Introduction letter to my kids
This is a book of wisdom that I have accumulated in the 41 years I’ve been alive. Wisdom is ideas that will help you understand and navigate life. You collect your own wisdom through experience, by doing things in the world, and making mistakes. The more experiences you have, the more wisdom you will gain. I’ve packed as many experiences as I possibly could into my 41 years of life, and I’m going to write down as much of that wisdom as I can in this book.
I found that when reading wisdom from other people, it can take a while to incorporate it into your own worldview. Someone else’s wisdom might not make sense until you have some context for it, like having similar experiences.
All of these things may not help you right now, but I feel sure it will help you at some point in your life. The reason I am publishing this book on a webpage is so that I can continually update, add and delete from this book until I die. I am constantly learning new things, attaining new perspectives, having experiences and gaining wisdom, and so information in this book won’t be static. At any given time, there could be things in this book that are completely wrong, and I would need to gain a new perspective or have a particular experience to acquire the truth of something. I’ve had many revelations in my life, which are realizations that shift a large part of my worldview. I will talk about most of these revelations later in the book.
Wisdom is universal, in that, for the most part, it applies to everyone everywhere. These ideas didn’t all originate in my head. I’ve gained a lot of this wisdom from reading other people’s books. In fact, I found that most books contain the author’s wisdom, either on the surface or buried into the depths of a novel. The wisdom in this book is a collection; I can’t take credit for originating or owning any of this wisdom, it’s just all things that I’ve learned in my life.
I hope that you guys can read this book and incorporate a lot of this wisdom into your lives without having to make the same mistakes that I made. I hope that this book helps you avoid problems that I’ve had in my life, and I hope that this knowledge helps you, and your kids, and your grandkids, to live easier, happier, and more fulfilling lives.
Needs
Until your needs are met, you can’t help anyone else, and you won’t be happy or at peace. Meeting your own needs is a complex process that will take you years to master. Learning what your needs are takes time and patient observation, and then learning the skills you will use to meet those needs will challenge you in the most difficult ways.
We all have many needs. There are the things that we need as human animals to stay alive: air, sleep, warmth, food, water, light, human contact, etc. You have probably learned how to take care of those by now. There are also things we need as humans who live together in a society: clothes, education, transportation, money, a place to live, a job, and social groups, to name a few. The work ahead of you is in figuring out your emotional needs, the things you need to be happy, fulfilled, and at peace with yourself and your environment.
For a long time, I stubbornly refused to use the word ‘need’ when talking about anything other than the things I need to survive. I thought that I should just be able to adapt to any situation, and I would be fine as long as I had the air, water and food that I needed to live. This is true in the short term, but the big picture is much more complicated.
In every situation, relationship, or activity you are ever involved in, you and anyone else involved will have needs. Your own needs should be your primary concern, and the needs of anyone else involved should be your secondary concern. Let’s look at a co-habitation example.
You live with a roommate in a small house. In this situation, you and your roommate have needs directly pertaining to the situation- you need things from your roommate, and you need things from the house. One thing you might need is a certain level of cleanliness. After living together for two months, you notice it’s really getting on your nerves when your roommate leaves her dirty socks on the floor. If nothing changes and she continues to leave her socks on the floor, your are going to become progressively more upset and overwhelmed by the situation. You could get to the point of having a nervous break, dissociation, or erupt in anger over something else or with someone else. This is because your need to have the house clean is not being met.
There is only one way to really solve this problem, and that is communication. You have to communicate your need to your roommate. Most likely, your roommate doesn’t even know that it bugs you when she leaves her socks on the floor. You could take a passive aggressive approach and clean up her socks for her everyday, but this would still bug you and you can’t do this every single day and be a happy, fulfilled man. A man who knows how to be happy and fulfilled will initiate a conversation and express his need. He would say something like,
“Hey, it really bugs me when you leave your socks on the floor. Would you make an effort to put them away after you take them off?”
The sooner you do communicate this need, the better. If you put it off (because communication is scary) the problem will only get worse and the conversation will get more awkward.
Your roommate has needs too, and if hers are not met she will be having similar problems. Maybe she gets bugged because she doesn’t think you wash the dishes thoroughly enough. You don’t know this though, you think you wash the dishes just fine. She has been acting weird about things recently, especially when you’re in the kitchen, and she has seemed distant and irritable. She will most likely have no idea that leaving her socks on the floor would bug you, and will be surprised and maybe defensive about it. You can calmly express that you need her to pick her socks up, and you can ask if she needs anything from you, which would open the door for her to tell you that she is bugged by the dishes.
