastination, which means that there’s a lot of things we can do in order to stop ourselves from procrastinating. I plan on elaborating on this a LOT in the future, because the more I think about it the more I realize that eliminating procrastination results in the elimination of most other problems I write about on this blog. Because this subject is so vast and intricate, I obviously can’t explain it all here. But what I can do is elaborate on our quote.

Time is something that’s going to pass whether we like it or not. Although scientists are incredibly smart and have figured out how to manipulate most things, time is not one of them. It might feel like time is passing slowly or quickly, but it marches on at it’s own pace consistently… quite literally at all times.

Because of this we need to understand that action must be taken. Logically we can’t do nothing because time is passing no matter what, so we may as well fill it in order to avoid stress. This doesn’t mean we have to do a lot (although that would obviously help), it simply means that we’re doing SOMETHING, even if that something is tiny. A lot of tiny things over the course of an entire day or week build up a lot, and that’s what makes progress.

Be sure to share this article with a friend, leave a like and a follow, and ask a question in the comment section! It brings our community closer together. Other than that, stay tuned for future blog posts and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

True Belongings

“People can rob you of almost any possession, but hard work belongs to you and you alone.” -- Firas Zahabi

Unfortunately we live in a world of materialism, where everybody cares about what kind of phone you have, where you live, what kind of car you have, and how expensive your outfit is. Admittedly this can be stressful and depressing, and it might even seem like there’s no escape from it.

On top of this stress and anxiety we get from being pushed towards being rich, some of us have to worry about our riches being stolen from us; whether it be fame, money, property, etc. All this does is adds to the stress and leads to an eventual self destruct. It’s a pretty harsh cycle.

Since our physical possessions can be robbed, that leaves us with only one thing: our mind. Our mind can hold everything we’ve learned and put it out into the world for us to share with others. At the end of the day that’s what we end up doing with everybody else: sharing our ideas.

We also have our physical body. We can build it up so that we’re strong and healthy and live a long life. Of course there’s exceptions to this -- people end up disabled or hurt and lose the ability to move their bodies. But for the general population, exercise is a good way to unite your mind and body.

An even better way to unite your body and mind is through martial arts. This narrows down the barrier between the two, so you can move your body in specific ways without your mind holding you back or restricting you. This is also a good way to practice mental discipline because of the physical strain that’s put on your body.

Once you build up your body and discipline your mind, confidence blooms. You become secure and satisfied with your own body, and things start to fall back into place.

by Chris Goode

The Work-Play Balance

“Health without force is like hardness without elasticity.” -- Miyamoto Musashi

Oooohhh… this is a tricky one.

I had to really sit back for… well, a few days so that I could think about this quote. Usually with philosopher’s quotes you can find the context pretty easily and at least figure out the general idea. But this quote almost sounds like a riddle or a joke; “What do health and force have in common with hardness and elasticity?”

Well logically we try to compare the two things instantly. So let’s follow our logic. Hardness without elasticity sounds like something that’s durable but not flexible. Health without force sounds like something that’s always healthy without trying -- something that isn’t ideal because it’s unbalanced.

I imagine that he compares effortless health to solid hardness because both are unbalanced. Hardness without elasticity can’t change and adapt to its surroundings, which eventually leads to its downfall. Health without force becomes too dormant in its state and eventually falls out of health due to its lack of maintenance.

With this in mind, we can begin to understand what Musashi means. Health without force is like hardness without elasticity because both are unbalanced in their effort. It reminds me of the ratio people should have between work and play. We see people who party all the time and only work so that they can afford alcohol and fancy vacations, and they’re generally looked down upon by society because they don’t work a lot. We also see people who are buried in their work. They might be successful in terms of financial gain, but the truth is that they aren’t really living. There’s two ends of the spectrum: party animal and workaholic. The ideal way of stumbling through life is to find a balance -- it might not cure you of mental conditions or instantly make everything better, but at least it won’t all come crashing down on you.

