Live Truly

Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is about finding your reason to live. Sometimes its not what you want from life, but what life demands from you. Frankl is a psychoanalyst who survived four concentration camps. Although it describes life in the camps in a very direct way, the book is more about finding the reason to keep going. It’s really direct and to the point and some passages of it flow like poetry. The book will have a different impact on every person. The edition I read had a long preface and a second part about logotherapy (logos = meaning). I found the original book and the last few pages the most powerful, although the whole thing is worth reading. This is the type of book that you could over and over and get more from it each time.

It’s interesting, but the last five or so books I’ve gone through (not including the historic one) have focused on very similar topics:

You need to control your response to any situation.
You must keep what’s most important most important.

I just finished a very interesting book on Siddartha Gautama. It’s amazing how much Buddhism and Chassidism have in common. I love the second lesson. It’s just beautiful. I am not a Yogi so I may not fully understand it, but the idea of no self is so simple and clean. Everything is moving–always changing. It’s fantastic!

I’ve whined quite a bit about my current regime. Sleep between work is not living, even if I like what I’m doing. It’s time to break it.

I re-found something that I actually like to do and can do reasonably well (although hopefully better in time). I also learned that when working for someone else, these preferences don’t matter one bit. If I want to build these skills and do more things that I like, then it’d have to be on my own time–which I simply haven’t had any of except in sleep.. sometimes.

Last weekend, I finally kicked it with my old roommate. It was so refreshing to be able to talk freely and have someone who actively listened and understood. He asked some penetrating questions: Do you like your life now? What will you change to make things better? If you had a choice to be doing anything, what would it be? What are you doing to get there? We discussed the fears and practices and cycles behind choices.

It’s interesting, working for other people how easy it is to lose yourself–and I don’t mean lose your self. I whined my last whine last night, and decided to respond rather than react. I wrote down a plan–a specific and long term one. It already made today a lot better.

Anthony Robbins’ Live with Passion! is up there as one of the best self-improvement books I’ve ever heard. The guy presents so many specific, simple, and effective ways to improve your life–instantly.

Last week I finally managed to get to the library, and with all the excitement got almost half a dozen books on tape. This was the first and I finished it in less than three days. I really needed it right now, and it really helped. The first and one of the greatest strategies in this book is the ability to control one’s desire for an object or a situation. There was a term for it, but the idea goes like this, on a scale from -10 (completely repulsive) to 10 (you can’t live without it, now), figure out your desire for an object, or an event. Figure out how it could be a little lower and a little higher, play with this until you get it to the number you want. So if you take an apple, what would it take for that apple to move from a zero to a two… (the crispness of it)… to a five (being really hungry and a little thirsty)… to an eight (that apple cool on a hot day and smelling super yummy)… to a ten (all those things… and you have it with ice cream)…. (these may vary for different people. Well in being able to contol your desire, you can control how much you want to do your daily stuff and how much you’ll enjoy it. Even for something that is horrible, you can ask yourself, well how could it be a little bit better. What would it take. And by preselecting your mood and your milestones, you can make some annoying things seem a lot better. I know this tool worked for me for most of this week at work.

Another cool concept he gives is about rules. Figuring out one’s own rules and understanding that others have different ones. An even neater section was his section on communication. The exercises about how you act when stressed or when you want someone to do something make you realize just how silly we can get when we forget why we communicate. Then there was a section on handling stressful situations, a set of steps, which unlike the desirability metric thing, was too long for me to memorize, wish I managed to write it down (but I have another two weeks). Another interesting section on being sure and unsure and how a person should question which approach will help them get the most out of life. He went off on a long talk about AIDS and how many of the things we all believe aren’t so true. I didn’t know a lot of the things he mentioned. What was funny though was in order to show how we base our sureness on the news or professionals he used professionals to prove the counter point. But how else would you do it? Actually he was consistent in that it’s a good idea to get as many points of view as possible before committing to an idea, especially if you’re going to commit to something that can destroy you. The statistics about how doctors choose medicines was also very eye-opening.

Then he goes on to a section on meaning, also really good, and asks us to figure out what we are meant to do. What is the purpose of our lives? Anthony Robbins said his was to serve G-d and people to his utmost of his ability. I think this is a wonderful goal. To be honest, it made me realize just how much I got lost lately. I’m really not sure what’s going on. Half a year ago I knew it so clearly, now I’m not so sure. Listening to the tape he said it’s important to start somewhere. To say anything. Can you guess what came out? What’s the purpose of your life? I said to create beautiful art. Where did that come from? No idea. Being a good Yid? Being a good husband and father? The first thing that came to my mind was the art thing. Maybe that’s a big chunk of my destiny, even though the next two were (and should still be) my crystal clear goals. I finally had a weekend to relax, sleep, and think a bit more clearly. I think it’s helping, though still not sure.

