I want to let y’all know what is going on in my life.

There will be a pause in my articles, podcast, and videos until at least August. For the next two weeks or so I will be delivering our boat from the BVI to the USA. 

Wait, WTaF?

For those who don’t know, my family has been planning to live on a boat since before the pandemic. We are finally to the point of making the shift. We are selling our home and getting rid of most of our stuff. We are buying a boat and will move a very small amount of our stuff onto the boat. We will be living on the boat in Chesapeake Bay, USA until December when we will head to the Bahamas. 

It reminds me of this George Carlin skit:

Leaving the Rat Race

I’ve talked and written a lot about this shift, but mostly we want to try something new. We hope to shed some of the pressures of American Life and redefine our values. 

I’m terrified by all of it and think this is a great opportunity for growth. I also realize we may be in over our heads. But that’s life, isn’t it?

We may come crying back with our tails between our legs. Who knows? We’ll see. Good thing, bad thing, who knows. Reminds me of this Buddhist koan:

Are These Bad Times or Good Times? The Story of the Zen Farmer
When we stop trying to coerce life to go exactly the way we want, we naturally experience a greater sense of fluidity…mindfulness.com

I look forward to sharing my experiences and discovering how this will change my writing, podcasting, and video. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

In the meantime, please enjoy some of my older content and let me know how it holds up!

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Have you ever sat down and thought about your values? 

Values are important, motivating, and provide guidance.

I’ve done a lot of values work in therapy and find it challenging. I value many things, but prioritizing the top five to ten is difficult and dynamic.

One thing I have learned during over a decade of values work is that many human values suck. 

I think a lot about universal or ‘optimum’ values

Are there ‘optimum’ human values? For my purposes, optimum is an adjective meaning most favorable or desirable. The best. In biological systems, we can think of optimum in terms of homeostasis or balance. Please see here for more on that. 

An example of optimum is transportation. Can we identify an optimum mode of human transportation? Many suggest it is the bicycle: 

Science of Cycling: Human Power | Exploratorium
© The bicycle is a tremendously efficient means of transportation. In fact cycling is more efficient than any other…annex.exploratorium.edu

In the case of transportation, we skipped past ‘optimum’ in pursuit of ‘better’. Now we burn jet fuel to fly around the planet. This uses more fossil fuels and creates more problems associated with that industry. 

We also change our values

Change is inevitable. Everything is impermanent and evolves. Sometimes, we change toward improvement. Sometimes our pursuit of ‘better’ leads us astray. Words like improve, better, and success, are extremely subjective. 

Modernity induced a key shift away from optimum values and toward money, status, and power. Currently, artificial intelligence is exacerbating this transformation.

With each technological advancement, we need to revisit our values. We are mistaken to believe that each step along the evolutionary ladder is an improvement. Rather, organisms experience increases in efficiency that facilitate new abilities. But these advancements are not always the optima.

Consider, briefly, biological respiration. An amphibian requires minimal energetic investments to oxygenate cells across moist skin. Humans, on the other hand, must breathe. While humans can be more active and grow larger and more complex, are we ‘better’?

So with evolution, knowing what is optimum is key

Humans evolved the ability to choose, which itself becomes a selection pressure. We can influence our evolution. If we want to remain extant we need to make better choices.

Valuing money, status, and power leads to our demise. To enhance evolutionary fitness we must revisit our past. In our past, we may find more optimum values to guide our future.

I will be assisting with delivering my future floating home for the next few weeks but will post when I can. Please check out my back catalog here and on The Neurodivergent Professor podcast and YouTube channel. 

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“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”

― Charles Bukowski

Do you ever think about this? Can you think of an example from your life?

Sometimes, it seems we’re surrounded by idiots. 

And they’re loud.  We worship confidence, arrogance, and status. Why are we surprised when the greedy become gluttonous?

Why do we not honor traits like kindness, empathy, and connection? A lot of this is fear. We worry about what might happen if we interrupt, disagree, or speak our minds. 

The system is oppressive

 The system requires non-leaders to be complicit, to elect these leaders, and to value the characteristics that make them so bad at leading. These power differential relationships are not only common, but they also dominate. In one way, we are simply playing our role in the governance systems of human society. From another viewpoint, if we do not reject the undeservedly arrogant, we are complicit in their remaining in power. The good news is, that these authoritarians have no power if we can stop enabling.

Taking the bone away from the pit bull

It makes perfect sense that the oppressors are drunk with power. We expect our oppressors to oppress. This power is just too much. Like heroin or iPhones, it is impossible to resist once you’ve had a taste. Once a person who values power, status, and money gains access to these things, it becomes a runaway train. The first step is taking away their power. But how do we do that?

What are the alternatives?

Our current societies are governed by the wrong values. We admire those who seek and master power, status, and money.  It is time we choose a more cooperative and less competitive approach. There are too few winners under our current competition models. What is voting if not a competition? A solution I propose frequently is simply not to elect anyone who wants to be in government.  To change anything, we must first take the bone away from the pit bull. Power is addictive and no one who has it is going to give it up willingly. Unfortunately, the system makes it nearly impossible for us enablers to do anything about it because we have no power. It isn’t easy to leave an abusive relationship. It’s a trap.  But we must take the power away. Ending the enabling slays the dragon. 

Help ourselves, help each other

The first step is for those of us more fortunate to help ourselves. I preach about a practice that facilitates healing and includes journaling, therapy, meditation, mindfulness, and healthy living. These journeys are unique to each of us and, in my opinion, our responsibility. The next step is for those more able to help those less able. Some of us suffer less from oppression. The global north, for example, has gained all the benefits of using fossil fuels. This leg up can be used to help leverage smaller countries to build the necessary infrastructure to be able to care about things like government. Those of us not in abusive relationships can connect with centers designed to help abused spouses leave unhealthy relationships. We can help adults learn to read.  We help ourselves, then we can help each other. This nurtures connectivity and cooperation. It forms the foundation of a bottom-up takeover and redistribution of power.

In my perfect world, all voices will be heard with equanimity. 

The one-dimensional, self-serving, obnoxious voices will be ignored by most rather than supported. We can get there by cooperating.

It’s the hardest thing we do because it is overthrowing the system designed to keep us complicit. 

This ain’t gonna be easy.

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Analog nomads . . . . . 

When I decided to focus on the Are vs Should Problem, or the struggle between the person you ARE and the person you feel like you SHOULD BE, I was thinking mostly about the SHOULD part. 

To me, the issue isn't so much about figuring out who we ARE, it's more about telling the SHOULDs to be quiet. And figuring out how to do that. 

The AREs are things we want to be, know we are, and find comfort in. The SHOULDs tend to be things we don't necessarily want to do or be, but feel (for varying reasons) that we are supposed to do or be. 

In the AVS interview series, I've talked to people across the spectrum of ARE to SHOULD. Most people talked about their struggles with the SHOULDs, even if they were/are currently living mostly in their ARE. I think most of us would rather be seen as living in our AREs, but few of us are doing it well. I think you will agree that Pat exemplifies what it looks like when you are minimally influenced by the status quo.

Pat Schulte is someone I thought might not have much to say at all about the SHOULD, because it seems to me he, and his family, live primarily in their ARE.

I knew about Pat, his wife Ali, and their two kids, through their blog called Bumfuzzle. I am interested in sailing, and as you may know my wife and I plan to move on to a sailboat at some point in the not-too-distant future. So I discovered Bumfuzzle as I searched for role models who had done similar, seemingly crazy, things.

And if you didn't catch the word 'blog', let me mention that there are no videos nor audio on Bumfuzzle. It is a blog in the most classic, analog sense. Pat writes posts about their adventures. They are accompanied by excellent digital images, but that's as far as it goes with respect to the YouTube, Instagram world we live in. Nearly all of the other adventurer web pages feature video nowadays.

But that doesn't detract from the Bumfuzzle story - it accentuates the coolness of it. The adventureness of it. The ARE of it.

In short, Pat and Ali left the rat race as we know it in their late 20s and have not stopped in twenty years. Whether boat, car, motorhome, or camper trailer they have lived a nomadic lifestyle. They seem to go where they please, however they choose, at whatever pace they happen to take. It's the most carefree thing I can think of.

Yet Pat holds a job, albeit one that allows him to work remotely, and they are not independently wealthy. They also have two kids along for the adventure. Their lives are far from easy, but they seem simple. They figured out what they wanted and made it happen.

Which is why I like using the term analog to describe them - and Pat didn't seem to mind this term. They are like analog nomads. . . . 

Before KEW, reading their blog made me feel like I was watching Star Wars. It seemed like such a fantasy. But they are DOING IT. The live it. And they don't seem to be any worse for the wear. In fact, and you can see this in the interview, Pat seems so . . . . normal. So peaceful and calm. So centered. So wise. 

Maybe the AREness of their lifestyle isn't correlated to that vibe. But I'm going to argue it is.

I find Bumfuzzle inspring. It is so important to have a mirror to reflect back to you the life you want. I hope the Schulte's adventures do this for you as they do for me. I hope you are inspired to live more in your ARE, and to make the sacrifices to do so knowing there is value there. 

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Quick show of hands. Who among us has ever been told they should journal?

Even though this is a 'should' statement, people who say 'you should journal' mean well.

I'll say it, and I mean well.

But I'll say it without using the word 'should'.

You will benefit from journaling. 

If that sounds like a money-back guarantee, it's the closest thing you can get for free.

But also remember, free advice is worth what you pay for it.

Except that journaling is on, like, 100% of all the 'to-do' lists.

Therapists. Coaches. Teachers. Parents. Counselors. 

They all know about journaling. It is a powerful tool. 

But what is it?

It's LITERALLY just writing out your thoughts. Either on paper or on a computer or typewriter. 

Hell, my podcast is arguably an exercise in journaling and there's no writing involved.

Journaling is facilitating a flow of thoughts from your brain/mind to some neutral zone.

This facilitation process is fairly easy, but it does several things.

It alters HOW the thoughts move. 

In your brain or mind the thoughts are in a known space and will behave as they do in that space.

Often this behavior is insane, monkey-like, and we refer to it as the 'monkey-mind'. It seems out of control and fear inducing.

Other times thought behavior is more concise and cohesive. "Man, I'm really craving an IPA tonight."

Mostly, your mind is a bunch of background noise you don't pay attention to.

When you journal, you ARE PAYING ATTENTION.

You are also directing the behavior of the thoughts to wrangle them on to the paper. 

These processes create and require AWARENESS of the thoughts and that you pay ATTENTION to how they form, how you form them on the page.

Those processes, in and of themselves, will induce great effects. 

But I can't really tell you WHAT or HOW. That's up to your system. It's all about how it UNFOLDS. It will be unique to you.

So. For the low-low price of free I'll give you a money-back guarantee that journaling will benefit you but I can't tell you how, or what, or even when.

I know. It's the deal of the century.

But that's how personal growth works, isn't it?

