Ponder This 3: A Roadmap For 2022

Do you possess an inability to actively engage with the world? Are you asleep at the wheel of Life?  Inattentive and unmindful of your surroundings and the people you share them with?  Do you have a nagging feeling that you are just not where you should be right now?  Do you lack meaning and balance?  Do you often overdose on distractions to keep yourself pleasantly sedated to the glaring problems you have?  Congratulations, you’re normal.

Life in the 21st century is hard enough.  Toss a pandemic into the brimming, boiling cauldron of our collective dilemma and it creates a flashpoint.  The individual has been forgotten.  Sacrificed to the mob for the sake of the mob.  This behavior has left a generation of youths feeling forgotten and abandoned.

So, we must adapt.  Gone are the days of ritualistic, coming of age ceremonies.  We must learn for ourselves what it is to shed the skin of youth and take on the mantle of adulthood — not only on a personal level, but on a societal level. 

But, for now, let us focus on the individual.

What I think a lot of people forget is that we are not adapted for security and utopia.  I think we operate best with one foot in the unknown because it keeps us alive and alert.  So when you’re feeling lost and abandoned, don’t panic.  There is potential for growth in the unknown.   Just don’t let it consume you.  You aren’t meant to handle being submerged in the unknown. 

Humans are goal oriented creatures.  We like to know where we are going and why.  We need an aim and we need to see ourselves progressing towards that aim but here is where we encounter a peculiarity.  We are strange beings.  We are more activated by having an aim and moving towards it than we are in achieving that aim.

Having a simple aim is a great place to start as long as its attainment is not what you are driven by.  Once you achieve attainment it collapses the game.  A common theme you’ll hear here is “The Journey is the Goal.”  Find your sustenance in the journey.

These simple aims are but stepping stones as we progress towards more noble goals.  I don’t want to get into noble goals because we could deviate from the individual here but suffice it to say that if you don’t have a Nobel aim then you are likely to fill that void with shallow trivial pleasures that cannot sustain you . 

Moving on.

Don’t lie.  It destabilizes you and creates chaos.  Be able to stand in the mirror and smile at the person staring back.   

Never forget that you can conceptualize a future for yourself within your mind and then you can manifest that conceptualization through hard work and discipline.  It’s literal magic.  Use it.

Quit doing foolish things.  I can’t stress this enough.  Like Jordan Peterson always says, “take care of yourself like you’re worth something.”

Surround yourself for people who rejoice in your accomplishments and are unhappy when you fail. 

Compare yourself to yesterday to keep from growing bitter. 

Do this consistently.  Then, one day you will wake up and not recognize the person you’ve become. 

Ponder on, ponderers.