Ignorance Might Not Be So Blissful After All...

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance” – Socrates

As we’ve discussed before, knowledge is power. That’s something we’ve known for as long as we can remember and something we’ve been told since even before then. Knowledge is power because other people can’t take it from us.

So if knowledge is power, why then is ignorance such a rival for it? If ignorance is the opposite of knowledge, then shouldn’t it be weak? Logically, yes. And as we know logic is often correct. Ignorance is nothing but weakness… but it’s weakness that spreads.

Ignorance is the sole problem of… well, everything. Wars break out because people are ignorant of others' needs. People are killed because others are ignorant to their needs. Ignorance is weakness.

So, as always, we have to ask ourselves how this applies to our own mind. Why is knowledge power? How does ignorance defeat us?

Well, knowledge is power because it tells us what moves to make and when. With knowledge we’re able to predict our enemy’s moves and stop them in their tracks. By enemy, I mean anything that stands in the way of completing a goal we set for ourselves. Laziness is your enemy. Anger is your enemy. And of course, ignorance is your enemy.

Ignorance is our enemy because it keeps us completely in the dark. We lose track of what we’re supposed to be doing and how. We forget why things are important and we lose focus. In extreme situations, ignorance to us is like rust to iron -- it eats away at us.

So then the clear solution is to become more knowledgeable. This of course applies to academic knowledge; you should always be trying to learn something new. But what many fail to remember is that some knowledge can only be gained from experience. So… learn. Be ready to fail. Prepare yourself so that you get up and try again over and over until you learn something. Then you acquire the skill and the discipline. Discipline is knowledge too, and it can only be gained through experience.

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

Vision Through Time

“The unexamined life is not worth living” -- Socrates

A lot of people have the fear of the unknown. This includes myself; it’s not so bad now but it’s definitely not something I’ve missed out on. So what’s the solution to it, what’s the workaround?

Well, like so many other things in life, the only way out is through. The only way to make the unknown known is to do whatever it is you’re scared of. The best example I can think of is asking someone out. You could spend weeks on end wondering how they might react. “Will they feel the same way? Will they reject me? If they do, will they tell all their friends and ruin my reputation? Wait, but maybe they’ll feel the same way… I shouldn’t be getting off track and letting those things come at my mind…”

As you can see, it’s extremely easy to succumb to the process of overbearing thought. In this case the solution would be to tell the person how you feel. Then they give a reaction, and only then can you properly solve any problems that come up. Otherwise you waste time with guess work. Plus for all you know, things could go perfectly… you never know until you try.

So hey to get a little bit back on track, let’s ask another question. How an this apply to everyday life? Well, first we must consider what we spend most of our time doing, and that's thinking. Thinking about what could happen, how we could solve a problem, how something might turn out… many things that happen throughout the day. But the things that make the biggest impact on our mindset and personality are the things we think about first thing in the morning and right before we fall asleep -- typically anything but the present. We already discussed that anxiety of what’s to come can be overcome by moving over, around, or most importantly THROUGH a brick wall, but we didn’t talk about the past.

The past is a tricky idea. It has the ability to drag us underneath dark shadows and pull us to our absolute lowest point because it has the weapon of regret. There’s a million different ways to combat this, but the way that I’ve found works best for me is to remind myself that those events happened to/with a past version of myself. If we think in 4 dimensions, we recognize that that version of ourselves is part of us, but doesn’t represent who we are now.

by Chris Goode

Knowledge is Power

“The only source of knowledge is experience.” -- Albert Einstein

If knowledge is power, then words are weapons… but also sources of happiness, satisfaction, confusion, anger, joy, pain, and Being.

Knowledge is something that people are made to strive for as soon as they’re born. There’s tv shows made for children, toys to help them understand how things work and develop their brain so that it can understand concepts that adults never even think about, and methods of speech to teach them how to communicate with others. Most interestingly, however, there’s school. Kids are put into school as early as they can walk and taught a multitude of different things. Why? Well, as stated before, knowledge is power. We begin education as soon as possible in order to empower people as soon as possible.

That being said, knowledge is still power. But do children really need to be given that kind of responsibility so soon in their lives? Well… yes and no. Obviously school is a good thing -- it teaches things such as social skills, cooperation with others, and if the school is good, conflict resolution. The best schools are those such as waldorf schools, where creative thinking and imagination is prioritized in the earlier grades instead of how to read and count to 100. Obviously these things are important -- I don’t intend to discredit that. I simply intend to point out that most schools don’t teach students how to think outside the box.