Keeping this in mind, try to find ways where you can force health while also searching for ways you can be more flexible. Balance discipline and rest. Find your spot on the spectrum of work and play.

by Chris Goode

Avoiding the Trouble

“The ultimate aim of martial arts is not having to use them.” -- Miyamoto Musashi

Martial arts at their core are made to help people defend themselves. They trace back to the beginnings of recorded time when people figured out that humans are really good at wrestling, and after that happened we all got excited to watch people beat each other up.

On a slightly more serious note, martial arts are simply there to keep other people from hurting us. This applies to both the physical realm AND the mental realm; a good practitioner of any martial art applies the things they’ve learned to their thoughts and ideas as well.

That being said, the main goal of practicing martial arts physically and mentally is to prevent the need for them. We practice defending ourselves so that we know how to avoid the situations where we need them. We learn to avoid the sketchy guy in the alley way and to walk around the drunk guy in the street.

True martial artists learn to do the same in their thoughts and actions. We learn to avoid the people who could break our hearts or ruin our mental health. We learn to say no to people when necessary, and we learn to truly respect ourselves.

The thing about this is that you don’t need to practice martial arts to learn how to do this for yourself. You can study philosophy and read and learn about things in order to grow your mind and remind yourself that you’re worth respect because you spend your time trying to become better. A person who’s trying to better themselves should never be looked down upon, including yourself. You shouldn’t hate yourself if you’re trying to become better, and you shouldn’t look down on yourself if you need rest.

I know I strayed a little bit from our quote today, but I think that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes it’s okay to do that a little bit because it brings us to better things.

by Chris Goode

Finding a Work-Around

“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain.” -- Miyamoto Musashi

Everybody has heard the metaphor that people use to describe how life is full of problems that you need to conquer; usually something along the lines of “Push to the top” or “Keep climbing.” Obviously these metaphors hold some value because people repeat them on their way to success, but just as many people forget that there’s more than one path to the top of any mountain.

Our problems in our day to day lives can appear bigger and stronger than us sometimes. Probably most of the time now that I think about it. Many end up faced against a problem that they’ll think they just can’t move over, around, or through. Honestly, it’s life draining. That problem becomes so huge that it’s all they can think about, and their life revolves around it to the point that it’s entirely consumed.

During these times it’s important to remember that there’s always more than one approach to solving problems. If one way doesn’t work, you pivot and try again. Keeping the current theme of martial arts going, we see opponents testing each other's reaction time and formulating a plan to break through their defense before moving. We really see the difference when we compare an amateur to a professional -- an amateur will throw out random moves they’ve learned in hopes that one might work, while a professional will make space while they think about which technique to use with precision.

Keeping this in mind, we can apply it to our every day life. If our current plan of action isn’t working, then trying to push through it with brute force won’t work. Instead, we need to take a step back and view the problem objectively and without emotion. Then and only then will we be able to come up with an appropriate plan that outmaneuvers our problems.

by Chris Goode

Uniting the Mind and Body

“It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet.” -- Miyamoto Musashi

Martial Arts. Something that’s been in existence since as long as we can remember in one way or another.

For the general population, martial arts are thought of as something that’s used to hurt people. After all, their main purpose is to help people defend themselves; sometimes in order to stop yourself from getting hurt, it’s necessary to hurt your opponent. It’s a sad truth. But with that being said, martial arts are just that -- an art.

People often think of art as something that makes people ooh and ahh. Martial arts do that for many people, but maybe not quite as much as something such as dancing or music. The reason for this is because they’re often presented by people who have spent years of their lives disciplining themselves so that they don’t have to live in fear of what might happen. We’ll get into that more in future posts, so please ask questions about it so I don’t relay information that you already know.

Back to today’s quote. Although it can be taken literally, I believe it works best as a metaphor. And if this is a metaphor, the universe acts as the human mind and body while one planet resembles one aspect of one of those things.

There’s plenty of “planets” that we can choose to focus on: strength, flexibility, patience, endurance, memory, art, musical interest, and mathematical thinking to name a few. Most people make it through school and tackle a few planets. Some people exercise or do yoga and tackle a few more. Martial arts however unite them all. This is because they teach you how to use your body to create something beautiful, such as a kata.