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Have you heard people say that you can't control what happens to you, but you CAN control how you react to what happens to you?

It's so true, but it isn't easy.

We all want some degree of control in our lives. Or wish for it. Long for it.

But control is an illusion. 

I'm not saying life is 100% chaotic and unpredictable, but being attached to controlling things really only wears you out.

I have learned that if I let go of (a little bit of) control my life is more comfortable. 

And increasing comfort (and calm, and peace) is my goal.

How, then, do we figure out how to live with less control?

One of the ways is simply called 'mindfulness'. And choosing a particular direction or frequency of your mind is called a 'mindset'. 

Choosing to be mindful in a particular mindset is how.

And, as you see on the internet, there are thousands of resources for being mindful or changing your mindset.

But what I have found is, you have to make a huge effort to direct your own path.

In other words, this is mostly a DIY project.

Yes, you need to learn what you want - and that's what we are doing now on KEW, applying the Are vs Should Problemand figuring out how to live more in our AREs and less in our SHOULDs.

So you really have to sit down and figure out what your values are, what your dreams are, what gets you out of bed in the morning, and what you WANT for your life.

But I'll tell you, being mindful - being aware, being able to direct your attention, being able to change your perspective from focusing solely on yourself to that of an observer and even other people - is key.

Mindfulness essentially means paying attention to your thoughts and checking them against your values.

Mindset, again, is a flavor of mindfulness. 

Growth mindsets choose to admit they don't know everything and are open to learning.

Abundance mindsets choose to believe the world has abundant resources for them.

A mindset of connectedness chooses to believe all people are connected and thus affect one another.

In other words, your mindset flavor is a choice. 

Do you choose to live a fulfilled life of joy and calm?

Or do you choose to focus on what you don't have?

What do you choose?

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Are you self aware?

We all think we are. Just like we all think we're right, as we learned from Paul Gadola in multiple interviews.

And, really, if you are taking the time to wonder whether or not you are self aware, you probably are.

Our awareness is one of our greatest strengths. It's a super power. Awareness is how we pay attention to the world around us. It is the currency we use to relate to the world and each other.

Awareness is the conduit through which we connect our individual selves or souls to the outside world or universe. 

We can learn to control awareness using our attention. If awareness is the noun, attention is the verb. We use our attention to set an INTENTION toward the universe. What do we want to spend our attention on?

If you're like me, you spend too much attention wasting your awareness on your d$%& smart phone. Or looking for the next distraction driven dopamine hit. But we're trying to do better.

The easiest and most effective way to train your attention is meditation. A lot has been said lately, and over the passed 3500 years, about meditation and it often gets overly complicated.

Meditation is simply how we train ourselves to pay attention. It is the practice of awareness.

I'll talk a bit about meditation in this Episode and how I came to practice. But don't worry, the next couple of Episodes will fall under the guise of Meditation, Mindfulness, and Mindset.

Many cogs of the same wheel. 

For anyone involved in, or curious about Meditation, Attention, Awareness, Mindset, and Mindfulness will benefit from this series of Episodes. I hope you will join me. 

I appreciate your comments, likes, follows, views, and subscribes. I hope we get a chance to interact.

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What DO you need? Have you ever really asked yourself this question?

And I don't mean what do you 'sort of what right now to pacify or distract you', I mean what do you REALLY need in your life that you don't have enough of?

I, and many of my guests, talk a lot about Values and knowing your 'Why', and knowing what you need is related to those ideas.

It amazes me how we THINK we know all this stuff about ourselves, but most of the time we are rushing to find some suitable answer rather than putting in the hard work of considering how we really FEEL.

And, sure, there's a bunch of folks out there - especially the macho men - who will laugh at the idea that we even have feelings. But if you're reading this you don't worry about what they think. 

Knowing how you feel is a critical step to self awareness. To knowing what you care about. To understanding your values. And to having filter or guidepost to help you prioritize your limited energies in you life.

As we navigate this thing called life, I find it is increasingly important to know what to prioritize or we end up wasting time. Too much time.

Many have said that time only goes by more quickly, and as I near 50 I can attest it is true. 

If you're thinking about how to get the most out of the time YOU have left, this Episode should help. As will the previous and future Episodes. Please consider following, commenting, and subscribing so I know you're listening.

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Have you ever met someone who seems to be doing exactly what they were meant to be doing? I have. And this week I'm sharing our conversation as part of the Are vs Should Problem discussion. 

Emmanuelle Chasse is a helper. Like many we've interviewed on KEW, she helps people through her writing, podcasting, and coaching. You can find out all about how she can help you here: https://rapidtransformation.ca. Reach out and she can help you make a rapid transformation.

It was great to get Emma's insight about being the people we Are and struggling with the people we feel like we Should be. There's too much shouldding in the world, and she has seen her fair share. In herself and her clients.

From sticking to diets to not beating yourself up to learning to understand you are meant to be who you are, Emma has dedicated her career to helping people. Using talk therapy techniques, hypnotherapy, and learning from professionals in their respective techniques, you will find solutions.

I hope you enjoy listening to what Emma has to say as much as I did. Below is a short snippet of wisdom if you need a taste.

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If you have not seen the Social Dilemma, it is a great little conspiracy theory. And one I can get behind. The gist is internet companies (facebook, youtube, etc.) have developed complex algorithms (models, simplifications) that monitor your online (and off, through your phone microphone, alexa, etc.) behavior. These companies then use this information to determine what advertisements you might click on, perpetuating the online economy.

If you think about this in capitalistic terms, it's genius. We've now gone far beyond mere psychological manipulation, popularized by the 'mad men' of the 50s through today, and can now trick you into letting them measure your actual behavior. Whereas before the estimates were 'pretty good', now they can be 'excellent'. 

In short, your attention has become a product thanks to sophisticated (not really) math.

So this episode is all about how we simplify the world. Sometimes this is a very good thing. We weed through the nonsense to focus on what is important - watch for a Prioritizing episode in the near future. But in the case of the YouTube algorithm, the advertisers are simplifying you into a robot that consumes. You, in short, become the proverbial cog in the capitalism wheel. You are, in the best case scenario, providing free data to the overall human model. And at the worst case, you are being manipulated into believing things you may not choose to believe under normal circumstances.

Of course, it's easy for me to believe this 'what could be a conspiracy theory' because I have a negative mindset toward advertising and marketing. While I understand the need to get in front of people's eyes to make them aware of your products or message (like my blog and podcast), I greatly dislike the use of manipulation, whether indirect (psychology) or direct (click measurements). 

But this Episode is really just about models. What they are and how they are used. Whether for good or evil.

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Are you a parent? Do you know any parents? Do you think you might ever BE a parent? Do you HAVE parents?

Surely you answered yes to at least one of those questions. And, if so, this interview is going to benefit you in many ways.

Kate Stark teaches parents to feel better about themselves. And this is a very timely and necessary gift. See the video snippet below to see what I mean. It might be something you need to hear right now. I know it often is for me.

Kate has a gift of compassion. And sense. And knowledge. And wisdom. See, she's a perfect fit for what I'm trying to do hear.

Kate really gets the Are vs Should Problem, and shares with us the many ways parenting exemplifies this struggle. We Should ourselves into patterns of shame and depression because we want to be good parents. We forget that, as long as our intentions come from love, that we ARE naturally good at parenting. 

Kate Stark reminds us of that. This is a must listen.

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Thank you for following along as we gear up for the 'how-to' section of the Are vs Should Problem.

We spent over 30 Episodes outlining various elements within the Are vs Should Problem. Turns out this fairly universal issue has a lot going on inside. Because I let these Episodes unfold organically, I didn't know what to expect. The same thing is happening as we transition from the 'whats' to the 'how-tos'.

In my experience as an academic scientist, I came to rely on a non-traditional approach to my experimentation. I wanted to take the simplest, most sincere, and least complex approach I could to answering a problem. In part, this strategy aimed to oppose something I saw a lot of among my colleagues and peers: smoke screening. I saw a lot of academic research that was overly and unnecessarily complex. I always suspected that this strategy aimed to confuse the reader and distract from what was typically pretty weak science.

I try my best to aim for the least number of parts, the easiest approach, and tend to favor the explanation that has the fewest parts. I find this attractive and neat. But most importantly, I find these types of approaches and explanations to be the most useful. 

So in this Episode I lay out the approach I will take in the following Episodes 81-??? where I explain what I have learned with respect to 'living a better life' or 'reducing the struggle' or 'living more in the are and less in the should'. I hope you find it helpful in deciding if this is something you're interested in or something you think might agree with your preferred way or learning and understanding.

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If you follow Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom you will be familiar with IFS. If you are not familiar, Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a psychotherapy model used to heal past trauma.

In IFS, we view ourselves as being comprised of 'parts' that resemble siblings in a big family. These parts have taken on roles over time that we continue to implement as they all serve some purpose in our internal 'family'. 

The process of working with IFS is to help these parts figure out why they do what they do and offer them new roles that might better serve the family. Through this process, parts become aware of each other, learn to interact, and learn to trust a central figure referred to as Self with a capital S.

Stephanie Mitchell is an Australian dynamo who specializes in using IFS to heal people with significant psychological issues including schizophrenia. She is well known and runs a practice with many supporting staff. 

She lives and breathes IFS because she strongly believes in the utility of the model. She has seen it work in extreme cases and, especially, with herself.

Anyone interested in personal growth, therapy, or coaching will enjoy this interview. You get insight about how IFS works both in therapy and in a day-to-day practice. You'll learn about some typical parts and how they interact and heal. And you'll get the gospel straight from the source.

I am proud to present this interview and hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Links to information about Stephanie Mitchell; the first is her webpage:

https://www.ifsconnections.com.au

https://ifs-institute.com/practitioners/all/63770

http://www.internalfamilysystemstrainingaustralia.com.au/person/stephanie-mitchell/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-mitchell-ifs/?originalSubdomain=au

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What went right?

Do you ever wonder how we got here? Do you ever think about what has changed over hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution?

The past few decades have seen exponential growth in technology. Smartphones. Passenger trips to space. Electric vehicles. Lots of crazy new tech. In most of our lifetimes, technological advances have dominated the changes we experience.

Science changed the world. Medical advances like germ theory and surgical techniques have arguably improved our lives. 

Fossil fuel use has underwritten most of our ‘advances’ in making things easier to do. Imagine having to walk to the store to get groceries.

What went wrong?

Despite all of these increases in knowledge and efficiency, we are surrounded by problems associated with these advances. We are addicted to our smartphones. We drive too much. The speed with which we live our lives has become dangerously fast. We struggle with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Wars are fought over the increasing limitations in the fossil fuels that provided all of these comforts.

It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature

I can’t help but think about the lack of systems thinking that got us here. Arguably, the ‘advanced thinking’ that got us to the point where we have ‘godlike technology’ has caused at least as many problems as it has solved. 