Now, you both have to change your behavior to meet the other person’s needs. You have to learn from her how she wants you to wash the dishes, and then you have to start doing it that way. She has to stop leaving her socks on the floor. It may take a while for you both to modify your behavior, but after you’ve opened the channel of communication about it, it will be much easier to initiate the next conversation. “Hey, remember last month when I told you I needed you to stop leaving your socks on the floor? You’re still doing it, could you make more of an effort to stop?”
You will never live with someone who has exactly the same needs as you, and so this situation will occur, many times, in every living situation that you share with someone else. The sooner you learn to communicate about your needs, the easier the rest of your life will be.
Sometimes, I’m too scared to initiate a conversation with someone about my needs. I may be intimidated by that person, scared of a fierce reaction, or scared of hurting them.
Let’s say in this same example, your roommate is seriously depressed and you’re worried that asking her to pick her socks up will throw her over the edge, and she could hurt herself or others. First of all, this is probably not the case. People who are depressed, and most people in general, crave authentic personal communication. Communicating a need is vulnerable, and if you can be vulnerable to her, it will probably make her feel more connected to you and less alone. If you decide not to communicate your need though, you are making a choice to self-abandon. You are abandoning this need to protect yourself from the thing you are afraid of (communication). This is only sustainable for a short time. You cannot change yourself and make it ok for her to continue leaving her socks on the floor indefinitely. You must eventually take some sort of action to meet your need. The longer you wait, the longer you perpetuate your own misery.
Let me give you some examples of some of my needs that I’ve discovered: I learned when you guys were young that I needed time alone to collect my thoughts. I used to work all day, come home and hang out with you guys until bedtime, then spend the evening with my girlfriend until our bedtime, or go play a gig. I didn’t have any time alone in my days at all, and I was becoming miserable and I didn’t know why. It was years before I was able to articulate this feeling and call it a need, but I did learn that one way I could feel better was going camping alone. I have always tried hard to build in solo camping trips into my schedule- not just because I like nature and want to explore, but because this allowed me to be alone and process my thoughts and feelings. Before I learned how to do this, I would have headaches, panic attacks and nervous break-downs which would render me completely useless. Not having your needs met daily is traumatic, and my body responded with trauma responses (dissociating, shutting down, not being able to speak or act or take control of my body, shaking, being tired all the time, lack of motivation). Meeting this need has been central to my adult life. I still struggle every week to find enough time in my schedule to be alone, I often fail, and I continue to learn new ways that this impacts me negatively. Truly, you will not be happy until you learn to meet your own needs. It is vitally important.
Another example from my life is in learning how to be creative. Being creative and creating things is what my job is all about, and it’s the activity I’ve centered my life around. I need specific conditions to be creative though, I can’t just be creative for 15 mins before I have a meeting, or right when I get home from a gig. For me to be creative, I need a large chunk of time, at least 3 hours, complete privacy, and no distractions. What that looks like right now is that I organize my week to allow creative time during the day when my roommate is at work, I turn my phone notifications off, and I make sure I won’t have anything to do for as long as possible. I need to be creative, and I need these conditions in order to be creative, so I have no choice but to do these things and arrange my life in this way.
I need to be in charge of my own schedule. Working for someone else, having to clock-in at a certain time every day, and not being able to arrange my days how I want are unacceptable to me. I could do it for a short time if I needed a job, but it’s not a sustainable lifestyle for me.
I have a friendship where she and I have contradictory needs, and at the moment we have had to suspend our relationship because we can’t meet each other’s needs. She needs a lot of communication, over phone, text, or email, to feel safe in the relationship, and I need to communicate only in person to feel safe. This is a friendship, but we work closely together and have hurt each other through not expressing our needs in the past, and so a situation has arisen where we can’t safely be friends anymore. Communicating in person triggers her, and over the phone is triggering and overwhelming for me. We will resolve this, but it might take some time for one or both of us to heal enough to meet each other’s needs.
I need a 3-5 hours of exercise a week in order to feel good. Many weeks, I don’t get this much and I don’t feel as good. I have less energy, less motivation, and I feel less strong and capable.
As much as I like to be alone, I also need people and culture. I start getting depressed when I haven’t spent enough time around other people, and I feel drawn to do things like go to a movie, grocery store, museum, or a concert. I’ve spent enough time in the country to know that I feel the absence of culture and I need to get to a city occasionally to see art.
I could list dozens of examples of my needs. Some are specific to a relationship, a job, or a situation, some are general needs that I have in life. The most important and the most difficult are the ones that involve other people. Start paying attention and trying to identify your own needs. If you ever start to feel irritated, angry or upset in any way, it is a sign that one of your needs is not being met. You can then figure out the need, and bravely face the communication that will be required to have your need met.
