Tomorrow, I am starting a new challenge requiring 2 hours of physical conditioning every day. This includes yoga, calisthenics, aerobics, PT exercises, and stretching. Here are the specifications for completing the challenge:

• Divide the day up into 6 segments. Each segment should be the same amount of time. For 16.5 hours, this works out to 2.75 hours per segment, but I can adjust as needed.
• Accomplish at least 15 minutes of physical conditioning per segment. I will aim for 20 minutes, as this will ensure that I complete the 2 hours needed by the end of the day, However, as long as I commit to at least 15 minutes, I can make up the extra time at day’s end. The one exception is if I get a workout in before starting the day. In this case, I can adjust the times proportionately.
• Incorporate daily karma practices into at least 10 minutes of challenge time. Certain forms of exercise are not conducive and even antithetical to multitasking, such as yoga and high-intensity workouts. However, others can be great opportunities for it. Before my bike accident, I would do a jog the first thing every morning during which I completed my daily check-in and mindfulness practices.
• Be creative and proactive with fitting in exercises during the day. I have a whole host of compiled exercises from several different physical therapists for my back over the years. Recently, I now have an arsenal for my drop foot as well. While it may not be appropriate to do a yoga pose or break into calisthenics in some situations, there is probably some exercise I could utilize.

I have high hopes for this challenge! Hopefully, I can find the right amount and frequency from a variety of modalities to keep my mind sharp, my body in shape, and my back from complaining too much.

Namaste.

I find myself to be much more absorptive now when reading. It’s like I have fully switched on the ‘philosopher mode’ in my brain to allow for full processing. Here are excerpts from week 2:

“Who is invincible? He who allows nothing to disturb him which is independent from the will. Examining one circumstance after the next he observes and is not disturbed.”

– Epictetus, Discourses

I find that in setting goals, it is extremely empowering to base them on things we have control over (e.g. to accomplish a project, not please a person). In other words, make them completely dependent on our own will and not that of anyone else’s.

“If faith in sense is not first firmly set, if it does not prevail, there is nothing to which we can appeal in what we claim, by any form of mental reasoning, about the truth of things we cannot see.”

– Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

Lucretius was a materialist. He valued the primacy of the physical senses as the bedrock for all knowledge. Although I am not a materialist, I greatly value his contribution to methodological naturalism, which is now the substrate upon which modern science is grounded.

“But although I appreciated his detailed exposition very much, I still think it is more suitable to stop at individual points, in order to understand what each person concedes or denies; from such admissions, one may make the necessary deductions, and finally arrive at an appropriate conclusion. When the discourse gushes forth like a torrent, many subtle points are washed away. You hold on to nothing, and you grasp nothing; nowhere can you curb the speed of the onrushing rhetoric.”

– Cicero, On Ends

Here is Cicero decrying the usage of the Gish gallop, where a debater tries to overwhelm the opposition by sheer number of arguments, instead of the strength of each individual point within an argument. I wholeheartedly agree with his frustration!

“This is the touchstone of such a spirit; no prize fighter can go with high spirits into the fight if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the ring is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist, who has tripped and felt the full force of his adversary’s charge, who has been knocked down in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.”

– Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

This quote is powerful and speaks for itself. Amazing imagery!

 “Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I like to view everything in life as either an opportunity for enjoyment, an opportunity for growth, or both. If I remember to do this, I can find a way to be grateful for whatever happens, and sometimes even excited despite less than favorable circumstances.

“The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the authority under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused of murder by any law of his state; nay, if he has not slain him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state, and of despising the law.”

– Augustine, The City of God

If the government commands you to murder someone and you refuse, is this treason? Maybe. I definitely agree if you are a soldier in an active combat situation, it is necessary for there to be unquestioning obedience to orders, but I’m not sure how far this extends. I’m reminded of the Nuremberg trials.

“Tolerance is to not reveal the faults of others.”

– Huineng, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch

Simple. Straightforward. Powerful. Are you tolerant of others? What about politicians? What about media figures? If you value tolerance and use the above definition, this cuts out a lot of everyday gossip, which is probably a good thing both for you and those you are discussing.

Namaste.

The following are quotes from the first seven books I skimmed. I think the quotes mainly speak for themselves, so I will try to limit my contribution to a minimum.