So how does this fall back to Einstein’s quote? Well, experience is the best teacher because it leaves the best memories. Reading a book can be an excellent teacher for some people, especially if they have a good imagination. But for most, experience is truly the best solution due to the fact that every little variable is up to them instead of an outside source.

This information is neat and all, but how is it related to the rest of this blog? A little bit of time spent thinking about this question might give rise to a somewhat obvious answer: it’s relevant because everything else for you to read is a bunch of knowledge. I tell you about this quote and I analyze it and reveal my thinking to encourage you to do the same, and in turn seek out experiences to put the rest of these lessons (if you will) to the test.

At the end of the day, humans are constantly seeking knowledge. It could be knowledge about how to improve their bodies or how to do a specific thing, but regardless we seek knowledge. Try to learn something new every day, or at least study what you think you already know. It’s crucial to understanding not only the subject, but yourself and your limitations.

by Chris Goode

Forgive and Forget... or Try to Anyways...

“Often we forget that forgiveness is for us and not the offender. Forgiveness in no way condones cruelty or unkind treatment. Forgiveness gives us back peace of mind.” -- Fred Luskin

We’ve all heard the phrase “forgive and forget.” Probably too many times if we’re honest with ourselves. Perhaps we’ve thought about it before. Maybe we’ve come to the conclusion that forgiveness is to let the other person move on so that we can do the same. Maybe we haven’t thought about it at all. Regardless, it’s a phrase that holds some value to it.

Like Luskin says, forgiveness isn’t for the offender. It’s for the person forgiving. The truth is, forgiveness is simply saying “you no longer occupy my mind rent free.” Forgiveness also isn’t saying that the other person was right or that you agree with them. It doesn’t morally justify their actions. It doesn’t mean that they’re a better person than you. It simply means that you’re no longer holding onto them.

It’s important to hold onto the idea that forgiveness is to help us, not justify the other person. Without it, we fall into depression and… well, dark times. This kind of grudge is the kind that kills. I know that today’s post is short, but it’s because it holds an important message that shouldn’t be lost in an excess of words.

by Chris Goode

Does Life Have True Meaning?

I got an interesting question in the comment section of one of my previous posts. It asked if there was truly a sole purpose to life, and then elaborated by asking the following: if there’s multiple purposes to one’s life, does it lessen their value?

Before I begin answering what I think the answer to these questions are, I wanted to point out that these are really good questions. It’s important to think about the information you get from here instead of just reading the article’s and moving on. To the person that asked this question, good job on thinking critically :)

Now for the nitty gritty stuff. Let’s tackle the first question first -- is there truly a sole purpose to life?

Well, the truth is I can’t give a guaranteed true answer to that question, I can only give my thoughts because I’m only human. That being said, I genuinely think that each and every person contributes to the world in a manner that results in the best possible outcome. The keyword here is possible, because although an ideal world might be way better than what we have, an ideal world isn’t always possible due to our current circumstances. If we center our ideas around Earth and humanity, it’s blatantly obvious that we have at least one authentic and important reason to be here. However, many people ask the question of why we’re here at all. Even people who are firm atheists wonder why we ended up here and what our purpose is. Why did elpistostege (the fish that biologists think we evolved from) crawl out of the water and begin the chain of evolution that led to humans?

First it’s important to remind ourselves that reason is a human made ideology, at least to an extent. We assume everything happens for a reason (whether we admit it or not) and in turn we can’t wrap our heads around the idea that something might exist just for the sake of existing.

I’m also assuming that this question wasn’t asked in a manner of pessimism -- this person isn’t lamenting and cursing life, asking why we’re here with the unspoken indication that there’s no purpose for it. Turning our attention towards that question with that context might answer other questions though. When someone asks why we do things if they won’t matter in 1,000 years, we often forget that anybody could come up with a span of time where things won’t matter anymore.

This leaves us with a choice: do we choose to not care because eventually nothing will matter? Or do we choose to care because in our time it does?

When the question is phrased like this it becomes much easier to see the more reasonable answer. Sure, you could choose the first option… but if you don’t account for things such as the Butterfly Effect, then of course you’ll fall victim to your brain’s decision to not care.