Taking Responsibility for Everything That Happens to You
One of the most powerful and immediately helpful lessons I’ve learned is about taking responsibility for every part of your life. Instead of blaming other people or other things for your problems, examine your own mind and past actions and figure out how you are the cause of your problem, or could have done something to prevent your problem. In my privileged life, I’ve never encountered a problem that wasn’t my own fault, and by owning that responsibility I’ve been able to easily solve most of my problems or prevent them from happening again.
For example, let’s say someone cuts right in front of you on the highway and forces you to slam on brakes, which almost caused an accident with the car behind you and the car behind it. My first response to that would probably be anger or irritation. ‘Why did that dumbass just cut me off? Why couldn’t he have just waited and gotten behind me? Why do stupid people have to get in my way all the time?’ Thoughts like these would come into my head then and for many minutes after that incident, and it could kill my vibe and make the rest of my day worse. I don’t have to let that person control me though.
By taking responsibility for my own problem, I can immediately let go of my anger towards that person. What is my problem in that situation? My problem is that I am angry and upset because that stupid driver cut me off. I cannot control the other driver, and I cannot change the past. When you are upset, it is about yourself, and in the present.
I’m sure in this situation there are things that I could’ve done differently to prevent being cut off by that driver. Maybe I was going slow in the left lane by accident, maybe I was speeding, maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to my rearview mirror and could’ve avoided this person coming up behind me. Again though, that doesn’t help me solve my problem. My problem is right now. What it takes to solve this problem starts with realizing what the problem is. Once you understand that the problem has nothing to do with the other driver, you can take some simple steps to let go of the event and your negative feelings and be happy again.
When I find myself upset because I’m holding onto something, I can solve the problem by taking some deep breaths and meditating for a minute or two. I might turn on a funny podcast to get me laughing, which can completely change your mood in minutes. Letting go of something is never that difficult I found, once you realize that you are holding onto it. There are simple things you can do in any situation to clear your mind and let go of and emotion. The hard part is being able to take a step back and realize that you need to let go of something in the moment.
The idea of taking responsibility for yourself goes the other direction too – you also need to take responsibility for the good things that happen to you. When you get a promotion at your job, start dating a girl you really like, win a contest– those things are your fault too. It’s easy to attribute good fortune to luck, or a god, or karma, but what I found is that we either directly or indirectly shape everything that happens to us. Your good fortune may be the result of a chain of events you set into motion years ago, or it could be because you smiled at the right person on the right day. Most, if not all, of the good fortune I’ve had in my career has been based on friendships and personal acquaintances.
Taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life can be a good motivator, too. Many times in my life, I have found myself waiting on someone to do something before I achieve a goal or start a project. Taking responsibility for creating your own life puts the ball firmly in your court. If you want something to happen, you’re the one that’s got to make it happen.
When you are a child, your parents own that responsibility, making sure you have what you need to survive and grow. But part of being an adult is taking over this responsibility. Becoming a man means that you take ownership over your life, and build it into the life that you want it to be. If you are working at a job that is not fulfilling, you have the power to quit that job and find a job that is fulfilling. Waiting on things to happen to you is a recipe for a miserable, boring life. You have the power to choose what you are doing and how you are doing it, every minute of every day. If you are doing something that is making you unhappy, then take a step back and ask yourself why you are doing this thing. The odds are, you could make a choice, immediately, that will align you with your goals, and where you want to be.
For example, let’s say you have a neighbor that you don’t like. This man is frequently drunk, aggressive, mean, and he seems unstable. He bangs on your wall and yells that he’s going to kick your ass if your TV is a little bit too loud. This is certainly a problem. So let’s take a step back and see how you could take responsibility for your life and turn this problem into an opportunity to align yourself with what you want. You can’t control your neighbor. You can call the apartment manager and complain, but there’s a good chance they won’t be able to solve your problem for you by kicking the man out. He hasn’t done anything illegal, so you can’t call the police.
A passive reaction to the situation would be avoiding the man, keeping your TV volume really low, tiptoeing around your house, only going outside when you know he’s not home. These actions will not help you at all, and will probably reinforce narratives in your head that are oppressive. An active, confrontational strategy would be to knock on his door, lure him outside, and then kick his ass. This is not a great idea either, because that is illegal and you would probably end up in jail, or you could lose the fight.