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

― Edward O. Wilson

Our creative abilities have outpaced our nature. We abandoned the understanding that all things are interconnected, depend on each other, and work together in a natural system. We thought we could out-do evolution.

Natural selection wins

Despite our ability to outpace selection, the natural world will select the traits that work. I can’t see how arrogance and competition are going to ‘win’ over empathy and cooperation. If we consult the natural world, we will see how this plays out.

Yes, competition exists and even regulates some animals in some populations. Sure, being aggressive, mean, and arrogant has led to world domination by some cultures. Yes, if we allow and tolerate excessive inequality it will persist.

But does that make it right? In a world that is intimately interconnected and interdependent, do we think that is going to work in the long run?

The oversimplification of the world will be our demise

Until we accept that Natural Law governs all things, including arrogant humans, our extinction will continue. I firmly believe Homo sapiens is being selected against. Our inability to consider the long-term consequences of our short-term gains, our insistence on ‘privatizing the gains and socializing the losses’, and our valuation of competition over cooperation are driving nails in our collective coffin.

I say this not as a doomer. I have faith that humans will, eventually, see the errors of our ways. I think I am a small part of a growing movement that is ‘coming to Jesus’ about where we goofed up. I am confident we will get it right. I’m just getting impatient and it is hard to watch.

More like this on Medium, and The Neurodivergent Professor podcast.

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Have you ever really thought about what you want? I mean really sat down and asked yourself what you would change if you could? 

Maybe you said you want more money.

Less time at work.

More time with family.

Longer vacations.

A bigger house, better car, or fancier smartphone.

If you keep at this long enough, and wish for all the material things, what do you REALLY want?

When I did this sort of iterative practice, I realized one of the main things I really want is more calm.

More calm.

More peace.

More sitting with it.

Less frantic.

Less anxiety.

Less fear and uncertainty.

So, yeah, when I really think about what I want, it is to move more easily through life.

In the sense of buddhism, more calm is less suffering. Less struggle. Less Dis-satisfaction. More calm.

Also, to be more calm as life unfolds before us, as Neil Bjorklund would say.

I wonder to what degree this is something we all want. 

Underneath all the material things and the money, there is often a sense of fear or need for safety.

But I still come back to calm. Because life can be scary, fear persists, but in a calm state of mind I feel like I can handle it. 

So in this Episode, I talk a bit about how we can find calm and why I think it is fairly universal. I hope you find it helpful.

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If you are interested in therapy and coaching. Either for yourself, someone you love, or just because you think it's cool. Gretchen Winterkorn is a wonderful person for you to meet, and you can check out her short video below.

I am very lucky to see some cool people doing these KEW interviews, and I really enjoyed listening TO and talking WITH Gretchen. 

Relevant to the Are vs Should Problem, Gretchen and her family just simplified their lives in a huge way, moving from NYC to a flower farm in upstate NY. Pretty major life shift. Pretty awesome opportunity for simplifying things. For focusing less on the SHOULD and more on the ARE, huh?

And Gretchen is super at sharing her thoughts about this move, and the more general AvS issues in our lives.

You can tell she works with people. She is a natural. I hope you feel the same connection to her listening or watching her talk. It just feels good, and the information is helpful to boot!

Though the material Gretchen shares with us is relevant and helpful to our individual personal growth journeys, it is her relatability (is that a word?) that is going to win you over.

You can find out more about Gretchen, her family, her work, and her flower farm at www.birdess.com

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Are you an analytical person? Do you think science is a good way of answering questions? Do you also believe there are things science CAN'T answer?

Do you struggle from a mix of pragmatic and spiritual beliefs? Do you consider yourself to be pretty smart?

Do you have a strong distrust for the status quo? Have you ever felt like a non-conformist, whether by choice or just because?

If you answered any of those questions I think you'll enjoy this episode and KEW in general.

My goal is to share a pathway toward reducing struggle, suffering, dissatisfaction, and restlessness to improve our lives.

Like any good 'scientist', I am stating my assumptions and baseline beliefs prior to establishing a set of techniques to bring more peace, calm, and satisfaction to our lives.

This will serve as a partial foundation to future episodes that will focus on things we can do to improve our time on Earth, make sure our voices are heard, influence each other, and start to solve the bigger problems. 

Please follow me here on the blog, subscribe to the podcast, and follow the YouTube channel. There's a lot coming up you won't want to miss.

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I am extremely excited for you to meet Neil Bjorklund in this week's Are vs Should Interview Series. Unlike most KEW interviews, I knew Neil prior to having him on KEW. But probably not as well as he knows me, as he is my coach.

I have worked with Neil for a little over a year, doing somatic healing work using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. Neil has all sorts of other training in healing past trauma, improving one's life, and personal growth, but we focus primarily on IFS.

I 'discovered' Neil through a haphazard path. As a teenager I read a series of books by Carlos Castaneda and a quasi fictional character named Don Juan Matus. This was my introduction to the Toltec lineage of central American people, but I was mostly interested in the psychedelic drugs. Later I realized that other folks were interested in actual Toltec history and wisdom, and I found work by Gary van Warmerdam, who was a student of Don Miguel Ruiz, author of the Four Agreements. I finally arrived at Neil because Gary endorsed Neil on his webpage.

Though I have always been interested in personal growth, I always considered it to exist only in the world of licensed psychologists and therapists. I didn't think coaches, healers, helpers, aids, assistants or persons acting outside the realm of the 'American credentials system' would be helpful. I had a lot of suspicions and worries about being sold snake oil.

Prior to Neil I had experimented with online coaching, receiving instruction from Mandy Napier whom I interviewed early in 2021. The experienced opened my mind to 'non-traditional' lines of healing. My interest in Toltec wisdom coupled with the circuitous path toward Neil led me to seek his help. And I'm glad I did.

Neil's pathway, however, makes mine look fairly linear. But I'll let him tell you about that. I'm pretty sure Neil has done and experienced all sorts of things I know nothing about. But this interview gives you a pretty good glimpse in to how he lives his life, the kinds of things he thinks about, and what it means to have a high degree of self mastery.

I'll stop there and let Neil tell his story. I hope you listen, watch, and enjoy.

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As you know, we have been exploring the Are vs Should Problem; the struggle between the people we are and the people we feel like we should be. Since Episode 50, but really since about Episode 42, and ARGUABLY since Episode 1 I have been developing the ideas and concepts that load into the Are vs Should modality.

I hope you have found some value in these Episodes.

And I hope you will journey with me toward the next Phase of this model development

In the next Episode or two, I will go through the pivot from WHAT the Are vs Should Problem IS, and all the little pieces that are relevant to people struggling with this cognitive dissonance, toward the HOW-TO of 'what-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do-now' part of the deal.

Because living more in the Are and less in the Should takes work. And it isn't just the kind of work where one day you say, 'ok, I'm going to change' and then wake up the next day all changed.

No, this is a life long path way that has no destination.

And we begin this journey by understanding who we are, why we're here, what we're doing, and how we're going to do it.

So I wanted to take this Episode, and perhaps another. . . or two. . . and figure out who you are and tell you more about who I am. 

All this to help you figure out if this is worth your time. 

Briefly, someone who is going to benefit from this journey, or the past journey, of KEW is:

Analytical

Intelligent

Curious

Self-aware

Out-of-the-box

Unique

Different

Empathic

Distrusting of the status-quo

Mindful

Appreciative of diversity

Open-minded

And so much more. But that's a start. I'm still figuring out who I am, after all.

I am looking forward to this trip and hope you will join me.

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Bruce Nachsin came to us through a podcaster facebook group. He has his own podcast called, 'The Fattest Fit Kid You Know'. He's super funny, a Hollywood actor, and knows a thing or two about living in your 'Are'. It was incredibly fun (and funny!) to sit and talk with Bruce for an hour or so.

Besides just being super funny and entertaining, Bruce has a lot to say about podcasting, changing old habits, and helping each other out in this complicated world. Like I told him, my face was red the whole time from laughing so hard. 

But Bruce isn't just being funny to be funny. It's his way of talking about hard stuff - by making it real and laughing at himself. Somehow that makes us feel okay to laugh at ourselves and maybe, just maybe, be compassionate toward ourselves. And each other.

You'll get a good feel for Bruce's insight from the short video preview below.

Also, check out Bruce's homepage where you'll see the different kinds of things he's done.

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You've likely pondered the great, 'Who Am I?' question. But what about the 'Why Am I?'

The 'why' is a great question no matter the situation.

Of the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions the 'why' is probably the most challenging.

Is there a meaning to life?

Do you have a purpose?

Does anything matter?

Hundreds, if not thousands, of philosophers have weighed in on the great question, but I'm not sure there's any consensus.

In fact, the 'Why Am I' is probably one of the most subjective questions one can ask.

So the 'Why' I talk a lot about is the 'Why' of the 'Why Am I'. 

Or, less ambiguously, the reasoning behind having a 'Why'.

In short, the 'Why' can be a guide that helps remind you of your path.

Kind of like your Values, your 'Why' is a reference beacon for when you get lost in the dark.

I hope this Episode encourages you to develop and/or maintain your 'Why' as a means of helping you move forward with your personal goals.

This Episode also marks a transition from the 'What' questions of Episodes 50-75, to the 'Why' of this Episode, and onward to the 'How' or 'How-To' of the Are vs Should Problem.

I hope you'll come with me on the journey.

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What more can I say about Paul Gadola?

I'm lucky to know him. 

I've interviewed him twice for my blog/podcast/YouTube channel.

I look at him as someone who has been up the mountain and come back down to share his wisdom with us.

I think he'd be a great whatever a pastor/preacher/rabbi is supposed to be.

He has written a book you should get from him (because you can't buy one on amazon yet).

He's an anti guru anti influencer. 

He's the kind of guy who is awesome and doesn't care. He'd rather just get to know you.

You can find out a lot about Paul listening to this interview Part 2. 

As well as Part 1.

And also his first interview here about Curiosity.

Oh, and also all of these places:

He has a gym to help people’s bodies: https://www.ironmountain.fitness

He and his wife have a freshly-prepared meals business to help people’s health: https://www.sunmealprep.com

He has written a book to help peoples minds and spirituality: https://www.facebook.com/thewritingsofpaulgadola/

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Do you ever ask yourself this question?

I have asked myself this question for as long as I can remember. In fact, I use this argument as a way to justify complaining. It's not a habit I am proud of and I'm working on changing it. But I often find myself getting angry because I can't find a definitive answer to whether something is good or bad or right or wrong.

Do you ever get to a point where you truly don't know which option to choose? It's a little bit like Analysis Paralysis, but different.

I often wrestle with whether or not I am being selfish or assertive. If I'm being honest, I often know whether I FEEL selfish or if I FEEL assertive, but I don't know how OTHER people feel about it. 

For example, my kids want to eat at an expensive chain restaurant I don't like. I don't enjoy spending the money for what I perceive to be very little value, but I don't know whether that is a good reason to say no. Even in this case I can quickly get sucked into an internal argument about whether I am being unreasonable or not.

