My Riffs

It’s just a good reminder to remind yourself to listen more than you talk. You’ll benefit so much more from being a good listener. 

Life can get complicated and busy. Feel free to drop out of unnecessary things. For sure let go of unnecessary things you don't need to handle. Drop out of the competition. Drop out of grudges. Drop out of pettiness. Drop out of ladder climbing. Join love. Join community. Join giving. Join sacrifice. Join fun. Join empathy.

I was super annoyed at the large tractor digging next to my house this morning. It was loud and woke everyone up before we had planned on waking. Then I learned the tractor operators wife had passed away and he was actually a nice person. Suddenly I wasn't annoyed like before. Lesson learned. Our annoyances and irritations are often a lack of understanding on our part. Understanding often leads to empathy and empathy leads to compassion.

How do we help others? It seems the best way is often to help those who are in similar spots or those who are in spots we've been in. It's more challenging to help those who we cannot empathize with. So to focus your help on those who are in situations and places you have been in yourself may be the best use of your help.

Two individuals can go through the same thing, but the outcome is different. This is both normal and okay. Somehow we expect those who have been through the same or similar events as ourselves to come out with the same opinions or views. But views will vary by individual. We cannot always expect everyone to see things our way. In fact, a lot of the time, people won't. Allowing variety of opinions and views allows for balance. Being close minded to the variety hurts everyone. Your experience may not be someone else's, and neither should you expect it to be. It's so difficult, but it helps to try and not judge the world from only our perspective. We often fail to realize that someone else may feel completely different about things than us, and they're not wrong.

Humans seem to have some inherent belief that newer is always better. We often thing the way to fix something is to replace it or get something new. But that's not always the best. Newer often comes with unworked out defects and problems. Newer is often made from lesser materials. Newer is sometimes a lot worse. There have been many innovators in the past who were masters at refinement. Steve Jobs was hardly an inventor. He was an expert refiner. Sometimes it's better to refine what already is rather than replace with a net new system, product or anything else.

You can spend your life just living, basically just biding your time. Or... You can experience life. The first way is poor. The second way is rich. Life is meant to be experienced. Experience the ups and downs. Live in the moments. In the down times, feel the emotions and feel the pain. Bring it to yourself. In the good times, enjoy the fullness. Cry when it's time to cry. Laugh when it's time to laugh. Wring everything possible from every moment of life. There is so much richness in life if we reach out and bring life to us. Stop just biding time. Buy into life, fleece every moment (good or bad) for what's it's worth. There's so much to feel and to learn when you experience vs. live. Each moment has so much in it if we open up our senses and be aware. Experience life.

There are times our minds are capable of some crazy things. Crazy dreams. Crazy imaginations. Crazy actions. Have you ever asked yourself, "why did I say that?" or "why did I do that?". People allow their brain to override good common sense so often. Cigarettes is a great example.  It's not even debatable that smoking is bad for you, but somehow a lot of people override their minds and smoke. There's countless other examples of us overriding our good common sense. The danger is overriding good, honest thinking. We often won't allow our brains to explore things beyond our comfort zone. Doing so hinders our empathy. It hinders our base of knowledge and understand. Don't override your mind when it comes to fully understanding something. Of course, the caveat is to not be a unfiltered open mind that just wildly accepts anything. That's not the point of this at all. The point is to allow yourself to consider all angles of an issue or top...