A better approach would be to take a step back and examine the situation and see how you can take responsibility for it. You can’t control the man, you can’t control where he chooses to live, you can’t control the apartment manager or the police, the only thing you can do is make a choice about what you are doing right now, in the present moment. Up until this moment, you’ve been choosing to stay in an unsafe situation, which is your actual problem. To solve this problem you can make a different choice – to leave! Pick up the phone and call the apartment manager and tell him that you need to move because you are not safe living next to this man. Tell the apartment manager that they either need to let you break your lease or they need to move your neighbor into a different apartment. Most likely they will let you break your lease. Then, move to a different apartment. Find one that is closer to where you work, or has a better pool, or will get you closer to people you want to be close to. The process of moving to a different apartment might take a month, but right away, you have solved your problem. Taking action is the key – in making the choice to call your apartment manager in that moment, you started the solution to the problem, and eventually your problem will be solved. You have this power of choice and responsibility in every moment of your life.
Now what if you have a problem and the solution will take months or years. Goals are types of problems like this. A goal is somewhere you want to be or something you want to be in your life. Let’s say you have a goal to be a rock star. I can tell you from first-hand experience, this is a difficult goal to achieve! Goals work the same way as taking responsibility for your problems. You can say that not being a rockstar yet is a problem, because that is something you want with your life. What choices could you make in the moment to reach your goal of being a rock star? This is a lengthy problem and will require a pen and paper.
Write down all of the things that you will need to accomplish before you are a rock star, and figure out how you can achieve each of these things. Then, narrow down that list further to write yourself a schedule: practice music three hours a day, spend 10 hours a day at the computer working on your business, then go out and network at the bars every night.
You’ve identified your problem, or goal, and you can take an action by setting out steps to achieve this goal. Now, you have to choose to follow through with these actions, 50 hours a week, for the next 10 years, before you will realize your goal of being a rockstar.
This is a process I have done many times in my career, and at first my goal was to become a rock star. Now, every time I sit down to write out my goals and plan how to achieve them, my goals change. I no longer want to be a rock star, I have narrowed down to exactly what I want to do with music, and every day I’m working towards achieving that goal.
The hardest part about all of this is figuring out what your goals are and what your problems are. I just start with simple things. You don’t need to figure out your whole life goal right away. The next time you get grumpy, take a step back and figure out what your problem is. Likely it will be something simple, and you can use this process of taking responsibility to solve it quickly. The more you do this, the better you will get and the more readily you will be able to access your emotions and desires. As a human being, your default state is happiness, peace. If you notice that you are not happy or not at peace, that means you have a problem that is getting in the way of that. It may be difficult to figure out what it is, but you and only you can figure it out. It is your responsibility to figure it out and solve your problem for your own sake and for the sake of everyone else in your life.
Addictions
I’ve always loved playing video games. The first video game I ever played was on Dad’s brand new laptop in 1986. I don’t remember the name of the game, but it was a grey pixel that would move through a grey maze pursued by other grey pixel creatures. I had an airplane simulator that ran off of a half dozen floppy disks, a walk through puzzle game about space that took at least 20 floppy disks, and one of my favorites - Duke Nuke’em. I got the first Nintendo when I was seven or eight, and played video games as much as I could until I was 20. When I was a kid it was maybe an hour a day, but as I got older I would hang with friends and we would have marathon gaming sessions for hours.I played lots of different types of games, but my favorite were role-playing games, like Zelda and the last game that I played, Morrowind, on Xbox.
In the spring of my 20s, I worked at a golf course on grandfather mountain. My goal for that spring and summer was to save up enough money so that I could move to Greenville, NC with my friend Matt Austin and spend the fall doing nothing but hanging out and playing video games. That’s exactly what I did.
Matt, his three roommates and I played video games all day, every day. I spent two or three months in front of a big TV, day and night. We mostly ate frozen food and I didn’t leave the apartment for days at a time. For weeks I played Morrowind for 12 hours a day, every day, alternating long turns with Matt. During breaks other roommates would come in and play Halo, but we mostly dominated the TV with our RPG.
I began to have dreams about Morrowind. It became my whole world. My character was basically a god in the game; I could go anywhere and do anything I wanted. In this game, just like most modern games, you have to build your skill at certain things by doing them for a length of time. For example, if you wanted to get better at archery in the game, you had to go practice archery and get enough points to move to the next level and become “better” at the skill. I spent hundreds of hours “practicing” skills so I could be a badass in the game - and I was. It felt amazing to be able to do anything I wanted in this huge virtual world.