Another example might be  related to work/life balance. Do I want to work extra to make more money even if it means missing out on family events? Am I being an insensitive dad or husband by working more? Or am I being a good provider? 

It seems like there's no way to know for sure. It often seems impossible to tell the difference between 'good' and 'bad'. 

And when it does seem like we know, it's pretty easy to argue that it's just an illusion. Don't we just CHOOSE to know the difference, and choose the option that makes us look less bad?

And knowing the incentive to make ourselves look better, or to feel better, or to stop ruminating about whether the decision is good or bad - knowing that incentive it's pretty easy to believe we are lying to ourselves. 

The only thing I can figure is that it IS a choice. That, and it seems like deep down we ought to know. 

But those are sort of 'Are' vs 'Should' arguments, aren't they? How do we know if we are in our 'are' or if we are 'shouldding' ourselves? 

Ultimately, it must be some sort of internal decision. Either we choose to do things differently because we are wrong, choosing incorrectly, selfish, or whatever. Or we choose to accept our decisions and choices as being motivated by good intentions. It's sort of the innocent until proven guilty thing.

And like last week when I talked about Self-Compassion, I would think it is healthier to default to treating ourselves well and not beating ourselves up. It seems like being kind to ourselves is a good thing.

And it also seems like we really would know when we are doing wrong. It seems like guilt after the fact, or regret, or hindsight would reveal if we were truly doing something that disagreed with our values or the way we want to live our lives.

It seems like we'd know. Only it is hard to know!

Over the next few Episodes I am going to dig in to some of this more thoroughly.

Please subscribe to Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom wherever you get podcasts and at my YouTube channel.

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I told Paul Gadola recently that he had climbed the mountain and returned to share his wisdom with us. In this two part interview series you'll have a chance to see what I mean. From his background in teaching to his childhood thoughts about becoming a spiritual leader, Paul has a natural way of understanding how to help people.

He has a gym to help people's bodies: https://www.ironmountain.fitness

He and his wife have a freshly-prepared meals business to help people's health: https://www.sunmealprep.com

He has written a book to help peoples minds and spirituality: https://www.facebook.com/thewritingsofpaulgadola/

So he's kind of the whole package. I'd say he's kind of a big deal but he'd laugh that away.

This was a really fun and loose interview. It's long. It was also live, as opposed to my usual zoom interviews, and so there's a lot more me in it than I'd like.

All in all, this is a glimpse into Pauls' mind and he ends up sharing many of his nuggets throughout the two hours. This week is Part 1, and next week I'll share the second hour.

You can also check out my first interview with Paul Gadola where we talked about Curiosity.

I know your time is valuable, but I think you will enjoy listening or watching. At the very least Paul's viewpoints are unique and he has a helpful way of summarizing things we already know in ways that make more sense.

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Ok, I know, it sounds weird but hear me out. 

Humans are freaked out by death. I’m not saying I’m any different, just drawing attention to this in hopes of reducing our suffering. Today I’m wondering what life would be like if we could change our relationship with death.

The Toltec civilization of Central America considered death an advisor like a friend who gives advice. In this way, Toltecs navigated their lives knowing they were temporary. It is a way to try and make the most of the time we have. 

Some modern cultures ask how you would live life differently if you knew you only had 6 months to live. I’m sure you’ve heard this approach at some point in your life. It’s an interesting question.

How would you live differently?

My ecological background treats death as a normal part of life. Death is kind of the same as birth. It is a necessary occurrence for all living things. Things change through time, and part of that is death. Humans forget this. We don’t talk about it. We pretend it isn’t true. We try to use technology to make it false.

Isn’t that weird? At least in an ecological sense? 

What did our other animals do? What did our ancestors do? I love that question. I think as our minds and nervous systems became more sophisticated we developed a lot of emotions around death. Sadness. Grief. Regret. 

I think that our hardware evolved faster than our software. 

In other words, our awareness of our emotions lags behind our capacity to have them. Let’s face it. Death is overwhelming.

But can’t we learn to incorporate death into our lives? Talk about it. Recognize it. Not overdramatize it so much. Can’t we use death as a reminder to live our lives? If we can embrace our mortality, we may discover ways of dealing with our loved ones’ deaths. 

Recognizing and talking about our mortality is a start. Ecology understands that all things are part of a larger system. Within this system, energy flows and nutrients cycle. Life and death are natural parts of that cycle. You can start at birth:

Death is a part of a natural cycle. 

One we can’t change. Isolation and alteration of any part of the system can upset everything. Modifying death can destroy the homeostasis within the biosphere. 

What would it be like with less fear and guilt and shame and drama? Would we be more connected and less separate? Can we take back all the energy we spend avoiding death and pretending it away? To do otherwise seems profane. 

I wish we talked more about death. 

I don’t want to take away the grief and sadness. But maybe we could learn to reduce the guilt and regret. Maybe it would help to ask ourselves how we would live differently if we understood our time here is limited. 

The Neurodivergent Professor is a weekly podcast and video project that examines what is like to be different.

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It's taken me over a decade of therapy and introspection to arrive at this Episode. I don't know what took me so long, but 'getting' self-compassion has been a real struggle for me. In the past few weeks a few things have clicked.

First, some Miriam-Webster informed verbiage:

Self: ha. dare we even try to define that? Even with the help of the dictionary? Hell, why not (only relevant entries included):

• 1: an individual's typical character or behavior
• 2: the union of elements (such as body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations) that constitute the individuality and identity of a person
• 4: the entire person of an individual
• 5: material that is part of an individual organism

Phew.

And, Compassion: 

• : a feeling of wanting to help someone who is sick, hungry, in trouble, etc.

And, Pity:

• : sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy

So Self-Compassion is wanting to help yourself when you are struggling, and Self-Pity is feeling sorry for yourself when you're unhappy. The first seems legit and kind, the second a bit indulgent. 

I spend this Episode sort of figuring out how to apply this difference to myself. 

No one wants to be accused of feeling sorry for themselves, and so the danger in self-compassion is that it drifts over into self-pity. And this also gets at what I'll discuss in Episode 75 and that is, How do you tell the difference?

In this case, one is healthy and one is unhealthy. And we know the difference. If we are being honest.

Anyway, during the latter 2/3 of this Episode I figure out how to apply self-compassion for myself in real-time. I felt a shift from theory to application that I hope will apply to future Episodes. My guess is that after Episode 75 I am going to shift into the Being and Doing phase of the Are vs Should Problem.

I'd say more, but I think you really need to just listen or watch this Episode to see where I go. And truly, I'm still ingesting it myself. I need to watch it again myself to understand exactly what happened.

Thank you for spending some of your time with me and these issues. I hope you are getting something important out of them. Please subscribe, follow, leave me a note, or send me an email. I appreciate your attention.

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Paul Levitin is an ally. He can help you be better at things. Whether it is your body or your mind, Paul is trained to help improve you. And he won't try to sell you anything you don't need. He recommends that you 'interview' him by listening to his Podcast, 'The Healthy Happy Human' to see if you like his style. I like his approach. I like him.

Paul answered my request to talk with people who understand The Are vs Should Problem. Paul had a lot to say about how we 'should all over ourselves' and why the person we 'are' is important. His strategies are interesting and extremely straightforward. There is something for everyone here.

I hope you give this entire interview a listen or a view - not for me, but for yourself. Paul has figured out a lot on his journey to help you. I recommend you let him do it by seeing what he has to say!

You can find Paul's inspiration on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/paullevitin/?hl=en

You can find all of Paul's professional info and links here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-levitin-a7b56018b/

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Ahh, stress, our bestest buddy. Our forever companion. The voice in our head telling us how much we suck. The ticking clock rushing us to work and home every day.

Yeah, you know what stress is, but what is it REALLY? And how can it be so many DIFFERENT things?

Can you define it if someone asks you? Beyond whatever it is in that particular moment that is bothering you? Like, generally, what is stress?

Well, Mirriam-Webster tell us (or we tell each other) that (and these are the definitions relevant to this discussion):

1: a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc.

She uses meditation as a way of reducing/relieving stress.Hormones are released into the body in response to emotional stress.

He needs help with stress management. [=ways to deal with stress]

2: something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety

I'm sorry for being grumpy. I've been under (a lot of) stress at work lately.

She is dealing with the stresses of working full-time and going to school.He talked about the stresses and strains of owning a business.

Ok, so mental tension (something you feel) caused by problems like anxiety and worry.

Yeah, ok, that's pretty close. But it's also very general. And ambiguous.

And what generalizations and ambiguity suggest is that we don't rally know. And I'm cool saying I don't really know what stress is. 

But I DO know what it feels like. Generally, anyway.

But I'll also argue that defining stress is like defining pornography in that you know it when you see it. It's hard to define exactly what it IS is difficult. 

MOREOVER, this generalizing causes us to lose perspective because we LUMP everything BAD we feel into one big feeling we call STRESS.

And I would argue that we would, ideally, like to be more emotionally intelligent. Don't we want to be able to deconstruct our feelings, use more accurate terminology, and better UNDERSTAND how we feel. And then, certainly, it follows that this would facilitate us being able to understand WHY it happens and HOW we can address it?
 

Because wouldn't it be awesome to change things that negatively affect our lives like fear, feeling unsafe, anxiety, and limiting beliefs?

IN FACT, I'll argue that being able to piece apart the monster we call stress is CRITICAL to us changing and growing away from the difficulties of life and more TOWARD the peaceful and calm experience many of us prefer.

In this Episode I try to take apart stress and give it better names and even talk a little bit about potential causes and solutions. Not to OMIT stress from our lives, but to change our relationship with it and help us understand what it is to be human. Hopefully just a little better. Or as Dan Harris says, 10% Happier.

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This was a really fun interview. I hesitate to say that, because it implies that not all the interview are fun, but I'm saying it anyway.

It's kind of like when people say, 'to be honest with you . . . ', because that implies they are sometimes dishonest.

But just watch Dalton Johnson talk and you'll see what I mean. His enthusiasm and sense of humor are infectious. And his story is cool. His storieS are cool. And he has a lot to say about the Are vs Should Problem. Not the least of which was how the book, 'The Alchemist', by by Paulo Coelho addressed a very similar issue.

Dalton talks a lot about the journey we take. I see it as the journey of the Are vs Should. Along our pathway we see choices. Some of these choices come from within (I want to do a podcast, Dalton wants to bicycle around New Zealand) and other choices come from without (and are in the realm of the shoulds).

What makes Dalton's stories compelling, is he doesn't seem to suffer from much of the Are - at least not the way I do. His journey, for the most part, seems to be about checking in with himself first, and asking the question, 'what do I want?'. And then he does that very thing. 

And if the passion and humor are any indication, I'd say Mr. Johnson has made very good choices. I could him as evidence that 'following your are' can lead to a successful life (measured not in money or power, but in other units). And this, I think, is a compelling model.