This answers our first question -- it’s very possible that there’s no reason or purpose to life, but in a relative time frame there absolutely is.

However, there were two questions. The second one asks if one can have multiple purposes in life, and if that’s the case then do they take away from each other?

This question I think I can answer as no more than a human being, and my answer is no. Having multiple purposes can’t take away from life, otherwise we would die as soon as one is fulfilled. Multiple purposes run through one person; that’s why one person can be capable of so much. There’s kids as young as 17 years old who exercise every day, study, learn new things, are getting jobs in fields they’re good at, becoming smarter and faster and stronger and better. Why do I bring up an age group that’s so young? Because it’s easy to see potential in younger age groups, and potential is purpose if executed correctly.

One might consider a father who happens to be a plumber. That father has one obvious job, which is to fix pipes in people’s houses so that their household can function properly and easily. Without plumbers (and all tradespersons for that matter), life is thrown back into the stone age. With that in mind, that plumber is also a father who has to go home and help raise children to be kind, strong, and virtuous. He has multiple purposes, and they don’t lessen the value of each other. A plumber isn’t a worse plumber just because he or she has children, and a parent isn’t always a worse parent just because they have a job. Of course there are exceptions to this rule of thumb, but if things are going smoothly then it holds strong.

So, to summarize: it’s possible that life is meaningless throughout all time, but in relative time there’s multiple meanings that can coexist without lessening the value of each other.

This was a fun post to write, I’m happy someone was thinking critically. Also, thank you for helping me get over 100 followers! It means a lot to me and I’m happy to see this community growing. This community is a reason I smiled today. Be sure to leave a like, share this article with a friend so we can grow more, and follow me on social media as well as on here so you can stay up to date with blog posts. Stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

The Meaning of Life

“The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of Being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.” -- Jordan Peterson

Life is tricky for multiple reasons, and one huge one is that we often struggle to find any sole purpose for it. Although that’s a tricky question with a tricky answer, we can consider what makes life enjoyable.

If you’ve read Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, you understand that he thinks of Being as a noun rather than a verb. He describes it as a part of our psyche that’s originally pure, but dirtied with our own downfalls and sins. Interestingly enough he talks about sins as if they’re a relative term -- in his writing the word sins is synonymous with flaws. Being in turn is something that we try to work towards throughout our life, and he discusses multiple different “rules” that make it easier to do so.

The rules he describes almost sound like something an old man in a cottage would tell you. “Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie.” “Pet a cat when you come across one on the street.” “Don’t interrupt children who are skateboarding.” All of these things appear to be irrelevant and borderline crazy phrases… which is probably why he dedicates an entire book to explaining 12 of his most important rules.

In short, Peterson describes our version of living -- our Being -- as something that should be independent and self sufficient whilst maintaining healthy relationships with others. Healthy relationships are part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; without those we’re simply shells of our true selves because our life lacks any genuine meaning. Part of becoming independent means that you need to be carefree with some things, yet still grounded enough to stop and smell the roses… or for the sake of relevance, pet a cat when you come across one on the street.

Life is short. Too short to worry about why we’re here, but just long enough to crave happiness. Take the time to find a mode of Being that makes you forget about the painful parts of life, and strengthens you for when those painful times come.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Also, feel free to ask questions! Conversations work better than lectures. Stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Finding Light Within Darkness

"Life will bring you great pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy." -- Milton Erickson

Joy and pain are two sides of the same coin, with that coin being life. Unfortunately for some, they forget that you can manually turn the coin over instead of flipping it and hoping it lands on a favorable side. Because of this, they end up stuck on the side that life gives them. Or even worse, they purposefully and prematurely flip it back over.

Obviously it’s incredibly difficult to flip the coin over sometimes. If we follow the metaphor, that’s the equivalent of l]completely flipping our life upside down. Sometimes we don’t have the stability to do this. Sometimes it’s too scary and we end up frozen in place. Sometimes we lack the resources. Whatever the reason, it isn’t always possible to change everything about ourselves.