Knowing this, it’s difficult to understand why people refuse to do martial arts. They keep you fit, they keep your mind whole, they stop you from hurting others BECAUSE you know exactly how to do it, and overall they just make you a more disciplined person. With this in mind, I encourage you to explore this world. Learn about the different kinds of martial arts and think about practicing one -- there’s plenty that don’t involve hurting others at all if that’s your concern.

by Chris Goode

Through the Battlefield.

I’m not too sure how to start this article out, so I suppose I should just cut to the chase and wing it.

Sometimes we have trouble moving through things. It simply is how things are. This is why people end up with PTSD. This is why people don’t change sometimes. First and foremost, it’s important to understand that this is nothing to be ashamed of. Being stuck or scared doesn’t mean you’re out of the ordinary. It simply means you’re having trouble with something -- and that’s okay.

The first step in moving through something is to understand that eventually the pain will subside. Sooner or later you’ll be able to look back and think “Hey. I did that. I made it through that.” It might take a while -- sometimes up to years and years. But eventually things get better.

The hard part isn’t recognizing this. The hard part is recognizing this when you’re about to go against your own demons. In other words, it’s easier to think things through in an ideal situation, but situations aren’t always ideal. That being said, sometimes we need to practice thinking things through beforehand. In fact, I recommend you do that anyways because otherwise you won’t have a protocol.

A good example of this is seen in martial arts. Someone might have lightning fast reflexes and be on the other side of their opponent in the blink of an eye. We see boxers slip under punches and through a hook to the other person's abdomen without comprehending what’s happened. The reason this is possible isn’t because they consciously think about their moves. Anybody who watches someone like Mike Tyson in the ring knows what I’m talking about -- their body moves before their mind does. This is done through hours and hours and hours of practice. They don’t practice until they get it right, they practice until they can’t get it wrong. The same applies to people with traumatic experiences. Often times they won’t be able to consciously think about what to do when they feel stressed, and that’s when they rely on the protocols that they’ve come up with beforehand. If they have anger issues, they know to separate. If they get anxious in a crowd, they understand that they need to breathe and separate. People rely on protocols in place of conscious thinking.

The same logic applies to everybody. Sure, you might not have PTSD or a mental disorder, but I can almost guarantee that there’s something that makes you uncomfortable. This idea of coming up with a protocol can act as a solution if you actively process it beforehand. So with that in mind, take the time today to meditate on your protocol and come up with a plan of action.

by Chris Goode

Take Action!

“Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward ” -- Soren Kierkegaard

One funny thing about life is that we often look back in wonder and see answers that only seem obvious now that we know the whole story. Maybe a friend passed away or you made a difficult decision for yourself, and now you realize just how influential that change was.

There’s probably a million reasons for this, but perhaps the most important and obvious reason is because it would be cheating if we could do this in the moment. Part of the reason life is so… well, lively, is because it’s always unpredictable and open to change. Knowing the future would take away from that. Things would become mundane because we would already know the outcome.

Imagine knowing how you would die, for what reasons, when, and what events lead up to it. At first this seems scary, but I would imagine that containing this knowledge ahead of time would simply depress you. Everything would be meaningless in the face of death… or perhaps everything would have more meaning. I suppose we’ll never know. Which ironically brings us back to our quote.

Life can only be understood backwards… but on the other side of the coin, it can only be lived forwards. By this, Kierkegaard means that you can only know how things will turn out if you actually live through them. You can’t spend so long thinking about what might happen that you get analysis paralysis -- otherwise the worst is almost destined to happen. A foolproof plan to get through this is to remind yourself that sometimes you can’t do anything without disaster striking… meaning you might as well pick the scenario where the disaster strikes but you still get something good out of it. Being surrounded by enemies simply means that you can attack in any direction and actually hit something -- so you might as well pull the trigger before they’re right on top of you. So with that in mind, reflect on the past carefully and charge head on into the future.

by Chris Goode

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