In the context of the Are vs Should Problem, it's no secret that I am rooting for us all to choose more 'are' and less 'should'. I present to you an example of how that can pan out for us. And it's never too late.

You can connect with Dalton on instagram and see his gorgeous photography here: Dalton's Instagram (incredible pics of incredible places) : https://www.instagram.com/daltonjohnsonmedia/

You can also check out his thoughts in his blog here: Dalton's Blog (insightful reading): https://www.daltonjohnsonmedia.com/blog/learning-to-breath-in-the-moment

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If you said 'money' or 'power', you are not alone. 

Sure, there are lots of different versions of success.

Getting a good grade.

Getting a raise or a better job.

Being invited to a prestigious event.

Being revered or treated like a celebrity.

But I think we can generally boil down the status quo definition of success to be related to having a lot of money or having a lot of power.

Mirriam-Webster tell us:

1 : the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame

And we could measure these things in units that are NOT money or power. But do we?

That's what I discuss in this week's episode.

Personally, I think measuring success in dollars and power units like followers or likes or attention is limiting and short-sighted.

I would rather my life be measured in units of comfort. And peace. And calm. And love.

But that's not sexy. Love doesn't get you flashy cars or big houses. Or designer jeans. Or whatever it is that people value.

And there's that word again: value.

It all comes down to our values. 

What is important to you? 

What gets you out of bed in the morning? 

What do you find motivating?

I would guess that many people would say money or power. This is why it is so critical to really think about what you value in order to get on your best path.

Because I can't imagine a life that considers money or power to be the only meaningful things one can experience. 

In fact, I would say one needs to 'get away' from money and power to really experience the best things in life.

How did we get it so backwards? How is it that people measure success the way many of us do? How is it that we don't see happiness or satisfaction as worthy achievements? 

If nothing else, how do we let each other know that we value other things and that success can be measured other ways? How do we support each other in our alternatives? 

Maybe that's the question of the day.

So. How do you measure success?

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I found Dawn Bates on a podcast interview facebook site. She was looking for podcasts to do interviews and promote her story. She is a coach, an author, and a genuine warrior. She is on a mission to help people in as many ways as she can. 

I reached out to her to discuss the Are vs Should Problem, and she agreed to weigh in on the subject.

I intentionally didn't learn anything about her, and I'm pretty sure she knew nothing about me or my podcast. What you see in this interview is a natural and organic discussion between two people over a single interesting question.

Why do we struggle between the person we ARE, and the person we feel like we SHOULD BE?

As you will learn, Dawn does not seem to struggle with this question. Maybe she used to, she doesn't say. I would say Dawn lives her live nearly entirely in the ARE. Which is envious.

During our discussion Ms. Bates gives me a quickie improvised coaching session. She pretty much nails a potential solution to my issues, offering the advice that I should just change how I think. For many people, that may do the trick. I have been down that road and it isn't that easy for me. But you may find her approach compelling and it might work great for you.

Dawn also shares her thoughts on more than one controversial, even conspiratorial, issue which, again, you may or may not agree with and/or find compelling. I include it all here for the sake of honesty. In fact, this interview is not edited at all. It is the entirety of our conversation beginning to end.

And so, dear viewer/listener/reader, I offer you my chat with Dawn Bates and invite you to check out her coaching, her story, and her books at www.dawnbates.com.

And, as always, feel free to share your thoughts below or on YouTube.

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From the dictionary:

1: able to be used without being completely used up or destroyed sustainable energy resources; a sustainable water supply

2: involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources sustainable agriculture/farming/techniques

3: able to last or continue for a long time sustainable development/growth

Have you ever noticed the hustlers around you? You know, the people working two or three side gigs, driving Uber Eats every evening, and staying incredibly busy? Some of these folks get little sleep and are very proud of their ability to work excessive hours and multiple jobs. They seem to have infinite sources of energy and an amazing ability to keep going. These 'hustlers' don't really HAVE to work that much, it's just their path toward having enough money (whatever 'enough' is, see Episode 20: Enough for more on that). 

You have probably also noticed the folks who have to work that hard and for that many hours JUST TO GET BY. I have a lot more sympathy for this second group because it's not their choice. See Episode 13: Slavery for more on THAT.

Regardless of the motivation, be it surviving or thriving, you probably see many of these people doing or achieving seemingly impossible things during the same 24 hour day you and I have.

This is what I'm getting at with this Episode.  

To these people I always think to myself, "This isn't sustainable".

At first I thought maybe I was just making excuse for why *I* couldn't achieve as much as these folks in my 24-hour day. These levels of achievement and work hours can make one feel inadequate. But this goes beyond jealousy or envy. My concern is for the long-term.

Because, sure, anyone can hustle on the short term. We have all had short periods in our lives where we have to work extra hard and extra long. The first six months of raising children, for example. That time at work when you're working toward a promotion. Writing your book.

But with these efforts, we believe the struggle is short-lived and will END in the not-to-distant future. This makes it ok.

What I'm talking about is the people who don't get this.

So many things are UNSUSTAINABLE. Meaning, they are too SOMETHING (intense, demanding, heavy, difficult, strenuous, etc) to be continued for a long period of time. 

Sprinting up a hill

Consuming alcohol

Not sleeping

Carrying heavy weight

It's just physics. Yet many of us try to beat the system. And not only does this concern me, for our individual and collective welfare, but it's CHEATING

You heard me. Long-term, life threatening, dangerous sustained effort is CHEATING. It's Gaming the System (and for more on THAT, see Episode 3: Gaming the System).

When something isn't sustainable, it is a signal that you're doing something wrong. Or, you are making a sacrifice over a short-term.

You can't sacrifice continually. It doesn't work like that. Once demand exhausts supply the game is over. There is no 'going into debt', only bankruptcy.

These are the basic principles of physics, ecology, and economics. 

Yet, everywhere you look you will see people undergoing intentionally unsustainable activities. To get richer, prettier, healthier, or more powerful. 

We think we are gaming the system, but we are really harming ourselves and others.

I hope you enjoy this episode and choose to like, subscribe or follow. The best place to stay up to date is by following

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Have you heard this phrase yet? In the past few weeks tons of articles have come out that explain the 'Great Resignation' or the 'Big Quit'. According to Wikipedia (yes, it has it's own wiki page) a fella called Anthony Klotz at Texas A&M predicted last May (2021) that people were going to leave the workplace as a result of Covid. And to summarize, very briefly, 'The Great Resignation' is an explanation about the reduced number of people in the workplace during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Ok, sure. So more people than usual are not working. Makes sense. There was some unemployment incentives, a little extra cash, extended for a longer period of time. That probably made not working and being on unemployment more attractive for a while. There were also eviction moratoria across the U.S. that reduced monthly expenses for a lot of renters. And, sure, there was some fear about being around a lot of people; especially in the food industry that was hit very hard by job losses.

And on the business side there was encouragement to KEEP workers due to the PPE money. 

The point is, there was a lot of money artificially pumped into the economy to keep us afloat while businesses 'took the hit' because no one would be spending any money, people would get laid off as a result, and our economy would tank.

Instead, what I have seen, and heard, and read about, is some businesses doing extremely and surprisingly well during the pandemic. Fast food and restaurants pivoted, closed their dining rooms and focused on to-go and drive through service. Breweries switched to canned six-packs delivered. And on and on. 

But even more surprisingly it seemed that everyone and their sister started being or remodeling their homes. People moved from the city to the country to buy more square footage with pools, home offices, and workout rooms. People who already lived in the country remodeled their kitchen and added a bonus room. But like the service industry, many of the suppliers could not have people in the factories and the supply of materials and homes could not keep up with demand. Which drove the prices up. But that didn't stop anybody.

And maybe that's what's so surprising to me. Not only are we not supposed to have the money to buy things now, we are spending money on things we don't necessarily need. And on top of THAT, we are paying too much for those things.

Does that sound like a busted economy to you? 

How in the world can the economy be so healthy that people can afford to not work as a result of a global pandemic?

So the next question is, are people just incredibly stupid, about to be broke, and headed for homelessness? Some would say yes but there is little evidence to support that theory.

The theories are all over the place. By the time I post this there will likely be twice as many articles online but I'll post a few:

https://www.wired.com/story/great-resignation-misses-the-point/

https://hbr.org/2021/09/who-is-driving-the-great-resignation

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1007914455/as-the-pandemic-recedes-millions-of-workers-are-saying-i-quit

These have been coming out for almost two months now, and the explanations are getting more and more diverse.

At the very least it doesn't make much sense.

At the very best this is an indication that the people are revolting. See my Episode about Slavery for more on that topic

I like to think it's more of the latter and that this may be the most memorable positive effect of the pandemic.

I hope you'll listen and/or watch and share your thoughts below.

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At the risk of sounding pessimistic or negative I am sharing my thoughts about a topic near and dear to me. More often than no, I believe people suck at their jobs. I don't think this suckage is always intentional and I do not believe people WANT to suck at their jobs. I am not here to blame individuals for their suckage nor to suggest this is necessarily related to the individuals.

My point here is to suggest that there is a problem with the SYSTEM of employment, work, the market, whatever. The arena 'out there' we participate in from multiple sides. We are simultaneously the consumer, the client, the employed, and the employer. We are the consumer and the consumed. We are supply and demand. We are it and it is us. And so the irritatingly slow service we get at a restaurant is as much our fault as anyone involved.

With THAT out of the way let me list a few examples from my personal life that have happened over the past couple of weeks whereI encountered someone sucking at their job:

-the employee at Home Depot who didn't feel like finding the 'customer needing assistance in plumbing' and either didn't respond to the request or was going to take an hour to reach me

-the general contractor who thought it was cool to tell me, repeatedly, he was emailing me a quote but never intended (apparently) to do so even after multiple conversations and texts

-the electrician who thinks 'next week' means 'whenever he feels like it but much longer than two weeks'

-the state employees who contradict each other about the steps to take to renew a passport and where said steps are to occur

-the bank employee who thinks 'direct deposit' means 'mail a check'

-the bank teller who can't look up my account from my id (standard procedure and preferred), but requires my account number (normal way I do it)

I could go on.

And a lot of these might be related to incompetence. Often the employees misbehavior is a result of simply being disgruntled. And mostly I can empathize and even agree with these sentiments. Many of these jobs suck, convey suckage, and perpetuate that message to the client/customer/consumer. I get that.

And sometimes staff are more afraid of their bosses reaction than a customers. I get that, too. While I have seen customers be rude, I have seen more bosses to tyrannical. Again, I sympathize.

And more than anything I get that the work conditions, pay rate, hours, and commute inherent to many of these jobs (especially the hourly pay rate) SUCK so bad that it is nearly impossible to convey positivity to the customer. 

I get all that - it's not that I don't understand WHY the behavior is occurring. No, what amazes me is that it is allowed to perpetuate.