That being said, we don’t always have to change everything about ourselves. Instead we simply have to seek joy. Like the quote says: life will bring us great pain all by itself. This means that seeking out things that only bring us pain throws our life out of balance and results in us being lost, dazed, and confused. Instead we must search for things that bring us joy. Sometimes we can’t do something and get pure joy from it, but joy in and of itself is all we’re looking for -- sometimes that goes hand in hand with something undesirable or even painful. The best example I can think of is getting out of a toxic relationship. For the person who decides to leave, it can be incredibly painful to back out. Mind numbingly painful even. Regardless of this pain, a separation results in overall joy for both parties. Another good example is an intense, painful workout. Your muscles might be aching and weak, and you might feel useless afterwards in terms of strength. Give it a few days, some good sleep, and enough protein however, and you come back stronger than before (and thus happier).

The idea behind stoicism isn’t always to “just feel better.” Things such as mental illnesses prevent this. What we can do, however, is try to appreciate the good things that we DO have. Then and only then will we find improvement. Then and only then can we grow.

Take some time to smell the roses.

by Chris Goode

What is Coaching?

Coaching is something that's often confused with therapy. It makes sense; both practices involve someone helping another person solve their problems and work around things if needed, just in very different ways. On top of that, therapy can often be a much longer process that's oriented towards unpacking the past in a way to resolve present issues. Coaching on the other hand is typically the discussion of a specific goal or vision and how to create the most efficient and intelligent way of accomplishing them, in other words it's more future oriented.

Someone seeking a coach is really someone who's asking for an outside view that's both logical and simple. Those mindsets can be researched through studying philosophy, psychology, and history. Of course, that doesn't make someone a professional in any of those subjects, but they can most certainly relate those problems from history to problems that people face today. Ancient mindsets and mythologies can be sifted through in order to gain wisdom and as stated before, a logical mindset to problems.

The more I think about it while writing this, the more obvious it becomes that coaching and therapy have very little in common. Of course both provide a lot of help to others, but they go about it in different ways and towards different issues. Because of this it's smart to seek wisdom from both practices -- therapy to help change your way of thinking, and coaching to hear another's. A combination of the two allows an individual to approach their problems from multiple angles, which isn't exactly a bad idea.

The subject of today's post came about as a reminder to you that I'm a transformation coach -- and I'm here to provide you that outside view on some of your problems. In order to set this up, go to "Contact" and follow the directions it gives you. Other than that make sure to leave a like and follow, stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Hidden Desires

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” -- Carl Jung

Unconscious thoughts and desires have a tendency to appear in our day to day lives without our knowledge. They’re expressed through subtle actions or thoughts, and executed in ways that we think we came up with all by ourselves. In a way we did, but it’s a part of ourselves that’s separated from every other part of ourselves. Talk about intricacy.

Conscious thoughts and desires, however, are often thought of too much. By that I mean we spend so much time thinking about these things that we take action on them at the wrong times instead of just letting them flow naturally. This usually doesn’t result in anything too bad happening, but most bad things happen because of this.

With that knowledge in mind, it’s wise to consider what could happen if you make your unconscious thoughts and desires into something conscious. Things such as biased opinions will become apparent and we’ll be able to swing the pendulum the other way and cancel them out -- but only if we’re aware of them. Until we make those unconscious thoughts something we can purposely think about, we’re stuck. We end up lost in our own world, wondering what decides our purpose and how we end up where we are. Our unconscious becomes “fate.” because we’re unaware of what it does and how it influences us.

Considering this, meditate on your unconscious today. Ask yourself questions about things and wait patiently for your response to come to you.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Be sure to stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Creating Meaning

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to ultimately be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” -- Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who’s known best for creating what we now call Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In short, it explains what we crave as humans and in what order we crave them. Interestingly enough, the highest level essentially states that we’ll begin searching for purpose beyond our selves. To add onto the mystery, this quote encourages us to look inwards for outwards reasoning.

This quote allows me to strongly elaborate the idea that each of us contributes to the world through embodiment of our truest selves. It’s an idea I’ve spoken about before, and I’ve explained that a perfect person doesn’t exist because of said idea.

Maslow points out that we must be whatever we can be. This means that whatever we can’t be, we must not be able to be. Talk about double negatives…

In other words, we’re all capable of a lot of things. Probably millions of different things that we don’t even realize or appreciate. However, we must constantly be those things -- otherwise we’re an incomplete piece of art. Take that with a grain of salt though; if we really truly aren’t able to do something, we aren’t meant to. This aligns with Murphy’s Law, which states that anything that can happen will happen. Whatever we can do, we must do. Whatever we can be, we must be. It’s quite an interesting idea to toss around your head.