He ends the book with a recap with an emphasis on meaning. He stresses that it’s as important to live each moment towards achieving a goal as it is to achieve it. His stories, like his trip to India and getting assigned dish-washing to the life-and-death situations where persistence saved lives, to the tales about death, the whole collection was just wonderful. This CD, just because of the control part would be up there with Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it has more good parts too. Anthony Robbins’ Live with Passion! is definitely life-changing and eye opening, and worth a listen.

The past few weeks have been destructive. No sleep. No fun. Just work. It seemed everything came together. Work got hardcore, my student had his test Saturday morning, had to cover a midterm and final for my real estate class, along with half the book in about four days. Plus two half days spent in San Francisco getting TB clearance and trying to get rescheduled. The earliest I got home this week was 10:30, minus the day I stayed in to finish the real estate course. The weekend didn’t let off. Another project due. Spent both days and this night coding. Just submitted my latest versions. It’s been a real test, getting through it, but I think these past weeks have really made me stronger,, although I’d need a nice day or two of sleep to show it.

During this whole time I’ve been listening to a semi-fitting book: Leadership Lessons of the Navy SEALs : Battle-Tested Strategies for Creating Successful Organizations and Inspiring Extraordinary Results.

It’s a good wake-up book and it has lots of strong smart realistic advice on everything from how to arrange a team to moving on and doing something you can and want to do. The CD is a bit like the whole Rich Dad series in that it was kind of a pitch to join the SEALs, and after listening to it I can say I’m a lot more open and enthusiastic about such an idea than I could imagine before hearing it. It was really inspiring hearing the organizational structure, what to be and look for, how to live with a purpose and do things to the best of ability. It had many lessons. One that stood out a whole lot, along with dozens of others, is that in the platoon, in business, and in life, being an honest and dependable person is one of the most important things you can do. Another really imprtant aspect was on setting objectives and goals. How do you judge a mission to be successful. This book had a really good insight into that when it told about a rescue mission that went flawlessly minus the fact that the hostages were moved. The best thing about this book is it’s no nonsense approach, after listening to it all excuses and all fuzzy-big-picture-but-no-results actions are clear for the wastes of time they are.

I feel I’ve kind of stopped growing for the moment or maybe I grew up a whole lot. I put all my focus on just getting things done. There was no time to “look within” or anywhere else, only time to get things done. In the few moments with enough time to think clearly I kind of thought about what I’d want to do. I can’t wait to get back to Thailand and kick it with Rains. Can’t wait to just hear her voice. Can’t wait to hit up SF and visit the grandparents and can’t wait to kick it with my bro. Can’t wait to get back to dancing and dancers. It’s crazy how easy it is to take things for granted, but when there’s absolutely no time, in the few moments you chill out, you really realize some of the things you really miss. This weekend though, I made it through and got things done. Now sleep. Sweet sleep.

Owning Wisdom

You can live in a palace filled with treasures and still be poor. To be wealthy you must own the things you have.

So too with poverty of the mind: You may have all the knowledge and brilliant ideas in the world, but you are still poor until they have become part of you.

From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman. To order Tzvi’s book, “Bringing Heaven Down to Earth”, click here.

(from Chabad’s Thought of the Day)

“Transition” by Mad Mike, from Underground Resistance

There will come a time to your life
When you ask yourself a series of questions
Am I happy with who I am
Am I happy with the people around
Am I happy with what I am doing
Am I happy with the way my life is going
Do I have a life
Or am I just living

Do not let these questions restrain or trouble you
Just point yourself in the direction of your dreams
Find your strength from the sound
And make your transition
Make your transition

Do I spend too much time thinking
And not enough doing
Did I try my hardest than any of my dreams
Did I purposely let others discourage me when I knew I could
Will I die never knowing what I could have been or could have done

Do not let these questions restrain or trouble you
Just point yourself in the direction of your dreams
Find your strength from the sound
And make your transition
Make your transition

There will be people who will say you can’t
But you will (you will)
There will be people who will say you don’t mix this with that
And you will say watch me (watch me)
There will be people who will say play it safe, that’s too risky
And you will take that chance and have no fear (no fear)

Do not let these questions restrain or trouble you
Just point yourself in the direction of your dreams
Find your strength from the sound
And make your transition
Make your transition

For those who know
It’s time to leave the house
And go back to the field
Find your strength from the sound
It’s what you gotta do in the first f-cking place

I posted this song on my other site a while back. This lyrics really belong here too.