Call me naive, because I am, but I fundamentally believe there is a solution to this, and really almost all, problems. And if you have listened to my Accountability (Episode 68) episode you know where I stand on this issue. So what gets me, when I see an employee act questionably, is why they persist in the SYSTEM.

Because, checks and balances. Adaptive management. RIGHT? Don't we HAVE these things? Aren't we sophisticated human beings that put taxpayers in SPACE and drive around with smart phones? 

So when I see misbehavior in the market place, I conclude that the SYSTEM is screwed somewhere FAR upstream from the problem I am observing. And I'm right about that. We SEE the symptoms, not the problem. 

And SOLUTIONS to these problems also lie upstream. For a start, how about the whole shareholder model? When businesses exist to profit for shareholders, I don't see solutions to problems related to employees and customers - because THAT'S NOT WHAT THE BUSINESS DOES. 

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Does this bother you?

You interact with someone at their job, maybe getting a coffee or something. The server is rude, obnoxious, entitled, and unhelpful. Maybe they're even condescending toward you. You may or may not say anything, but, hey, you want your coffee. Maybe you think about it later, but at some point it occurs to you that they were not good at their job in that moment. Maybe it was an isolated event, maybe it was the norm.

But what gets me, and maybe you, too, is that they were THERE. Which means this WAS an isolated event or their supervisor didn't notice. In any event, and this is where my mind always goes, the fact that they were still working suggests that there was no ACCOUNTABILITY for their behavior.

Whenever I see someone acting like an asshole I think, "at some point someone was supposed to kick their ass and didn't'. In other words, people act the way they do because other people ALLOW them to, or ENABLE them.

So one thing accountability does is remove that enabling. It calls people out on their shit.

And that's the point I'm trying to make with Accountability this week. 

Again, from Mirriam-Webster: 

Accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions

So, yeah, the misbehaving barista? No one was holding them responsible for their actions. Neither you, their supervisor, their coworkers, other patrons, nor themselves.

And that just doesn't work. 

I'd argue that one of the main assumptions of any society is Accountability. 

Where there is no Accountability, there can be no rules. No norms. No laws. (See Episode 56: Domestication for more on these)

So there is no society with out Accountability, yet we are maybe not doing the best job practicing this obligation.

We are obligated to hold each other AND OURSELVES accountable for our actions - and probably our thoughts, ideas, and other things where they influence other people.

When did we forget this?

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Do you remember this nursery rhyme? 

When I was younger, I believed it. I thought I would rather be yelled at than physically harmed. While I feel lucky to have received more verbal bullying than actual butt-kickings, I’m not so sure the damage was less harmful.

As an adult, I realize words have real power and do a lot of harm on their own. Sometimes I wonder if words hurt worse than beatings. Certainly, words don’t ‘never hurt me’. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can break everything else. Including our hearts.

Words are hard, and communication is even harder. I often say it’s remarkable any two people can have a conversation where each person simultaneously feels understood and that they truly understand the other person. 

Poor communication can be traumatic

My experience in therapy, particularly using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, taught me that I had unmet needs as a kid. For whatever reason, I needed more information than was made available. I quickly learned that the people in my life, including my parents and teachers, didn’t want to communicate the way I needed to communicate.

Differences in communication styles can lead to incomplete understanding. Again, it’s a wonder we ever have an effective conversation given the communication challenges. We define words differently, we use slang terms, and there is often non-verbal communication occurring. 

Communication is more than just trading words

In addition to the obvious back-and-forth word exchange, other elements complication our conversations. Our posture, body language, and gestures can modify the words we use. 

How we talk can be just as important as what we say. Effective communication requires multiple levels of interpretation. 

How do we ever know if we get it right? 

Lack of effective communication can make us feel unsafe

My childhood trauma centers around not understanding what was going on or what was going to happen. I felt out of control in my home environment because I didn’t comprehend the rules and norms. People didn’t talk very much, and what they did say often disagreed with what they did. 

The lack of knowing and being out of control made me feel unsafe. This, of course, led me to need to understand even more but also to develop strategies to cope with the unsafe feelings.

I learned, or created Parts in the IFS sense, to protect me from feeling unsafe. When I didn’t have the information necessary, I made up stories. When the words didn’t come, I posited explanations for other people’s behavior that made sense in the context of what they were doing. I told myself comforting stories about my family, my school, and myself so I could get through the day. 

This ability helped me survive childhood but has been maladaptive in adulthood. I have spent most of the past decade trying to unlearn these techniques. It turns out, my stories were inaccurate (surprise). No one can read other people’s minds. 

Relationship quality depends on effective communication

People who suffer from poor communication often make up stories to feel safe. Many of our maladaptive childhood schemas stem from this storytelling. If we are lucky, we realize this before it’s too late. Like many of us, I am working hard as an adult to learn how to better communicate and make sure I get my needs met.

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Definition of authentic (Taken from Merriam-Webster)

1 a: worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact paints an authentic picture of our society

b: conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features an authentic reproduction of a colonial farmhouse

c: made or done the same way as an original authentic Mexican fare

2: not false or imitation: REAL, ACTUALan authentic cockney accent

3: true to one's own personality, spirit, or character is sincere and authentic with no pretensions

4 aof a church mode : ranging upward from the keynote— compare PLAGAL sense 1

b of a cadence : progressing from the dominant chord to the tonic— compare PLAGAL sense 2

5 obsolete : AUTHORITATIVE

Geeze, that's thorough, eh? But let me summarize:

Factual

Same or similar

Real

True

Sincere (like a pumpkin patch)

So, yeah, something real, or representative of something real. But most interesting is that many of these depict a thing REPRESENTING another thing. And that RESEMBLANCE is either good (authentic, real, conforming, true) or not (not authentic, fake, different, false). And remember, a dictionary is book of what we THINK words mean, not what they necessarily mean. 

In the context of the Are vs Should Problem, authenticity is behaving in the world the way you feel/want/believe you behave in your head. 

On the surface, this may seem like it means you must live in your Are to be authentic. I don't believe this is true, however.

I think we all exhibit a certain amount of Shoulds throughout our lives, no matter how hard we try not to. We are going to slip. We are human. 

The goal is not to live 100% Are and 0% Should, it's to do the best you can. I don't see any other way around it. We always build in an error term. A human error term. Which provides a degree of . . . . missing the mark. Failing. Being Inauthentic. It's ok!

So there's two points in this Episode, really. One is that the Are is your Authentic Self, and we have been discussing authenticity for the past twenty or so episodes - to point out and use the common vernacular. And the second point is that we are not trying to be 100% perfect, or 100% anything. The utility of a concept like authenticity is as a target to aim for, not something to become.

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Remember that time when everything seemed perfectly clear? 

Yeah, me neither.

But once in awhile things DO seem clear. And it feels good. There's no doubt (Episode 28) and things just make sense. Though these moments are fleeting, I think we can learn to maximize the amount of clarity we see in our lives.

And by clarity I mean more the ABSENCE of stuff rather than the PRESENCE of something. Clarity, to me, is really just a lack of noice. A lack of disturbance. A lack of . . . . . conflict.

So, yeah, clarity is PEACE.

But it's also a feeling. An emotional state, if you will, where the calmness takes over and we are filled with confidence and knowing. And how do we know if we really know what we think we know? Clarity.

But in my life, and maybe in yours, and certainly in many peoples', there is a distinct LACK of clarity. In truth, life is more like a game of telephone where whatever messages we receive from the world are many times adulterated so what we hear is wrong. Even if the game is only played by two people 

I seriously wonder how any conversation between any two people ever results in both parties simultaneously being understood and understanding. It's amazing we can understand each other given our propensity to interpret each other, insert our subjective biases, to be poor communicators, to define words differently, and any other of a multitude of elements that complicate communication among humans.

But, generally, we can actually talk to each other. My use of the term CLARITY is simply to suggest that we could be much better at it.  And that's what I talk about in this video. 

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To some, this is a ridiculous question steeped in pointless naval gazing. To others, it's a comedic take on people who ask the 'big questions'. To others this is a reasonable assessment of what we want to understand. To me, it's all three at the same time. And maybe that's the point.

And like most rhetorical questions, I don't really want to KNOW if I really know what I think I know. Rather, I'm curious about how this questions makes one think a few steps ahead. It's not about what we know. It's about the idea that we think we know in the first place. Like, what makes us think we are so awesome that we can understand the very nature of a thing? What makes us think we are so special? Why are we the only living thing on the planet that can 'know'? Or is that even a logical thought in the first place?

So, yeah, wondering whether we can even really know things is interesting in and of itself. Perhaps even more interesting than the simple question of whether we are right or wrong. Because that's the nature of knowing, I think. Knowing implies we are correct. And like my buddy Paul Gadola says, we all think we are correct. So knowing is a bit biased to say the least. We ALL think we know. And we often disagree. And modernity has brought, if nothing else, an ever increasing number of potential explanations to things which means the options of knowing what is right are becoming more and more infinite. 

In other words, knowing, or being right, is increasingly more impossible. And, more importantly, does it even matter? If there are 'subjective truths' (which I believe are really subjective realities, and not truths at all) then REALLY what does it matter? Can't we all be right? Doesn't everyone get a trophy?

What follows, then, is my curiosity in the knowing itself. Not whether or not I know. And how did I arrive at that knowing? One of the major assumptions of the Are vs Should Problem is that much of what we think and believe was simply inherited, so why do we connect so much of our identity with this inherited 'knowledge'? 

Moreover, isn't it the capacity to think we know stuff far more interesting than actually knowing the stuff? Were the ancient Greeks correct to 'know thyself'? Isn't that the first step, anyway? How can we know ANYTHING without first understanding how we would even begin to know in the first place?

Here are two links to the Toltec and Taoist ideas of 'not doing' and 'non thinking':

https://toltecschool.com/toltec-indexes/index-page-1/not-doing

https://tao-in-you.com/what-does-non-doing-mean/

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I'm using the Forest for the Trees metaphor to suggest that humans have become exceptionally myopic. The only reason I know what myopic means is because after defending my Master's Thesis a professor proclaimed that I was very myopic - meaning I had a terribly narrow view of the question I had asked and answered. I thought I was being pretty broad and was a bit hurt by his statement, but I also understood his point. I could have taken a 'bigger picture' approach, but by the time I realized that I was too far along to expand my view.

Anyway, I realized recently that myopia was again affecting my life.

During the decade I spent in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy I didn't really change. And I knew I wasn't changing, but couldn't understand why. Sure, I learned a lot, but my problems stayed the same. At some point I realized that I understood what I was doing, and how to fix it, but only in an analytical way. My mind understood the logic, but my behaviors, attitudes, and habits weren't changing. 

I was still anxious although I understood how irrational many of my fears were.

I still believed I wasn't good enough despite understanding where those beliefs came from.

I was still angry about many things, though I knew that energy didn't solve any problems.

I understood why I was the way I was, but I'll be damned if I learned anything about changing.

Until I realized I was looking at the trees.