“The Self is everywhere, without a body, without a shape, whole, pure, wise, all knowing, far shining, self-depending, all transcending; in the eternal procession assigning to every period its proper duty.”

– The Upaniṣhads

The Upanishads frequently discuss the relationship of the personal self to the Universal Self. As a panendeist, I found it fascinating to read.

Tomorrow I am going to start a new challenge. Growing up, I was an avid reader. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being one. I’m not sure if it was due to dry textbooks, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic back pain, or just pure disinterest, but I lost the thrill of reading.

For this month’s challenge, I am going to take a reading dive that to many might seem dull, but which I find captivating: philosophy texts. More specifically, I find the study of philosophy to be fascinating; books may or may not be.

Here are the parameters for the challenge:

1. Sign-up for a 30-day free trial of Kindle Unlimited. All of the books I will be reading from are available for free or under $1 with this subscription. What this means is that I will be reading mostly from a screen, which isn’t optimum for eye health or skimming, but is incredibly cheap and accessible.

2. Each day, select a book from the following list:

• The Upaniṣhads (8th to 1st century BCE)
• Bhagavad-Gītā (5th to 3rd century BCE)
• Confucius, Analects (c. 500 BCE)
• Plato, Last Days of Socrates (399 BCE)
• Plato, Republic (380 BCE)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (350 BCE)
• The Daodejing: A short book on Daoist philosophy (c. 300 BCE)
• Epictetus, Discourses (108 CE)
• Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (50 BCE)
• Cicero, On Ends (1st century BCE)
• Seneca, Letters from a Stoic (c. 65 CE)
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (161-180 CE)
• Augustine, The City of God (426)
• Huineng, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (8th century CE)
• Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
• Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1677)
• Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1690)
• Hume, Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
• Rousseau, Émile, or On Education (1762)
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
• Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
• Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov (1880)
• William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890)
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)
• Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
• Bertrand Russell, The problem of philsophy (1956)
• Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

3. Spend at least 1hr/day skimming the book. My goal is not to consume, but to nibble. I am not at all interested in reading for reading’s sake. I want to taste the thoughts from thinkers of ages past and expand the way I view myself. The hour of skimming can be spread out as much as needed during the day.

4. Publish a blog post each week of the challenge. The content will be whatever I have gleaned that week from my readings and musings thereupon. What I write about doesn’t have to be super insightful – just my feelings and thoughts about the books or the excerpts I read from them.

5. Choose 2-3 of the books to put on my purchase list. If I want to read a physical copy of a book, it is more economical for me to borrow it from a library, assuming it is available. However, I do want to develop my own library of books I find especially interesting, meaningful, or that I might want to reread in the future.

6. Restart high-intensity exercise for at least 10 minutes a day. In order for me to glean the most out of my reading this month, my body needs to be in shape. Since my accident, I have become extremely sedentary. This needs to change and this challenge is the motivation I need to do so.

“The mind is just like a muscle – the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand.”
~ Idowu Koyenikan

Namaste.

“Willfulness must give way to willingness and surrender. Mastery must yield to mystery.”
– Gerald May

Willfulness. It is a state I am currently trying to escape as I type this blog post. I think of willfulness as the opposite of radical acceptance.

Radical acceptance involves embracing every aspect of our current experience – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Once you radically accept a situation, you are free to pursue any course of action. You might try:

• Being content – There are so many times where our frustrations and struggles are unnecessary or ineffective. They are complications we are adding on to our experience. If we can learn to accept ourselves fully, we can cease the struggle and find peace.
• Wise action – When I accept all possible outcomes, that frees me to fully commit to a particular path without fear of disappointment or failure. Since I’ve already accepted these possibilities, if they happen, I can surf through them with grace.
• Skillful change – Radical acceptance does not mean we can’t change; it means we don’t have to do so. If we decide to make a change in our life, we do it with wholesome motives and realistic expectations.

Willfulness is a state of non-acceptance. When I’m in this state, I am unable to do any of the above actions. These actions can ONLY be implemented after acceptance has taken place.
I might appear to be engaged in one of the above strategies, but it is just an act. It is not real. I am living in a delusion.

