I'm not really sure whether it's chance or an alignment of the stars, but within a couple days I've been introduced to three people whose personal experience of suffering led to producing insights that they were moved to share with others. Most interestingly, the insights they share are not about their suffering at all. Rather, their experiences served as a catalyst, resulting in profound insights that can help each of us toward a better life.
Two of these people became authors. The third has developed a website and "game" of sorts that has the aim of teaching us lessons for life.
1.
James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Clear's book cover announces its basic premise: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. The book description goes on to say, If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.
It's an interesting approach. It avoids blaming the reader for his or her failures and affirms the good intentions while focusing on what has to change.
Because I've been reading another good book on business strategy by Richard Rumelt, James Clear's message to individuals resonates. Success is not by trying harder or sheer willpower, but through using a better strategy.
Author James Clear didn't develop his ideas through reading but through experience, hence its power. As a teen with a passion for baseball, not unlike myself, he had the horrendous experience of having a baseball bat smash his face, shattering skull and facial bones. The process by which he came back from the induced coma to ultimately performing again at a high level is remarkable, and the basis for his understanding of how to build a new life
2.
Winifred Gallagher, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
Gallagher's book likewise begins with a difficult hurdle, all too common and familiar to most of us who have been around a while. Cancer. Like Atomic Habits, I am only near the beginning, and like Clear's book the intro spells out what she went through to attain her understanding of new psychological terrains.
In Gallagher's book the lessons revolve around the power of focus, and how the mind works. It's insightful and once more relevant to living a fulfilled life, especially in a world filled with distractions. Gallagher doesn't let us off the hook, however. If we get distracted by television, social media and whatever else we allow to pull us in all directions, she doesn't blame these other things. She simply puts it to us to think differently and assume responsibility for what we choose to deem important.
3.
Phelan, founder of 500 BC Foundry
The founder's story begins with her daughter's cancer. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times: No parent should have to bury their child. Phelan's commitment to seeing her daughter through this trial led to many insights. An app called TapRoots is the results.
The motto here is: You owe it to yourself to get to know yourself. Knowing oneself is essential to a great life. Knowing oneself precedes "To thine own self be true." How can you be true to yourself when you are oblivious to who you are.
What Phelan discovered was that the insights from antiquity remain relevant today. This understanding led her to seek a way to share these insights via a new medium, in the tech-infused world we now live in, using the tools of our contemporary culture. The end result was TapRoots, a game of self-discovery.
In ancient times, people used sharpened flint as a tool. Today we have apps devoted to transferring the wisdom of the ages into our present seeking minds. That's what TapRoots is all about.
* * * *
Good things seem to happen in threes. I was surprised at this third one. It seemed like I'd discovered something interesting that was in sync with a recent awareness of the importance of mindfulness. For the past 35 years there's been an urgency to life, driven by the notion of hustle, speed, push, make things happen. It's almost as if the objective is burn-out.
After a good friend of mine was laid off a couple years back I was surprised at how his new interest was 180 degrees opposite of the rat race. He's lost interest in this deal, and was on a new path, toward a greener pasture, beside still waters. He didn't use this word but it was the same: mindfulness.
* * * *
For what it's worth, I like what I've seen of 500 BC Foundry and TapRoots. I'm interested in what they are attempting to do. And it may be the right timing for this because there are so many distraction now to take us away from who we are. How can you be to thine own self true if you don't even know who you are?
So, I'm playing a new game, just to see where it goes. If you want to play, to be part of it, here's where you can learn more... and be part of a contemporary game that can potentially make a difference in your life.
#GalacticGiveawayShares
Sign up to get cool rewards at 500 BC Foundry and by doing so, my rank will improve.
* * * *
I started by saying that I would introduce three people. I actually only met them though what they have created, and the last I don't even know (yet) by name, just her handle. I did, however, decide to enter the Galactic Giveaway, and spread some roots. Where it will lead I have no idea, but I will keep you posted.
Meantime, enjoy the onset of Spring and make the most of your day.
