Playing to Lose

A Tale of Fears and Cardboard Dragons

I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about fear lately…and I think I’d like to share a story with you all. Many people actually aren’t aware of this, but I spent a good portion of my life struggling with a paralyzing fear of social interaction. In school, I wasn’t able to look people in [...]

Listen to Me, But Don’t Listen to Me.

This particular post was inspired by a friend of mine who mentioned my blog in passing, saying, “Wow, you’re really turning into a regular self-help guru, aren’t you?” And while I’m sure this was said with the best of intentions, it got me a little down. You see, I’ve never really liked the sound of [...]

It’s Time To Take the Masks Off and Just Be.

In its widest possible sense…a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things [...]

Kill Your Temptations and Gain Their Power.

In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, I’d like to present something slightly more gruesome than you’re used to…but, hopefully, no less helpful…lol. Temptation is an evil that lurks everywhere in our day-to-day lives. It nudges us to stop working. It urges us to quit dieting. It makes us inactive, undisciplined, and unproductive. And worst [...]

Unleash Your Inner Beast.

When the burdens of life weigh heavy on our shoulders and the world feels like it’s about to come crashing down, it can sometimes be difficult to weather the storm. Loss, worry, and pressure have a habit of swirling together to form an avalanche of stress. An avalanche that can crush us beneath its increasingly [...]

Acting with Enthusiasm, Living with Enthusiasm

William Shakespeare once said that all the world’s a stage and all of us are but players upon it. And there have been a lot of different interpretations of this famous saying throughout the years. But I’ve always found it to mean one thing: the roles that we play are the roles that we come [...]

Are You Pursuing Your Passion or a Paycheck?

Hello, everyone. During my extended absence, I got caught up in a strange ordeal. While laboring away at my “real” job, I ended up writing copy for a type of client that many independent contractors dread: the backseat driver. As a professional, I obviously can’t name names. But I was constantly trying to fight an [...]

Where Have All Our Warriors Gone?

In my younger days, I happened across a copy of “Bushido: The Soul of Japan”, Inazo Nitobe’s groundbreaking century-old treatise on samurai and the warrior way. As someone who’d been raised on martial arts flicks and samurai movies, I was incredibly excited. I was expecting to read of famous duels, swordsmanship, and legendary samurai. But [...]

5 Motivational Tips to Light a Fire Under Your Ass

I’ve spent quite a bit of time bandying back and forth about the various concepts and implications behind motivation. What motivation is, what causes it, what influences it, etc. And I think that that’s important knowledge to have, because it’s easier to set a plan in motion when you understand why each step is necessary. [...]

Some Thoughts on Bad Habits, Mindfulness, and the Clutter Monster

As I was getting up from my daily meditation this morning and walking to my desk, I spent a little time thinking about how much my meditation room-slash-study has changed over the years. Right now, the whole place is practically empty. Bare. Clean. And that’s how I like to keep it. But once upon a [...]