I wake up.
It’s 10:30, an hour and a half later than I planned on waking up. I wanted to get things done today.
I’m groggy, the kind of groggy where you need a minute to wake up. Or an hour. Or 2 hours.
I submit to the possibility that I may get nothing done today. If the universe wills it then so be it…. But I won’t this day go down without a fight.
I’ve already learned what makes me feel like shit, and so I don’t tempt fate. If you want to die young, try doing high level parcour stunts without practice. If you want to feel like shit, check the news first thing in the morning.
The first step to even just emotional stability, let alone joy and excitement, is to cut out everything you possibility can that makes you feel like shit.
The news makes me feel like shit. Debates with people who aren’t hoping to learn something make me feel like shit. Complaining about work and society makes me feel like shit.
So I just don’t anymore. At least I try my best not to.
I started auditing the way I speak to myself and training myself to be nicer, to stop looking for negative things to dwell on. I don’t blame myself when I slip up, I just have an alarm that would go off. “⛔️ Warning: You are being negative again ⛔️ ”.
After just a few days of practicing that I started to notice a difference. I didn’t feel great but it became much more diffiuclt for me to fall into pits of depression. After a few years, I generally don’t get upset for more than a few minutes.
Once ai got used to a baseline reality that was neutral, I could start to generate joy at will.
That’s another muscle to train, but it’s not very hard to train. I just ask myself a simple question throughout the da: “What would make me feel even just 1% better than I feel right now?”
And if possible, what would make me feel 5% or 10% better?
If I can feel 5% better 10 times today, that means I feel 62% better than I felt at a baseline. If I can feel 10% better 10 times a day, thats 159% better!
Even just feeling 1% better 10 times a day is almost 11% better, and that is a meaningful difference when you are used to feeling like shit or numb for years and years. At even just 3% it would be 34% better!
Obviously I am not calculating how much better each decision would make me feel, these numbers are just a way to illustrate how a little effort a few times a day can make a huge difference.
This is by no means an original concept, but it works really really well, and I want to start this conversation here because I think it should be something every parent teaches their kid. It should be treated as common sense. Maybe someday soon it will be.
At first I wasn’t sure how I could feel even 1% better, but as I got better at step 1 (not doing things that made me feel like shit, including a lot of negative self talk), I natturaly learned to stop having such high expectations of myself which made it easier to find lots of things that could make me feel better.
Like this morning.
I watched some cat videos just to move myself away from my negative thoughts around being groggy and waking up later than planned.
I moved to some neutral informative videos about interesting ghost towns, nothing emotionally charged. I found myself getting stuck in the easy dopamine loop of clicking videos, which didn’t would eventually feel bad, so i thought of what else I could do to raise the vibe even more.
I put on an album from Oils, something a tiny bit upbeat and ambient that I’ve been meaning to check out again, nothing too energetic cause I wasn’t ready for that.
I opened my window.
I took in the laundry and folded it now cause I couldn’t think of anything else that would make me feel good and I knew that getting it over with would feel better than leaving it for later.
I thought about what I could eat that might put me in a good mood and the first two things that came to mind were to expensive. I was reminded that I lost a source of income a few months ago and I started to feel shit about not having enough money to move out of my apartment into a bigger one.
But I know, after much practice and trial and error, that these thoughts spiral and I know that the best solutions to these problems come from inspiration and inspiration comes easily when you generate joy.
In order to stop these thoughts in their tracks I thought about my safety nets. They aren’t much but they are something. Even after losing my highest paying client (he booked me twice a week for 1.5 hour sessions without fail, 3x more than most), I can still live how I am living if I budget well.
Last time I stressed about my income, I brought myself out of the downward spiral and found the inspiration to organize a pop up restaurant, so I have a new source if income, and potentially a new way to find clients that I will be trying out this weekend!
I also have some small investments. It’s not much but I could live for a few months without any income if I were to cash those out.
Ahhh but those are my savings that I want to use to buy some cheap land out in the country or open a shop with when they appreciate in value!!! And the negative thoughts pop up again.