• Laziness – I might appear to be content and even convince myself that this is what I’m doing. But if I look deeper, I know I am just avoiding. Avoiding what exactly? This is one of the big problems of willfulness. It doesn’t mean avoidance of any particular thing necessarily; it simply means being aversive in general.
• Impulsive action – Sometimes when I am willful I can become very productive. However, there are 2 problems. First, I don’t enjoy my productivity. Second, it won’t last; I will burn out. This is partly due to not enjoying my work and partly due to it being impulsive urge-dominated actions.
• Unskillful rebellion – Willfulness can motivate someone to make extreme changes. Regrettably, the purpose in doing this is not to find greater ease of well-being for ourselves and those around us; it is to live out some addiction or to prove ourselves right. It completely lacks humility and patience.

I have been struggling with willfulness quite a lot lately. Either that, or maybe I am just finally observing myself enough to know when I am being willful. Regardless, it has been the source of a lot of confused suffering on my part.

Here is the latest contingency plan I have developed for dealing with willfulness. I use the acronym ORTHI:

1. Observe the willfulness. Label it. Experience it.
2. Radically accept that at this moment you feel (and may be acting) willful. You cannot fight willfulness with willfulness.
3. Turn your mind toward acceptance and willingness. Remind yourself of the benefits of willingness. Tell yourself you would like to be more accepting.
4. Half-smiling and willing posture. Use these physiological adaptions to help tweak your mental chemistry.
5. If immovable, ask, “What’s the threat?” Why are you resistant to accepting reality as it is? Do you feel that if you did, you would be trapped? Check the facts and challenge assumptions that don’t fit them.

“No amount of human willfulness can overcome God’s determined love.”
– Max Anders

Sometimes if I have completely hit a wall, the only thing I can do is call a family member or friend and tell them what’s up. If they are willing 😉 , I engage them in my decision-making. I am obviously not in a great place to be skillfully using my time and energy, so I outsource the problem.

I choose to believe in the Ocean of Living Love, a phrase I picked up from Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes Jr. However strong my willfulness might be, the ocean is stronger. If I can just find a way to connect with it, I can find freedom.

“Conceit and arrogance are acquired states of mind. Conquer acquired states of mind, and basic sanity can unfold. Passion and willfulness are part of false consciousness; erase false consciousness, and true consciousness will appear.”
– Zicheng Hong

May you find peace and purpose in your journey towards true consciousness.

Namaste.

According to Buddhism, the source of emotional suffering is craving. The word ‘addiction’ could be substituted for craving if that is easier to understand. In navigating life, there is an inevitable amount of pain all of us will experience. This pain can manifest in a plethora of forms:

• The pain of a physical injury – This is something of which I have a very recent and direct experience!  🙁
• The pain of chronic physiological discomfort/dysfunction – This is also something I unfortunately have dealt with for over a decade.
• The pain of separation from a loved one – This is not something I have familiarity with, mainly because until very recently I had shut off my emotions to the point where I didn’t really have anyone in my life that I “loved.” (Not something I would recommend!)
• The pain of being invalidated by someone – This is something I feel quite often; sometimes I blame myself for being a snowflake and to just grow a spine already, even though I know this would only mask the problem.
• The pain of disappointment – This is something I am feeling right this moment as I type this post. I often have higher expectations than my time and energy will allow me to complete. I also feel deeply disappointed when I give lovingkindness to someone and they reciprocate with judgment.
• The pain of confusion – I believe everyone experiences this one, and probably on a fairly regular basis. Life is so often perplexing and confounding to our small minds.

Suffering occurs when we experience one or more painful experiences, and choose to crave that life would be other than it is. In Kristen Neff’s book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, she came up with this equation: Suffering = Pain x Resistance. Though obviously a generality, I really like this conceptualization of these terms.

What this equation implies is that suffering can be completely eliminated. This could be accomplished by bringing ‘pain’ down to zero, or by bringing ‘resistance’ down to zero. Of these two solutions, the latter is a very hard but theoretically attainable goal.

One way I have learned to deal with aversive and addictive cravings is through urge surfing. This term is one I first heard referenced in a group therapy session. I used to think that when I had an urge to engage in addictive behavior, or avoid dealing with the world, or immerse myself in negative emotional energies, I had only 2 options.

Option #1: Give in to the urge. Succumb to the addiction. Avoid the situation. Allow self-pity to envelop me. Identify with my sadness.

Option #2: Resist the urge. Do what I feel is “right.” Face the situation. Push away feelings of self-pity. Identify with my courage.