In my metaphor, and maybe in yours, my logical, analytical brain was a tree. And it's all I saw.

Recently, I came to understand I was not only a physical body and an analytical mind, but also an emotional and feeling body with equivalent mental and spiritual elements.

And my anxiety, depression, feeling not good enough, and angry parts were spread across all of these different trees - and together formed my forest.

In order to heal, I had to form a real forest, and not just a bunch of trees.

Paul Gadola calls this Integrity - and I needed some.

A stand of trees does not a forest make. They must integrate. Together. With all parts having meaning. And seeing and feeling each other.

In the context of the Are vs. Should Problem, the analytical mind and the physical body are where a lot of the Shoulds are aimed. The Shoulds bully us into forgetting about the Ares, which lie within our other parts. Our Ares are whole. We used to be whole. We are becoming quite splintered. Myopia is stealing our wholeness. 

But we can get it back. We can resist.

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I recorded this episode after replying to a YouTube comment about good and bad types of change (Episode 61: Change is Hard, but Resisting Change is Wrong). The commenter made a good point that sometimes we change in a bad direction instead of making a positive change.

I agreed but in doing so realized I had a bigger point buried under that. Perhaps another assumption I had failed to realize or express. Which is that I believe the Are motivation is essentially driving GOOD change, and that many SHOULD motivators drive a bad kind of change. But an even BIGGER point was buried even deeper about good vs. evil.

I believe that humans are essentially good. We start out good, and any evil we develop is learned through Should type processes. This might have to do with a book I just finished about whether or not humans are essentially good or evil called Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman. Rutger argues that we are essentially good, and I'm on that side - at least for now.

So another assumption I have made, perhaps subconsciously, with respect to the Are vs Should Problem is that living from our Are is on the good side whereas living from the Should is leaning toward evil.

HOWEVER, the commenter ALSO made me realize that some shoulds are better than others. Sometimes we tell ourselves we Should eat better, be nicer, be more responsible, get a better job, or whatever. Sometimes these shoulds HELP us move forward. 

So I had to break this down a bit:

Ares are intrinsic motivations that come from within us and generally encourage us to be better and come from a good place.

Shoulds can be intrinsic, or appear to be, OR extrinsic.

Intrinsic shoulds are mostly Are, but have some external motivations sprinkled in. Kind of like when I internalized my dads job motivation by conceding that I should change my major so that I could get a job. I internalized an external should, made it my own, and was fooled into thinking it was an Are. And, arguably, it was as it did achieve the goal. Of course, in HINDSIGHT I choose to see that as an extrinsic should that became internalized.

So most Shoulds come from external sources and can be misleading, bad, and downright evil. Shoulds serve to destroy the Are, but the degree to which this is intentional can vary from close to none to entirely. 

So three basic choices: Are, Should, Internalized Should that is confusing.

While discussing the multiple types of Shoulds in this Episode, as you will see (or hear), I started formulating what I think will become the next phase of development in the Are vs Should Problem. I hit on the good vs evil elements already, but also posited whether or not we need to look OUTSIDE ourselves to better understand the Ares. I even suggest we learn to love people FAR outside our realm of attention. People that oppose our views or make us angry. I am wondering if we apply what we've discussed so far to people at opposite ends of the field if we might learn some new things. 

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Apparently I didn't say quite enough about change in last weeks' Episode 62: Change is Hard, but Resisting Change is WRONG! because when I say down to record this weeks' Episode I just kept talking about CHANGE.

Change. It's the one thing we can count on.

Since the Big Bang, the universe has been changing. Changing forms. Changing states. Changing composition.

All around us, change is driving the universe. The Earth. Our behavior. The seasons. . . . 

Yet, many of us resist change. We don't like it. It messes up our scheduling. We OBSESS about predicting the future. The popularity of the Weather Channel is a great example. We believe we can predict the future and CONTROL change. Or even omit it altogether from reality.

Seriously, sometimes I wonder if that's the state of nature we are shooting for. To have every day be as predictable as the last. The literal Groundhog Day of life. And on the one hand, it's easy to see how comforting that predictability would be, but also how COMPLETELY BORING life would become.

And I get it. We resist change because it ISN'T predictable. And that makes us feel unsafe. And feeling unsafe is scary and sad. So we are afraid. So we want the fear to go away. So we attempt to CONTROL, and remove change from the world.

But that is literally insane. It is as asinine as removing oxygen from the atmosphere. Not only is it impossible, it would kill us. And I'm afraid the path toward minimal change will similarly cause our demise.

In fact, I believe our resistance to change is somehow related to (or the cause of!) many of our human problems. 

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In the next few videos I focus on CHANGE. I have covered changing old beliefs, changing the way you think, changing your habits. But it wasn't until Episode 47: Changing Behavior Changes Beliefs that I actually started to realize how critical CHANGE is. 

Change is the key. The main element. The obvious, yet hidden mechanism of life.

One of my chief assumptions is that we we are vehicles for, or at least highly influenced by, our DNA. 

And change is what our DNA was designed to do. 

In Episode 55: The Bully and your DNA Part 2, I go in to detail about how and why I think DNA is so important, but I'll reiterate here.

The Universe is constantly changing. It's been well established by multiple branches of science. I'm going to assume most of us accept that tenet. I will further argue that the fact that things will change is one of the few things we can predict about the future. And we can look to the past and see things were different before. So we know that wherever we are today is likely to change. How it will change is hard to say, but we spend a lot of time trying to figure that out.

An unpredictable future is more dangerous than one that is known. Yet we WANT to know what's coming up so that we can prepare. Will it rain today? Do I need a jacket? Will the weather be good while we're at the beach? Will my retirement accounts be worth anything when I need them?

So, in essence, the world/universe/environment in which we live is going to change through time. Ok. Got it. So, in order to live in this world/universe/environment we probably need a mechanism to deal with change.

A crystal ball might seem like the most useful tool, but if you think about it, that only helps the individual. Sure, if we could predict how much Bitcoin would be worth next week we could make a lot of money. Or if we could know how many avalanches would occur in a certain area we would know where NOT to build a ski resort. Those things are helpful, but they only really increase the fitness of single individuals. And in the long run, biology is more interested in the whole than the parts. Because we are all connected, after all.

But I've talked a lot about that in other Episodes.

The conundrum I talk about in Episode 61 and 62 is how humans seem to resist change. In the past 200 years or so, it seems that human evolution has entered a period of minimal change. We have established cultural norms and rules that select for 'sameness' and predictability in individual behavior. In some ways this makes sense for behavior management as the Earth gets more crowded, but I worry about superficial and short-term changes trickling up to affect our general opinion about change.

Because change isn't going away. We can never control it all. Control is an illusion, anyway, and we will never control the weather or the economy. We can depart Earth to inhabit Mars, but we will eventually have the same problems we have here.

I am concerned that our resistance to change in our daily lives is going to reduce our ability to evolve and persist as a species in the long term. In the short term, we will lose creativity and diversity of ideas and intellect, which will in turn stifle our ability to navigate the future. In the face of change we need creativity and diversity, not sameness and conformity.

I hope you enjoy this miniseries about change. More next week.

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When I was a teenager I realized I would be working for the rest of my life. This hit me like a ton of bricks. This realization LITERALLY left me feeling like I had fallen out of a tree and couldn't catch my breath. Though I'd experienced physical pain by this point in my life, fully coming to understand that I was going to have to spend a significant part of my life doing things I didn't want to do was disturbing.

And it wasn't so much that I had to WORK. I didn't mind working. I had my first job at 13 and was gainfully employed when I had this epiphany about work. It was more that a big chunk of MY TIME was spoken for. 

I felt like I was seeing my future, and part of it was already planned out. It wasn't so much about the WORK thing, it was the CHOICE thing. My future was, at least in part, not my CHOICE. And I don't know why this created so much dissonance. But this was a true blindside. I didn't see it coming. I felt like I lost my whimsy.

And so that is, in huge part, what led me to explore the Are vs. Should Problem. Why do we struggle between the person we ARE and the person we feel like we SHOULD BE? A big part of this SHOULD is related to having to work and to have a career. A huge part of our youth is being on a path that gets us to that point successfully and to a greater extent than our parents or grandparents. From early on we are chugging along a course related to some place we will be in the future that will steal our time.

And the best we can hope for is to love the career so we are not wasting our time. To sort of 'double up' and get paid AND find pleasure in our job. 

Well, how many of us got there? How many of us arrived at the place where we can't BELIEVE we're getting paid to do what we love? How many of us LOVED spending all that time studying, and interviewing, and kissing up, and missing out. . . . How fun was that?

Sure, some people do find a path they enjoy and a career that fulfills them. But most of us don't. And this investigation intends to figure out why it happened and how we can change it. 

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Depending on how you define 'uncomfortable', 100-200 million people worldwide can't meet their basic needs. Folks are born into societies and cultures where they are doomed to fail. Millions of people on this planet will live their entire lives worried about dying, finding food, or having a safe place to sleep. These are enormously huge problems that I truly don't understand. Nor do I understand how complicated the solutions are.

But I do believe one thing: if we wanted to solve these problems, we could. We could at least make them better. And I truly believe that the solutions begin within each one of us. 

To solve these problems we need to fix ourselves first. We each need to put on the proverbial oxygen mask so that we can take care of ourselves so that we can take care of each other. And right now there's a lot missing from that equation. 

• First, many of us don't care about ourselves. Some of us are so sad, stressed, malnourished, hungry, or whatever to take the luxury time necessary to change our beliefs, habits, and behaviors. And I'm not judging, that's understandable. 
• Second, many of us who DO have the luxury of pondering our existence just don't think it's important to do so. Many of us are too wrapped up in our jobs, iPhones, addictions, or whatever. 
• And last, most of us wouldn't know what to do if we DID figure out how to change ourselves because the rest of the world is out there running on autopilot. Once we figure things out, we need to share it with our community - and many of those communities just don't exist any more.

What I'm trying to say is that I truly believe the Are vs Should Problem is the CAUSE OF and SOLUTION TO, all of our problems. That might be a stretch but let's just go with the idea that this concept might help us solve some of our problems. 

See, I think if we can figure out how to reduce our time spend doing things we feel like we SHOULD be doing then we would have more time to ponder who we really ARE. And if I think we can make that shift in how we spend our time, we will find out that we actually crave connections to our brothers and sisters. I think we actually are inspired to do good. I think we do actually want to share resources instead of horde them. I think we do actually want to take care of our planet. I think we do want to spend our lives finding solutions to issues like world hunger instead of becoming investment bankers and stockpiling financial wealth. 

But I'm a naive naval gazer. Or I used to be. And now I want to be again.

I want all those things to be true so I'm believing all those things to be true. 

And if you follow the assumptions I've made thus far:

DNA is the precursor to human magic and MUST be fully expressed.

Expressing our individual uniqueness is our human purpose.

Reducing the things we feel like we SHOULD do frees up time and space for us to do the last thing.