But I still have an income! It’s not like I will need to use all of those savings, and I won’t even need to touch them for another month even if this new stream of income doesn’t turn out as well as I hope.
So actually, at the absolute worst, I have a month before I have to start dipping into my savings. A lot can happen in a month!
And at best, I’ve found a new stream of income that more than compensates for the lost stream of income and I’ll be saving more every month…. So STFU, let’s get back to finding things to be positive about!
Actually all my safety nets were built in moments like these!
When the situation was more dire, the negative thought patterns or internal dialogue was trickier but the process was the same. “What can I do right now to feel better?” And if money is really worrying me, earning a little bit could make me feel better. And if it doesn’t make me feel better it means I have negative belief patterns around money and facing those and healing them will make me feel better.
Maybe there are more fun ways to make money.
Maybe I could go out of my comfort zone.
Maybe I should finally learn that skill I’ve been putting off.
You know, I still haven’t tried to earn money from teaching guitar or making soundtracks. I worry my skill isn’t there yet, but actually I know it more than meets some people’s requirements. I’ve never tried to enjoy cooking, maybe I would if I was actually paid for it, just something simple to start.
As the negative beliefs are healed, more possibilities open up.
But I am alright now and I want to focus on building an audience for my work and creating more rather than just earning money ASAP. So I get back to thinking how to generate enough joy to inspire myself to do something meaningful today.
I realize there is a restaraunt a 20 minute walk with an all-you-can-drink coffee and tea bar, with a variety of green tea and it’s better than the cheap places nearby. So I walk there even though my whole day is behind schedule.
As I am walking I think about what will make me feel even better once I am there. I was planning on editing a few videos to release for my music.
I check the video I posted last night and it has only 15 views. The previous one had 500 by now. Shit.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZcLeOpbM_8E?si=lPJiyleMZscsa1yC
The negativity pops up again, but I remember that both my writing and my reading are bringing interesting, talented people to my work. My favorite indie band’s guitarist even added me on social media last month. Not everything I do is going to have the desires d results. That’s ok. Some things will. And things happen exponentially, they just have to reach that breaking point.
I remember a conversation I had last night about generating joy and realize I really want to write things that could potentially help the people that I know will read them, and she will read this if i send it to her and that thought makes me feel a little excited….
There it is! I found the excitement! Thats the flame to start the fire with. I love the idea of helping someone come out of their shell and our conversations are an invitation to try and create something that can actually be of tangible use to someone.
Maybe it’ll help her. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll help someone else. But it won’t hurt!
I start writing. As I write I begin to feel it isn’t my most elequent article. I know I could probably make it sound better, but I write novels and music for that. For me, an article just has to have it’s desired effect, to plant a seed that can grow.
And here I am.
It’s 2:30 PM.
I feel good.
I’m ready to have an awesome day, and actually, I am already having an awesome day! I’ve overcome negative thoughts 3 times today, where a few years ago I probably would have fell into a self loathing spiral.
That’s awesome!
I didn’t get any work done on those videos yet but I have another 4 hours before my first appointment today, I was inspired to write something else on the way here, so I can write next weeks article or I can start on that video.
My goal is to create a positive feedback loop between my work and my life as a whole and the people I interact with, where joy can create more joy, and it can be shared with anyone who witnesses it without costing anything to anyone other than the effort to generate it, which is ALWAYS worth it.
I believe in living a life where being selfish and being selfless are essentially the same thing because we see the threads that weave us together and find ways to celebrate each others wins, realizing that anyone’s win can be everyone’s win.
There may be situations in life where we are pit against other people, but the abudnance mentality is about always generating more joy, more freedom, more resources, more health, so that there is more to go around and we can all benefit.
I want to be living a life like that every day, where all my efforts benefit both myself and everyone I interact with.
And it kinda feels like I already am, I am really just working out the kinks and making improvements to it so that it’s always running at full power.
I guess I’d say I feel 42% better than i did when I woke up, and I’ve only just had lunch.
Let’s see what I can turn this day into!
🔥 🔥 🔥