What I learned through the concept of urge surfing, is that there is actually a third option. Option #1 is almost always unskillful and can be destructive. However, sometimes I just can’t seem to muster the energy to choose Option #2. So what exactly is this third option?

Option #3: Observe the urge. Fully allow yourself to experience all the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that you are experiencing. Simply observe them without attachment or judgment. Explore why you are feeling a specific emotion or thinking a specific thought. Give yourself some time and space to do this.

Cravings don’t last forever. They have a life-cycle. As you observe the urge, you will notice the intensity of it peak and then gradually decrease. Many urges will dissipate entirely within an 8-minute time period if we allow them to breathe and complete their life-cycle. Some may last as long as 20-min if they are especially strong.

The practice I use when I choose Option #3 is to set a timer for 8 minutes. During this time I give my full attention to the urge. I verbalize out loud what I am feeling and thinking. I notice when my emotions become stronger or weaker. I fully accept myself and anything I am experiencing physically, mentally, and emotionally.

My experience in using this practice has been truly unbelievable. The concept made sense to me intellectually, but it still freaked me out the first time I tried it. After being with the urge for several minutes, it lessened significantly. Sometimes before the 8-minute timer beeped, it had completely evaporated.

What had just minutes before seemed impossible to deal with suddenly turned into a non-issue. Please, please, please try this out for yourself.

It might change your life.

Namaste.

Tomorrow is the first day of a new month, which for me usually means coming up with and starting a fresh monthly challenge. However, as my readers will know if they follow me at all, my challenge this month didn’t go so well.

In my defense, I did survive a hit-and-run accident, had surgery on my severely avulsed left calf, spent 2 days in the hospital, and sustained deep bruising over most of my body. I also had to get around in a wheelchair for a week until I could manage limping around with a walker and then crutches.

To everyone that has sent cards, visited me at home or in the hospital, or talked with me on the phone during this time, please accept my sincerest gratitude. A big thank you also to my therapist for being incredibly validating, my Toastmasters club for responding encouragingly to my accident speech, and my zoom heartfulness group for giving me a meditation outlet.

The first week after the accident I was generally upbeat and productive, to the degree I could be in my condition. Week 2 was difficult. I believe this was due in large part to the left foot drop that I’m sure had been present since the accident, but that I only started noticing about a week ago. I became very withdrawn and somber which ultimately led me into a personality loop.

After several days, I was able to use the DBT skills of willingness and mindfulness of thoughts along with some of my own contingency plans to release me from my mental prison. I realized afterwards that the cause of a lot of my emotional suffering was due to a formerly unconscious addiction I have to be athletically involved (running, biking, tennis, etc.), which if my foot drop persists might prove to be very difficult.

All that being said, I would like to repeat my challenge from last month. If you missed the post or are a new reader, you can see the specifications here.

To add a little zen to the month, I am going to also include a new small challenge. I will call it the ‘Lovingkindness during Distress’ challenge. Here are the details:

• When in distress, observe it without judgment. The first step to transcending any emotional suffering is to stop giving it energy. We give energy to emotions whenever we identify with them or attempt to push them away. Both of these actions only serve to further strengthen the distressing feelings. If you have incredible willpower and discipline you can push away your emotions for quite some time (sometimes even years) before having any crashes. However, in these cases, when the damage eventually does manifest, it could be catastrophic both for you and those in your orbit.

The alternative to identifying with or pushing away your emotions is to simply observe them. For me, it helps to actually vocalize what I am thinking and feeling, without any attachment or judgment. I’m just relaying the facts of my mental landscape.

• After briefly observing the distress, practice loving-kindness meditation. This can be done silently or out loud, depending on the situation, though I find it to be much more effective when said aloud, even if just in a whisper. To those unfamiliar with loving-kindness meditation, the core of it is traditionally contained in these 4 key phrases:

May I be free from danger. May I have mental happiness. May I have physical happiness. May I have ease of well-being.

Anyone practicing this form of meditation is encouraged to choose phrases that they can readily identify with during their practice. These are the ones I use:

May I be free from danger. May I be liberated. May I make a friend of my body. May lovingkindness manifest throughout my life.

After starting with myself, it is very effective to use the phrases for my family members, acquaintances in my life, or just all people in general. My goal in doing this challenge is to try to wire my brain so that it defaults to mindfulness and/or meditation during all times of stress.

Namaste.

