I have to laugh when people speak about musical or visual artists who have ‘sold out’ as if this required some sort of deliberate action on the part of the artist. The artist hasn’t done anything more artistically impure than any of us who go to a job we don’t love every day. What did you want to do [...]
“If you fix cities, you fix the world.” -Tony Hsieh Tony Hsieh, founder of winning customer-service company Zappos.com (which just happens to sell shoes over the Internet), has a $350 million plan to make Las Vegas “the most community-focused large city in the world.” By some metrics, he’s already succeeding: an American apparel company I’ve been [...]
After three years, I realized that I don’t need to attend Burning Man ever again. It turns out Burning Man was something I only needed to experience once. My two return years were vain attempts to recapture that first-year magic and, as such, were doomed to various and escalating levels of failure, disillusionment, and suffering. I [...]
Whatever measure of success I achieve in my life, it is due largely to a generous, omnipresent outpouring of loving, stabilizing feminine energy. Throughout my life I have been backed, at every step of the way, by not one or two but a whole cohort of loving, generous, beautiful, healing women, who have poured their wisdom and [...]
Stop. Put down your scheduled life. Don’t waste another instant on it. The world won’t wait around for you to get your mental life in order so that you’re ready to really kick butt. The world needs you to kick butt today. Stop waiting, stop perseverating. The future is now, and it’s on you. The hour is [...]
I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3-4 It is a cruel world that tries to split us from our child-like sense of wonderment and [...]
The ego is the mind’s endless need to attack itself. Marianne Williamson We all have knots inside ourselves that prevent us from expressing our full capacity as human beings. My shorthand for these knots is the ego. The ego is the thought system that seems us as separate, vulnerable, primitive lizard-brained meat-sacks in a dog-eat-dog world. It’s [...]
Meditation is the practice of looking deeply into the nature of your suffering and your joy. Thich Nhat Hahn I recommend meditation to everyone I meet. There are only a few practices I recommend this broadly. Meditation improves life, from whatever perspective you wish to take: spiritual or scientific. Our modern world and its busy [...]
Give yourself a one-day vacation from judging the situation. Give yourself a one-day vacation from being critical of others. Give yourself a one-day vacation from all rulings against yourself and all negative self-talk. Give yourself a one-day vacation from all anxieties and concerns. Give yourself a one-day vacation from gossip and negativity. Give yourself a [...]
I do. Fear of discomfort is one of our greatest enemies in our quest to give our gift more fully. It unhinges us, unstrings us, prevents us from rising to our challenges. It prevents us from reaching our true greatness. Fear of discomfort is at the root of our mediocrity. Fear of discomfort is also how others [...]