Doing everything we can allows us to be successful in society, but being everything we can allows us to be at peace with ourselves. It allows us to rest our heads on our pillows every night and think “Wow. I earned this rest because I really did a lot today.” Of course, we’ll probably fall asleep shortly after that thought if we’re truly doing our best during the day :D. Eventually this leads to overall satisfaction in our lives because we constantly are able to tell ourselves “Hey, I’m doing good. I’ve done all these things today and I’ve kept my mind clean today. This is good. I’m okay.”

Do what you can. Strive for what you can. Be your best self, and you might just realize that your best self is better than you could ever imagine.

by Chris Goode

A Humble Opinion

“Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.” -- Jordan Peterson

There are only so many things we can be capable of. It’s a concept we’ve discussed multiple times before: nobody is perfect because a perfect person makes everybody else useless. What we haven’t discussed, however, is the idea that we often spend so long looking towards things to gain that we don’t appreciate the things we already have.

Because we’re raised in a society that’s often encouraging us to be better and strive for more, we almost never take the time to appreciate what we already have. Oftentimes this leads us to forgetting our virtues, which prevents us from building upon that and improving upon those.

A good analogy I heard once is that virtuous behaviour is like owning a gun. Even if you’re a really good shot and can nail the target every time, you’re still going to get rusty if you don’t practice. This doesn’t mean you can just hang the gun up on the wall either -- you have to actively use it and practice the drills and protocols that go along with it. The same applies to virtues. What we have can’t simply be admired, it must be put to use as well. Saying you’re a disciplined person doesn’t hold any value if you can’t prove it.

It’s also important to remember that the things that other people have weren’t earned easily either. They most likely didn’t just wake up with a magnificent ability one day; they worked and disciplined themselves to become better at whatever it is they’re good at. Appreciation of this fact is a necessary part of growth and self development, but obsession over another’s talents is the pathway to our downfall.

To summarize: satisfaction and growth comes from an appreciation of what you do have and a humble acknowledgement of what you don’t. Try not to confuse the two.

by Chris Goode

A Gentle Aggression

“Face the demands of life voluntarily. Respond to a challenge instead of bracing for catastrophe.”

A big problem that a lot of people have is they become so anxious and worried about future events that they don’t actually end up doing anything about it because their fear holds them down. Their fight or flight response works, but it tenses up. Many people don’t understand that it’s not just fight or flight, there’s also freeze. Fight/flight/freeze. Those who end up worried about their future aren’t fighting or flying -- they’re freezing up and letting things take them by the horns. They’re committing emotional suicide by leaving themselves out in the cold dark abyss of an empty mind.

Fortunately for us, it’s possible to make ourselves not freeze if we can simply become aware of when it is that we freeze. This is a humbling experience, and it’s one that you’ll need to do on your own. Others can’t do it for you, they can only support the actions you take to move towards success. And you can’t do it if you aren’t honest and accepting with yourself, because your ego will stop any progress from happening.

Reflecting on stressful situations and becoming aware of our reactions benefits ourselves from all angles. It allows us to realize what it is we need to change, which honestly is usually the only thing stopping people from changing themselves.

Peterson’s quote revolves around the idea that life is going to throw things at you no matter what. It’s going to break you down and beat you until you’re barely breathing. Then -- and only then -- will you have the opportunity to prove that you’re strong mentally. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, then it’s time to start preparing for it. Push yourself mentally often. Discipline your emotions and make yourself level up into something stronger, and smarter, and healthier, and better.

It’s important to prepare for challenges, but not catastrophe. A good way of thinking about the difference is as follows: preparing for challenges is getting a really nice weapon, while preparing for catastrophes is getting a really nice shield. The difference between the two is that one is far more aggressive. In our day to day life, aggression doesn’t equate to violence because there’s no need for it. However, there’s still a need for aggression in some parts of our lives. Perhaps we have a workout we need to crush or a book we need to read. Maybe we have something to finish at work, or maybe we really do need to be aggressive in terms of violence. It applies to many different aspects of life and if used correctly can benefit us hugely.

Take life by the horns before it does the same to you.

by Chris Goode

Chris Goode

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