My first YouTube video dropped Thursday night of last week. I had hoped to upload it earlier in the week, but preparing my studio space, getting up the nerve to record it, and post-editing it took much more time than I had anticipated. It serves as an introduction to the focus of the channel. I asked my listeners to think about one central question:

Do holding the beliefs I have give me a net positive amount of empowerment?

To begin answering this question, it is imperative that we first think about the nature of beliefs. I propose that all beliefs have some costs and some benefits attached with believing them. Choose any belief and this will be the case if you think about it.

What are the costs of a belief? I think they fall into two main categories:

1. Constraint costs. Any time I believe something, this necessarily is going to constrain some aspect of myself, be it thoughts, actions, or lifestyle. If (A) you believe jumping off a cliff will be harmful to your health, and (B) you don’t want to cause harm to your health, then (C) you are unlikely or at least less likely to jump off of a cliff. Therefore, these beliefs are constraining your actions. If you didn’t have these beliefs, in some sense you would be freer, even if this freedom was short-lived because you ended up jumping off of a cliff and dying.
2. Maintenance costs. Any time we adopt a new belief, we have to make sure it interacts and plays well with the other beliefs we already hold. In the case it doesn’t, we either have to discard it, discard our former belief, or accept living in a state of contradiction (this is known as cognitive dissonance). If (A) you believe a chair (pick one out for the sake of this example) will hold you up when you sit on it, and (B) you believe said chair will crumble to the floor when you sit on it, then how can you relate to this chair? Either you randomly decide to sit or not sit and hope for the best, are paralyzed in a state of inaction, or just have to never think about or relate with this chair.

For those of you who believe in a God who is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good), here is a possible maintenance cost you may have to deal with.

P1. An omnibenevolent being does not want there to be any evil in the world.

P2. An omnipotent being has the ability to make it so no evil exists in the world.

P3. God is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent being.

P4. Evil exists in the world.

C: Therefore, God does not exist.

This is called the problem of evil. The above is my formulation, but you can find many similar ones if you search around online. Unless you want to accept living in a state of cognitive dissonance, you have to show how one of the premises above is false. Attempts to do this are called theodicies, and there are many of them that have been formulated.

With all these potential costs of beliefs, why do we believe things at all? Hopefully, because the benefits of the belief outweigh the costs. What are some benefits of beliefs?

1. Social Benefits. Beliefs can help you interact with others and give you a shared sense of community. This is especially the case with religious and spiritual beliefs, which are often shared with a group or community that validates and supports each other.
2. Self-Concept Benefits. An example of this would be the concept of personal responsibility. For some, it is extremely beneficial for them to own the problems in their life as the first step towards solving, fixing, or correcting them. For others, it is extremely beneficial to radically accept their current situation without attaching responsibility for their problems to themselves or anyone else.
3. Existential Benefits. Belief in an afterlife is a very common belief. There are many different forms this afterlife takes, such as resurrection, reincarnation, or a continuing conscious mind-stream. This belief can give a tremendous amount of perspective and peace, especially when dealing with suffering and uncertainty in life. Other people find rejecting the idea of an afterlife causes them to have a renewed interest and focus on the present, which can be liberating and productive.
4. Navigational Benefits. Beliefs can help us effectively relate with the physical and relational realities of life. The belief that the sun will rise tomorrow (or technically, that the earth will spin so that it faces the sun) at a certain time, helps me plan out when I want to wake up and start the day.

In detailing the various benefits that beliefs can bring, I have neglected to talk about the concept of truth. Many think that truth should be the only factor we consider when deciding whether or not to believe something. Prominent atheist YouTuber Matt Dillahunty is well-known for saying:

“I want to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible.”

This seems like a noble sentiment to maintain, but this seems to assume that their is a simple metric for defining and determining what is “true” and what is “false.” This is definitely NOT the case. The definition and usage of truth varies from religious to secular contexts, from historical to scientific contexts, and even in different situations by the same person oftentimes.

Also, if your primary concern (as mine is) is empowerment, it is not necessarily the case that (assuming we could know ‘the truth’) believing the truth would be best for us. The adage, Ignorance is bliss, is a pithy recognition of this idea.

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

– Anatole France

Namaste.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
― C.G. Jung

Journaling can definitely be a great way, as Jung puts it, to “make the darkness conscious.” I have learned a tremendous amount about myself, and specifically about my motivation and the factors that most affect it this month. As I have been posting tidbits of my entries all month long, I will invite you to go back and read these posts (Week 1, 2, 3, and 4) if you want to learn about my discoveries and insights.

