Pleasures - The Downfall of Civilizations

“In American today the popular word for good life is “happiness”…The American pursuit of happiness can often look like a compulsive, joyless effort to escape boredom… a people blessed with far more material advantages than any other society has ever enjoyed is not clearly the happiest on earth.” –Harold H. Titus & Marilyn S. Smith

The material advantage is a curse more than a blessing. Most of those things promises to make our lives easier by helping us or saving time. One would think that those improvements would allow us to focus on more important endeavors but it only “free us” to pursue more things.

Materials are a curse when the people buying it have no sense of values (as in what’s really important in life). When this occurs, the things he owns-owns him.
We buy things because it’s pleasurable and we too often confuse pleasure with happiness. Like Orrin Woodward said, “Pleasure doesn’t bring happiness, only an increased hunger for more pleasures.”

Happiness comes from following our values. Joy, which is the ultimate form of happiness, comes from being at peace with ourselves and is often attained through religion or spirituality (along with following values) – It’s a sense of belonging to something bigger than us.

Pleasure is like a quick burning fire, it often can’t be controlled even if we think we can. Pleasure is short lived and has been the caused of the downfalls of previous civilizations which will include our own if we don’t understand it and attempt to move away from it.

Tracking... What’s the Big Deal?

I can’t say I’m a big fan of the tracking progress or monitoring myself with spreadsheets, documents or even the infamous post-it notes. It seems like all the new books on self improvements have a fancy form of self monitoring that consists of writing down some info all in the name of getting to know ourselves. My initial feeling is “If I do every exercise the books advise me to do then I won’t have time for myself at the end of the day but only a bunch of info on how I spent the day.

Do I need to “get to know myself” this much?

I do admit that I’m afraid of several things when it comes to tracking my daily activities. Let’s go through the list and try to give rational and positive answers to fears shall we?

Fear number 1: I’m afraid this will take even more time.

Answer:
Just like everything else in life that we have to learn. Tracking our progress and analyzing ourselves takes time and effort. The Irony is that most people who are gathering information to better know themselves already feel like they don’t have enough time from the start. This really puts a damper on trying out something new. It might be hard at first but remember that this can be temporary up until you have the info then you can have the data necessary to gain time permanently.

Fear number 2: I’m afraid it won’t work.

Answer:
It’s not about “work” or “not work.” it’s about having more info on yourself the results will follow after having the knowledge you need!

Fear Number 3: I’m afraid I won’t remember to right things down when I need to!

Answer:
There are plenty of ways to remember to jot down some info. You can put reminders on your phone. You can find apps that will help with tracking your daily activities. Even ask friends to hold you accountable in some way (Although I’m pretty sure you don’t want your friend to call every hour!). Remember that its not the end of the world if you forget.

In sports they track their progress all the time (I know that sports analogies are used often when it comes to self improvement but it works so) and for good reasons.

Professional athletes know their progress, their limits, habits...you name it! This helps them to achieve better results more quickly. They don’t leave progress to chance and why should you?

It's all about getting some knowledge of yourself in order for you to be empowered.

In my next post I will share some of the self tracking exercises and tools I'm going to try out and in a few weeks we will see the outcome together.

The Past Tense

I've always been in the impression that I was a really good artist. I trained everyday, practiced very hard to reach new plateaus and was very disciplined. My biggest competitor was myself and I was a worthy opponent.

I was sharp, I was quick, and I had great judgment. I was always around older more experienced artist and giving them a run for there money.

So to my surprise one day a student of mine asked a question in my animation class and I gave him an answer that I was pretty satisfied with but he wasn't.

He contested my answer and what was disturbing was not the fact that he challenged me. In fact I love challenges! What really got to me was the thought I had immediately after he challenged my answer. I thought to myself  "Tree years ago I would have really showed you what its all about!".

What?! Tree years ago!

Why was I having this feeling?

It's easy to live in the past. Notice I'm excessively using the word "was" in this post?

I knew deep down inside that I was out of practice. The truth came out and I just needed to be challenged to remind myself that I was out of practice.

Don't wait for others to challenge yourself because if you do you might wait for a long time and once they bring you back in the "now" you might not like what you see.

Instead, challenge yourself now. Remember what made you great during your best days and apply it in your life today. So that next time you are challenged you'll be ready!

Questions & Actions

Intrinsic motivation, the eye on the prize being fully immerse, balance, happiness. That moment when you forget about everyone and everything around. That moment when there is only one clear path, ...one, clear, goal.

Wouldn't it be great if every task you did would be with full passion, concentration and clarity.

And what about the big picture? That true self vision of you. Wouldn't it be convenient if everything you did with that full passion lead you closer to him?

But we don’t have all the answers now do we?

I believe in practicing actions and in those actions lies answers.

I'm glad to join Men 2.0 and find out where these actions will take us.

~Brian