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The Beauty of Eternal Loneliness

Byjack
The Beauty of Eternal Loneliness

When I met her

I felt whole

Her love

Insistant, constant

Made me feel safe

Made me feel free

Accepted

Made me want to feel

Devoted

But when the loneliness came back

I tried to lean

On her

And I leaned instead

On a wall of toothpicks

Left behind

When I fell

The toothpicks scattered around me

I’ve never felt more alone in my life

I tried to fill something missing in me

With her

So much

I forgot

No one is forever

We are alone

From the moment we draw our first

To the last

And when I tried to desperately fill

The loneliness with her

The loneliness that was a part of me

I also lost

The one person

Who was there

Before she came

After she leaves

The only one

Who can be alone together

With me

Me

 

There is no shame in loving hard, loving deeply. All love comes with sadness and a special sort of sadness that can be so unbearable we try to cover its beauty. But don’t be afraid. Love is the most beautiful emotion we feel. 

We seeks people who can heal us, compliment us and challenge us. It is the best thing in the world to seek out such people. Finding other people can be the most rewarding experience ever.

However, when we feel lonely, it reminds us to ask ourselves the question:

  • How do I feel? Let the answer come to you.
  • What would make you happy? What if you gave yourself permission to fail?

If we worry too much about losing someone:

  • We feel the feelings
  • A reminder that we are always alone
  • We let our frustration out in a way that feels good (running, hitting something)
  • Creating art that feels good
  • Focus on the present, that is all that exists

We should never be afraid to love. But we should be afraid of trying to replace ourselves with them.

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Profit in Peace 23: Values Update

Byjack

I have an update in my values.

It’s been interesting see how my values used to feel really unclear back in this post and recently got much more clear in this post, but now I feel even more clear.

Knowing your values is so important because it helps you set boundaries. When you don’t know your values it is hard to know when someone is crossing a boundary and if they are, what boundary they are crossing.

Here is the new list:

  • Honesty (push people who don’t accept you away, pull people who do, closer)
  • Empathy/Emotion (everyone is going through struggles, be present for people’s emotions without taking responsibility)
  • Freedom (used to call this time and space)
  • Ambition/Possibility/Dreaming
  • Respect (value others, others value you)
  • Health
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The Invitation From Life

Byjack

A few days ago, my coach asked me a powerful question. I don’t remember what it is but I came up with this poem.

the summer sun on the blue pool
smell of chlorine, flip flops on the concrete
the late nights in your city, lights on long streets
big dreams in a small classroom on a paper on the board
paint covering the canvases, dripping off the walls
life has always been waiting
for you to be recklessly, wildly, lovingly creative

This led to me deciding the most powerful question in this whole poem is “why has life always been waiting for you”?

I felt in many ways this is true. I live in a wonderfully creative city. I have a youtube channel, a coaching practice, a well-paying job with lots of free time. Life is waiting on me to make a move.

Privilege: The Tale of Two Airbnbs

Byjack

So I just changed Airbnbs in France and it made a massive mental difference.

The first Airbnb was fine. It looked nice and modern and was in the heart of the city. But the bed was uncomfortable and it was small and everything felt dark and closed.

The outside felt dirty and dark and the “main attraction” was the Carrefour (a french grocery that was extremely close by).

Rarely got a full nights sleep
View overlooking the street
Mirror in the back, not as big as it looks
Little bathroom
Door for apartment right window construction frame
The local attraction

The second Airbnb was very different. It was over twice as large (55 m2 vs 20 m2), filled with natural light and greenery and was near a park (Jardin des Arenes de Cimiez) and a museum (Musee Matisse). 

Living room is filled with natural light and interesting interior design and decor
Lots of space to work
Garden outside
More comfortable, though small bed
Outside the airbnb
Local attraction, Jardin des Arenes

The difference in mentality was so massive I was floored. In the first Airbnb I felt:

  • Depressed
  • Unmotivated to work
  • Tired
  • Not feeling like I’m on vacation

While in the new Airbnb I felt:

  • Like I was on vacation
  • Full of energy and enthusiasm
  • Ready to get work done
  • Feeling creative and relaxed

The interesting thing was, that my girlfriend told me that the new Airbnb was in a much much nicer and richer neighborhood and this got me thinking. This is the definition of privilege – the ability to grow up in an environment that nurtures you and gives you energy instead of sucking it away.

I’ve never believed in leveling the playing field for the sake of fairness because fairness is both a subjective and impossible standard to meet. Instead, I’ve been interested in creating a more productive society as a whole and I think that by creating better spaces for all of society people would feel more energetic and productive. I only experienced the change in physical space, in greenery and natural light and calm and quiet. What would happen if you were able to get a better mental environment, with more supportive loving people? This is why children in single-family homes and substance abuse have it so hard in getting ahead. They don’t have the mental environment to live up to their full potential.

This has a couple of implications for me:

  • Money is not everything, but it is important in getting you into a good environment
  • Don’t skimp out on rent or places to stay on vacation, the environment is everything
  • Surround yourself with nurturing people who help you feel peaceful and energetic
  • Take care of yourself and the space around you
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Workpost 5: Panic Attack

Byjack

I was just on the border of a panic attack when I went to go exercise.