By becoming the people we are destined to be we will realize, as a species, the way things used to be.

Peace and happiness result from more ARE and less SHOULD.

The CHALLENGES we face as humans can be solved.

Then maybe you're interested in learning more? That's what I'm here for.

Please take the time and let me know how you feel. 

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In this episode I cover two main points:

1. Millions of people have no interest in the Are vs Should Problem because they can't meet their basic human needs for things like food, clean water, and safe shelter.
2. These problems can only be fixed if we live more in the Are and less in the Should.

There are no two ways about it, I believe that we need to be more Are, and less Should. I am even starting to believe that the world's biggest problems can only be solved by people who realize their full 'Are' potential. It seems imperative that we learn to develop our Are potential and to shun the Shoulds. Being in our Ares is what is going to fuel the creativity necessary to move forward as a species and solve our most pressing issues. 

And, sure, some people already live more in their Are who have invented awesome things like rocket ships an iPhones, but many of these amazing inventions don't mean much to a lot of people on Earth. I think much of the industrialization and consumerism we see today is fueled by the Should and not the Are. 

Similarly, many people do not have the food, water, and shelter necessary to even ponder the Are vs Should Problem. I realize my white privilege is what allows me to even ask whether I am the person I AM or the person I feel like I SHOULD BE. I get that. Not everyone has that luxury. But we all deserve it. We're all born to be who we Are, but our circumstances and opportunities available dictate whether we have luxury time to ponder such things. And the solutions to these food, water, and shelter problems is going to be found by someones' (or many someone's) Are.

Every person on earth deserves to have their needs met. We deserve to have food, clean water, safety, community, and all of the other basic needs. We also deserve to wonder and to be curious. We deserve to have the choice about whether we thrive or survive. We deserve the chance to be who we Are. 

So I feel a sense of urgency around the Are vs Should Problem. We need more of us to think. To learn. To create. To figure out. But to do these things we need to allow ourselves to bIf more of us learned how to minimize the Shoulds, we would make more discoveries, invent more useful items, and more quickly solve the world's most pressing problems. 

Obviously this means that we, as individuals, need to work on this - and I promise, I will develop a "how-to" in the not-too-distant future, but we also need to pave the way for everyone else.

Think about it. We can put people on the moon. Entrepreneurs go to 'space' for fun. Most of us have the internet in our pockets. Don't tell me we can't figure out how to take care of each other. To give each other the opportunity to be who we Are.

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What IS the matter?

Matter is an interesting word. It’s a noun and a verb. The noun means something of substance and can be physical or metaphysical. The verb means for something to be important. There’s matter, and there is the matter. I like words like that, but the complication of communication and understanding.

The idea of something mattering, as a verb, has been on my mind lately. The last two episodes (here and here) have focused on the relationship between our experiences and our stress. What matters directly affects our bodies, our minds, and our well-being.

Everything can’t matter

Many of us don’t discriminate among the barrage of experiences we face. Our inability to rank things in our lives means that everything matters. If everything matters, we’re exhausted. We can’t pay attention to all the things.

And why would we? So many things don’t matter. So much of our lives are inconsequential. I would go so far as to say MOST of the things we worry about don’t ever amount to anything. 

Awareness, inventory, and ranking are required

The first step is self-aware. Truly, I think this is the ultimate cause of human suffering. Lack of self-awareness leads us to two ways of being. Either we are completely unaware and hedonistic, or we are hyper-aware and overcome with worry. 

I talk a lot about self-awareness and I don’t know how to create it where it doesn’t exist. I do know that things like journaling, meditation, mindfulness, and healthy living help nurture a state of awareness. 

Once we are aware, we can inventory the things that we experience in our lives. We wake up. Have coffee. Maybe we give care to the family. Maybe we go to work. We drive a car. All of the things we do have the potential to matter — but not all of them!

An inventory of our life things and experiences, the physical and metaphysical, facilitates ranking and prioritizing. This process is similar to and often benefits from following a personal values assessment. We identify what matters, and then rank these things are high or low. 

High-ranking values demand our attention and energy. The low-ranking stuff? Not so much. This immediately frees up a lot of worry, reduces stress, and helps us maximize the things that DO matter.

Our minds dream up the story

No one can tell you what matters. Though I do believe there are universal values that are critical to all forms of life, our inventories will differ. The important part — the part that matters — is the process of figuring this out for ourselves. It is dynamic and requires frequent reassessment.

This process of continually identifying what matters is our dream of life. This is the story we tell ourselves and others. To some degree, we have control over this story and we get to choose whether it is a horror film or a fairy tale. Some things we cannot change and our privilege, or lack thereof, certainly comes into play. 

Can nature advise us?

Can we let evolution provide a lens to consider what matters? In nature, the things that matter are selected for while the less important stuff tends to go away. Traits or conditions that benefit a species start showing up with greater frequency whereas less beneficial features might decrease. 

So, what matters to you? What matters to all of us?

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Inside each of us are several characters. These parts are all 'us', but they are distinct from one another. What distinguishes these parts is the roles they play in managing our lives. We are, at the same time, the nice guy, the responsible gal, the tactful them. We play many roles in different aspects of our lives. At work we are cordial and diligent. In bed we are adventurous and raw. As athletes we are courageous and assertive. These different roles help us achieve different goals and help us get along with the dynamic and varied people we interact with each day.

What's most interesting to me is how these parts develop and WHY they exist the way they do. During my decade of therapy and self-help I have learned that my parts, or characters, were developed in childhood - mostly to alleviate some pain or fear. I learned to embrace 'being smart' and a part was born that felt better about himself if he reminded himself that, well, at least he was smarter than some people. I have other parts that similarly justify their pretentious or arrogant beliefs because they protect me from sadness, separation, or isolation. We all have these parts we're not proud of, but they served us well during times of duress when there were no adults around to guide us or teach us a better way.

In other words, many of the parts we carry into adulthood are the result of decisions made made to help us survive a scary or dangerous situation in our youth. Again, at the time these parts were formed, they served their purpose most excellently in helping us survive, feel better, or to find peace. But as we grow, we can learn better ways and we have new experiences that can modify our behaviors. Except that's not always what happens. Often, these parts become stronger through habituated repetition over time. Often times we DON'T learn and apply new information because these parts are so strong. Especially when trauma is repetitive and frequent. I was repetitively bullied, and relied on my 'being smart' part to make me feel better about being a weak target for bigger kids. This made me feel better throughout my youth, but as I grew taller and the bullies stopped picking on me, I was left with a pretentious arrogance that negatively affected me as an adult. It has taken a long time to understand this part, to console it, and to help it find peace. As I understand these parts I am able to make better choices when I interact with people, to feel safer, and to grow.

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Don Miguel Ruiz, author of many books including 'The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)' uses the term "Domestication" to describe the process by which humans are taught how to live. I have been fascinated by this process, whatever you wish to call it, for as long as I can remember. In fact, I still wonder, often out loud, why no one ever asked whether or not I was agreeing to this social contract. See, we are born into a world that teaches us many things before we even know what's happening to us.

And a social contract is very much what domestication is like. We are taught so many things. How to eat, how to walk, how to speak, what to believe in, where Santa Claus lives, which religion is best, whether or not skin color matters. . . . The list is infinite. We are TAUGHT these things. Many of these things are opinions, some of them are factual, and very few of them are valuable. 

Because some rules are totally important. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don't spit at people. Don't eat raw kittens. So, sure, some of the domestication process is good and even fundamentally necessary to a healthy society.

The PROBLEM IS, that much of the domestication process is not only unnecessary, it's unfair. And in the context of the Are vs. Should Problem, domestication becomes the Should Bully by teaching us what to think, how to act, and what or whom to believe in. 

And the WORST part is, much of this domestication occurs before we can consent. We are, in fact, brainwashed at very early ages to follow the rules. Again, some of this is good, but a lot of it is NOT. But it's ok, IF we understand this and can go back and edit ourselves, or update what we believe, feel, and do as we grow and change.

The lucky ones, usually in our teenage years but often again in mid life, realize we have learned some weird shit. At certain times in our lives we QUESTION our own beliefs. We get CURIOUS about our thoughts. We WONDER who is really making our decisions. If we're lucky something encourages us to question WHO WE ARE. It is at these times we have a chance to take back our lives, our minds, and our DNA.

This week I share my thoughts about the Domestication process, discuss the damages caused, and provide a warning about our future. Solutions are necessary and urgent. Please follow this series and help me find some.

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In this second part of the Bully vs your DNA miniseries I describe the DNA part. I will make the argument here, which is a fundamental element of my future work on the Are vs Should Problem, that it is our birthright to express our DNA as fully as possible. I hope you enjoy.

For many years I have heard things like, 'Follow your passion!' or, 'if you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life!'. And while I want to love these sentiments, I can't get passed the 'woo-woo' or idealistic nature of the message. Can we really just do what we want? Is that somehow the secret to life? Is being happy really a function of having a job you love?

Now, the old Chris was incredibly cynical (see Episode 28: Doubt and Episode 25: I Suck At. . ) but I am trying very hard to be less so. In fact, I'm starting to see my cynicism as an opportunity for growth. And one of the obstacles I am tackling is this idea that following your passion (or following your ARE) is a worthwhile endeavor that isn't necessarily sprinkled with rainbows OR unicorns.

So I asked the question as to whether there was any evidence that supports the basic human need of 'being ourselves' or 'following our dreams' or 'being our Are'. I came up with what I consider to be hard evidence supporting a 'follow your dream' approach to life rather than a 'put your head down and grind it out' methodology. An Are vs a Should approach, if you will.

See, as an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, I studied a lot about DNA, evolution, natural selection, and the basic machinery available to all animals through time. I believe we understand how these things work inasmuch DNA is a genotypic (i.e., small scale internal biology) expression of sexual reproduction in a species that is expressed phenotypically (i.e., the outside appearance of that animal offspring) AND provides the basic instructions for living out that individuals' life. So that individuals' DNA is a result of reproduction, which rearranges the DNA of each parent to form a new 'set of instructions' for the individual offspring. THEN, that offspring, with their unique DNA instructions, lives in its' environment. During the individuals life, it will express the DNA physically, emotionally, sexually, and all the other ways DNA can be expressed as it is translated from a script to a tissue or action or skill.

That's a lot, and could be a book in itself, but the key here is that the DNA inside our cells is EXPRESSED outside in the world. This is the ARE. When we are in our Are, we are expressing our unique instructions into the world. We are reading the instruction manual the came with us, and only us, and to whatever degree we are then embracing, in the case of the Are, or denying, in the case of the Should, that uniqueness.

In short, I see the complete and total phenotypic expression, the realization, of our unique DNA as a fundamental goal of life. I'm not saying this is a requirement of being human, more like an opportunity. I see this as sort of a challenge that needs to be examined for evidence rather than an edict or, God forbid, rule. 

Continued at www.chrisburcher.com

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