Do the Opposite
This website, this blog, and this very post is me doing the opposite. This is my first draft of a blog post ever and a newly created website. I have battled resistance for a very long time (one could argue years), with resistance winning every time. So instead of me hoarding all of my experiences and their associated results and insights to myself, in private, I am sharing them with the public.
Mark Manson, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, shared a quote on Instagram the other day. "Growth for the sake of growth, without any real benefit to humanity or the world... is exactly what cancer is."
Now here's the kicker. The quote was actually from @aprildippydesign who tagged @markmanson. In Mark's post, he credits and thanks her and adds: "if YOU want people to get a glimpse at how you see the world, share your quotes on IG and tag me so I see it."
This entire post has significant meaning to me personally:
1) I have done a lot of 'growth', learning, experiences, and the like, without sharing, even with family and friends. For example, my ketogenic lifestyle journey since fall 2020.
2) "... a glimpse at how you see the world...". In November 2015, I walked into a party and the girlfriend of an older and wiser friend mentioned to me about how I was holding myself back. After talking a bit, she suggested that I read Einstein's The World as I See It. As the title suggests, it's a collection of his personal essays, speeches, letters, and the like demonstrating his beliefs, values, points of view, and positions on politics, pacifism, war, education, religion, art, and science. The lesson: we should all be courageous enough to be our authentic selves and live our individual truth in the world as we see it.
3) Cancer. Recently, I had a good friend pass away from brain cancer. She was young--34. I was transitioning into ketogenic diet and lifestyle the same time she had a freak seizure and found out she had stage 4 brain cancer, and subsequent emergency surgery. The ketogenic diet and lifestyle is the number one (naturopathic) approach to curbing cancer, especially brain cancer (as well as epilepsy, diabetes, obesity, GI tract issues, and energy and mood disorders). Our brains suck up carbs like a vacuum cleaner, and thus, the high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet is the best choice and positive life change one can make for oneself. (I learned about keto from my dear friend, and neighbor at the time, Dr. Nasha Winters, a naturopathic oncologist. Her book, The Metabolic Approach to Cancer, is a fantastic reference book that has changed my life profoundly.) My cancer friend's team, as well as I, encouraged her to live the ketogenic lifestyle to increase her odds of surviving cancer. She gave keto one month. She couldn't do it she said. She couldn't give up any of the food she liked. It was a miracle she lived two years longer. What would have been had she adopted keto? The lesson(s): i) you can't make people change; change has to come from within; and ii) mind your own business, and let people, no matter how much you care about them, live their lives the way they want to.
I am a staunch believer of the duality of man and 'a time for everything.' Everything in life lives on a spectrum with each polar end possessing the opposite qualities and attributes. For example, we each possess the ability to be good and evil. When I was acting in Los Angeles, there's an exercise you can do with your scene partner--play the opposite. For example, let's say it's an intimacy scene and you want sex. Play the opposite. Play that you don't want sex and watch your partner get frustrated. It's actually really insightful, not to mention funny.
To paraphrase the good words of Steven Pressfield's brilliant book on resistance, The War of Art: how many words did I write today? I don't care. I wrote. Any good? Again, I don't care. That's beyond my control. Any progress is a successful day against resistance. Right now it's time to do the opposite. It's time to stop collecting, hoarding, gathering. It's time to give. It's time to share. It's time to post.
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