Two of these people became authors. The third has developed a website and "game" of sorts that has the aim of teaching us lessons for life.
1.
Clear's book cover announces its basic premise: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. The book description goes on to say, If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.
It's an interesting approach. It avoids blaming the reader for his or her failures and affirms the good intentions while focusing on what has to change.
Because I've been reading another good book on business strategy by Richard Rumelt, James Clear's message to individuals resonates. Success is not by trying harder or sheer willpower, but through using a better strategy.
Author James Clear didn't develop his ideas through reading but through experience, hence its power. As a teen with a passion for baseball, not unlike myself, he had the horrendous experience of having a baseball bat smash his face, shattering skull and facial bones. The process by which he came back from the induced coma to ultimately performing again at a high level is remarkable, and the basis for his understanding of how to build a new life
2.
Gallagher's book likewise begins with a difficult hurdle, all too common and familiar to most of us who have been around a while. Cancer. Like Atomic Habits, I am only near the beginning, and like Clear's book the intro spells out what she went through to attain her understanding of new psychological terrains.
In Gallagher's book the lessons revolve around the power of focus, and how the mind works. It's insightful and once more relevant to living a fulfilled life, especially in a world filled with distractions. Gallagher doesn't let us off the hook, however. If we get distracted by television, social media and whatever else we allow to pull us in all directions, she doesn't blame these other things. She simply puts it to us to think differently and assume responsibility for what we choose to deem important.
3.
The founder's story begins with her daughter's cancer. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times: No parent should have to bury their child. Phelan's commitment to seeing her daughter through this trial led to many insights. An app called TapRoots is the results.
The motto here is: You owe it to yourself to get to know yourself. Knowing oneself is essential to a great life. Knowing oneself precedes "To thine own self be true." How can you be true to yourself when you are oblivious to who you are.
What Phelan discovered was that the insights from antiquity remain relevant today. This understanding led her to seek a way to share these insights via a new medium, in the tech-infused world we now live in, using the tools of our contemporary culture. The end result was TapRoots, a game of self-discovery.
In ancient times, people used sharpened flint as a tool. Today we have apps devoted to transferring the wisdom of the ages into our present seeking minds. That's what TapRoots is all about.
* * * *
Good things seem to happen in threes. I was surprised at this third one. It seemed like I'd discovered something interesting that was in sync with a recent awareness of the importance of mindfulness. For the past 35 years there's been an urgency to life, driven by the notion of hustle, speed, push, make things happen. It's almost as if the objective is burn-out.
After a good friend of mine was laid off a couple years back I was surprised at how his new interest was 180 degrees opposite of the rat race. He's lost interest in this deal, and was on a new path, toward a greener pasture, beside still waters. He didn't use this word but it was the same: mindfulness.
* * * *
For what it's worth, I like what I've seen of 500 BC Foundry and TapRoots. I'm interested in what they are attempting to do. And it may be the right timing for this because there are so many distraction now to take us away from who we are. How can you be to thine own self true if you don't even know who you are?
So, I'm playing a new game, just to see where it goes. If you want to play, to be part of it, here's where you can learn more... and be part of a contemporary game that can potentially make a difference in your life.
#GalacticGiveawayShares
Sign up to get cool rewards at 500 BC Foundry and by doing so, my rank will improve.
* * * *
I started by saying that I would introduce three people. I actually only met them though what they have created, and the last I don't even know (yet) by name, just her handle. I did, however, decide to enter the Galactic Giveaway, and spread some roots. Where it will lead I have no idea, but I will keep you posted.
Meantime, enjoy the onset of Spring and make the most of your day.
ACTUALLY, I just finished reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is a fantastic novella by Alexandre Solzhenitsyn... It describes in detail what a day was like in a Russian work cam (Gulag) under Stalin. In a sense you could say Solzhenitsyn's suffering produced his writing career as well.
ReplyDeleteResearchers discovered that one of the three motivations for staying alive in horrible POW camps is the strong desire to survive so that the sufferer can "share with the world what happened here."... Clearly this was what kept Solzhenitsyn going.