What will I do with this challenge moving forward? For the most part, I am going to continue following almost all of my challenge specifications. Here is my current plan:

• Keep up daily journaling and vary the focus each month. As with my challenge requirements, I am setting the minimum amount of writing at 3 sentences, though they can be as short as I like. The idea is consistency, not volume. Incidentally, daily journaling has given me a significant increase in my gratitude level. I think being thoughtful about the things that positively or negatively affect my drive and motivation level makes me more viscerally aware of things I am grateful about. I didn’t regularly express this gratitude to myself or to others, but I definitely noticed a generally more appreciative tone in myself.
• Add a brief motivation reflection permanently to my check-in routine in the morning. My morning check-in, which follows my communion run and meditation, consists of thinking upon 3 of my core feelings at that moment, identifying 3 body sensations, nonjudgmentally reflecting on what I have done since my last check-in, and choosing one thing I am struggling with to radically accept. Because my motivation level is such a pivotal part of both my personality and my mental health, it makes sense to dedicate a few minutes each day to reflect on it.
• Continue publishing weekly blog posts. I have enjoyed increasing my published blog posts from once or twice a month to weekly. Of course, doing this by simply taking snippets of my journal entries, polishing them up a little, and posting them on my blog was incredibly fast and easy. It will be more challenging when I am producing fresh content each week, but totally doable for me now. I also anticipate my blog mirroring and complementing my YouTube channel content.

I have not been journaling this past week, but plan on starting up again on Monday. My particular focus this month will be on pain, specifically my chronic back pain, though any pain-related observations I have are of course welcome in my journal, along with general observations about life.

I should be uploading a video to my YouTube channel, Empowered Thought, sometime on Monday, so be on the lookout for that if you like my content and want more, this time in an audiovisual format. The first video will mostly be introducing myself and the channel. Deep dives into personal development psychology, empowering ethical philosophy, and lexicology/lexicography insights will definitely follow in the near future.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
― Thich Nhat Hang

Namaste.

I am incredibly excited and nervous about this month’s challenge. I have wanted to start a YouTube channel for quite some time now, but have always found excuses for not doing so. My familiar enemy of procrastination won out. However, I am turning the tables on him this month!

Below are the parameters of the challenge:

• Spend at least 15 minutes every day (including weekend days) working on videos for the week. I am going to add this fairly high up on my daily hierarchy list. For the first few days, this time will be mostly spent preparing my studio space, where I will record the audio +/- video that will be uploaded to the channel.
• Upload at least one video each week to my YouTube channel. I definitely will shoot for just getting one video completed the first week. However, as the month progresses, if I feel comfortable and am enjoying the process, I could be getting 2 or even 3 videos finished per week. The challenge, though, is one video each week at a minimum.
• Videos can be live-streamed or pre-recorded. If live-streamed, videos must be a minimum of 25 minutes. If pre-recorded, videos must be a minimum of 10 minutes. In some sense, live streaming is “easier” because there is no editing; I just start the mic or camera and charge forward, come what may. Pre-recorded videos take more time to produce, but are a little less scary sense I can preview beforehand what I am uploading for the world to see. Well, maybe not the world, but hopefully at least a handful of people.
• Publish weekly blog posts that correspond to the video I produce each week. I definitely want to continue publishing weekly blog posts as I have done this past month. Again, this should be a fairly easy way to do this, as I would have already been working or uploaded a video on some particular topic, that I can then summarize or promote in my blog posts. Whether or not I continue producing videos and/or start a podcast, I want my blog to remain strong and healthy.

The name of my channel is Empowered Thought. What I am particularly interested in exploring is the fusion of philosophy and empowerment. I am subscribed to several different philosophy channels which I find fascinating though often they can be more on the esoteric side. I am also subbed to several self-help/personal empowerment channels which are motivating and useful but sometimes lacking in deep critical thinking and skepticism.

My channel will be an attempt to bridge these two worlds in a harmonious marriage. Whether I will come close to accomplishing this remains to be seen. It would be a great encouragement to see comments on my videos, so if you decide to watch any of the videos and want to leave a note about anything you saw, I will reserve a special place in my heart for you.

Namaste.