My Head Hurts

Eyes are swimming in a pain in the back of my head

Heart beating like its a race

And no matter how fast it beats

It isn’t fast enough

To catch up

With the work I want to do

After hanging for a little bit, I decided something. I need to go back to basics. As the level of work, my ambition, my organization go up…so have my stress levels. It is beginning hard to relax, hard to feel in the moment. It feels like I’m in an endless race with no chance to catch my breath.

So here are the basics:

  1. The planning I’m doing in these blog posts give me a huge edge in terms of direction and thought process in a huge number of goals at the same time. However, I now need to do the opposite. The basic I have in mind is this – focus on one thing at a time. Make a todo list. Create prioritization. Make it emotionally make sense (choose what emotionally feels important to focus on first, not logically). Clear all distractions and focus on one thing.
  2. Use the taoist approach to achieve fulfillment. Work until you feel empty.
  3. Use the coaching mindset…let the world come to you, have patience.

I also realized I did not work on the product research goal.

So here it is:

Goal: Create free products in 1 month | UNIT ONE: Complete research | Part 1 Transcribe and think, what is the million dollar problem or breakthrough?

  • One interview per day
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Workpost 37: Fundamental Systems

Byjack

Today I feel tired. My kidneys ache. They feel bloated and stagnated. My stomach feels slow. My head iches on the top. My eyes are dry. I feel burning inflammation up my back and spine. My skin is flaking on my face.

These past few days have felt exhausting, extremely stressful, and demoralizing. Last night, I asked myself the question, how do I get out of this.

I didn’t know the answer then, but my answer today during my walk was to take my stress seriously.

And just now, I had a realization that I have the systems developed to do extraordinary things. I just need to utilize them and follow their principals.

Systems in place:

  1. Daily walk to ponder questions I am stressed about
  2. Daily workpost to grow myself, plan for greatness
  3. Clean space to deal with stress, clean place = clean mind
  4. Meal prep strategy for healthy cheap meals with little stress – fridge containers, tacos, lettuce wraps
  5. Whiteboards to write strategies
  6. Off computer working systems (working while walking, running errands, working out, eating out)
  7. Todo list strategy – focus on one thing at a time, prioritize
  8. Clean after working hours to transition, decompress
  9. Crawling to get cardio in small space
  10. Walking backwards and tibialus for knee
  11. Hanging for shoulders and posture
  12. Working out after and before meals for better absorption, muscle growth, and recovery
  13. Journaling to ask myself questions at night
  14. Walking with no effort

I have absolutely everything I need to build a life where I can do almost anything I want, achieve anything I want.

Right now, I want to focus on two things: recovery and priming

Priming are stuff like cleaning, wiping off my whiteboards, clearing out tabs, filling markers, mealprep, todo list grooming

Recovery means lots of sleep, rest, hydration, and exercise. Specifically paying attention to anytime I want to game to see if I feel stressed or uncomfortable, taking a break when that happens.

To top off this post, I want to attach something that I want to erase from my whiteboard, but want to save forever:

Reasons Why I’m Ready

  • I’ve developed very deep and powerful life theories (flow, connection) → these theories can give anyone direction in darkness, I forget them but they come back when I need them
  • When faced with pain I’ve always come out stronger (ACL) → pain is the greatest teacher
  • I’ve proven that I can complete hard challenges (knee, sova) → I can achieve the challenges I set my mind to
  • I can solve problems few people can solve (triage, nikola) → normal rules don’t apply
  • I’m deeply attuned to emotions (coaching, art, philosophy) → makes it much easier to connect with people
  • I used to walk up to girls on the street → Nothing is something I can’t handle. There is nothing that I can’t ask for
  • No matter how badly I fail there are people who still love me
  • The point is not to get there, be productive or succeed, the point is to find a meaningful problem, problems we want to solve → we will never have no problems but we can choose which problems we want to contend with
  • Happiness doesn’t come from acing the past but seizing the now → its never too late to be happyIt’s near too late to fix it with a degree in engineering and parents who don’t mess with me
  • I have lots of assets and saving and a degree in engineering and parents and a sister all with money saved
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Workspace 21: Be the Underdog

Byjack

I’ve been thinking more about rejection and working through some of my thoughts with it.

I want people to validate me to feel confident being myself. But validation and confidence are completely different.

Confidence is all about being ok with not getting other’s approval and validation, being ok with not being the strongest, the smartest, the most attractive. I want to find a way to let go of seeking approval from everyone. That is seriously holding me back.

The first thing I realized is that I need to be clear about what I value outside of approval.

I love solving difficult problems. I love learning, growing, and improving myself. I love creating. I love meeting new people and connecting with those people on a deep level. I love consuming art and music, writing and dance.

Being rejected doesn’t stop me from pursuing those things. In fact, people who reject me might realize my path is one they admire and want to follow.

The second thing I realized is that I can use rejection as motivation. It’s just a challenge to my ego. It makes me stronger.

I don’t want anything handed to me. The hero has the slay the dragon. I want to be the underdog, and I strive for greatness.