One of my few possessions (in real life) was a mountain bike, and one morning I woke up and looked outside and noticed what a beautiful summer day it was. For whatever reason, I decided to get on my bike and ride around. When I was a kid I rode that bike all over Winston-Salem, to church, to friend’s houses, to school across town, anywhere I wanted to go and not have to ask my parent’s for a ride. I felt the pull of a beautiful day and some fresh air, and hopped on my bike to cruise around and see what was going on. I rode around the apartment complex for a bit, and then saw a little game trail that went into the woods and followed it. Several minutes later I was stuck in the swamp, covered in bugs, carrying my bike over my head, wading through mud. I was struggling physically, but it felt so incredibly good. I rode my bike to the point of straining my muscles to the maximum, and as I breathed in fresh swamp air and looked at the sunlight coming through trees, I had a revelation: the video game was a simulation of reality. It’s a pretty good simulation, but nowhere near as good as actual reality. In reality, you can do the same things as you can in the game, but also infinitely more things. If you practice something you get better at it, and if you practice it a lot, like for 12 hours a day, you’re going to master it very quickly. Just like in the game.
I realized in that moment, that as soon as that game was turned off, nothing that I had done for those few months mattered at all. It was a complete waste of time, just like throwing time away, washing it down the toilet. I had absolutely nothing to show for my time. In that moment, I resolved to never play video games again. From then on, when I spent time doing something, I wanted it to have an effect in the real world. I wanted to be a badass like my video game character, and I knew that all I had to do was to pick a skill and practice, just like in the game, and eventually I would be a master of that skill.
Now, I can’t even imagine what life would be like if I tried to add video games back into it. My life is very full, and it’s full of things that fulfill me. I have an active social life, lots of good friends, plenty of hobbies, and I spend my days and nights doing work that I love to do. I am a badass at the skill I chose to focus on, and the “levels” are infinite; I can keep practicing and keep getting even more badass. It’s that simple.
I don’t think anyone needs to quit playing video games completely to lead a fulfilling life, but I do think that I needed to quit video games completely to lead a fulfilling life. Everyone is different; the goal is to know yourself, and to know what you need to do, or not do, to be fulfilled. This is much easier said than done, of course. I was addicted to video games, and if I let myself, I could very easily, and happily, become addicted again. I could easily start smoking cigarettes again, if I wanted to. I know now that video games and cigarettes both got in the way of me living a fulfilling life, and once I quit those addictions, I created space in my life to fill with things that benefitted me.
I watch action movies. Sometimes as much as five days a week. At the end of the day I will put on a stupid action movie so that I can just zone out and relax. I’m pretty sure watching stupid action movies doesn’t benefit me in the long term, but it does feel good in the moment. It’s like letting go of caring about having to do healthy things for myself. I consider it a bad habit, and one day, I’m going to break that bad habit and stop watching action movies. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to watch another action movie, it means I’m going to break my addiction to watching action movies. I can play video games occasionally with friends, and never have a desire to do it more. It took breaking my addiction to video games to realize that they take up my time and energy, don’t make me feel good, and they’re not a good use of my time. They are fun in the moment, they are a great way to escape from the real world and can make you feel incredible sometimes, but they offer almost nothing of benefit to your life in the long term. Doing a hundred pushups a day for a week will make you feel strong, healthy and bold all week, but playing video games for 30 minutes a day will do nothing other than take up 210 minutes of your week.
All of us humans are addicted to many things, all the time. I am addicted to over-eating, action movies, late night snacks while I’m driving, and a big one that I am trying to break right now, scrolling on social media. All of these activities release dopamine in our brain, which is a chemical that signals that your brain is receiving a reward. It feels good, in your body and mind. The feeling of pleasure is caused by or signaled by dopamine being released in your brain. Usually, these actions that we do repetitively to get a dopamine kick make us feel great in the moment, but bad in the long term. Video games are ingeniously designed to trigger dopamine production and keep us engaged as long as possible. Social media does the same. People are literally engineering things to addict us, because then we will pay for their product and they can make more money. It is an age old story.
Now, I don’t mean to lump all video games together here. There are lots of educational and training video games that are invaluable tools. I use Duolingo almost every day; it is generally a challenge in the moment, but makes me feel good in the long term. I feel great about myself if I’ve practiced Spanish a few days in a row. I’m more confident and more eager to talk to people when I exercise that part of my brain, and those are things that give me a feeling of fulfillment (aka feeling good in the long term). There are some video games that are beautiful pieces of art. There are some video games that are extremely well written, that help you to see the world in new ways or from a unique perspective, like a great novel. Unfortunately, I would say these aren’t the majority. Just like action movies and slot machines, most video games are designed to keep you engaged and spending money. These are the games you need to look out for. If you play games like this, then you are probably addicted.
Addictions, especially addictions that you don’t know about, can ruin your life, and almost always make your life worse. If you are aware of an addiction, figure out how to quit. At the very least, being aware of your addiction will help you to manage it.
I’ve never had an opiate addiction, and I never will. I’m too smart and know too much to let myself get addicted to opiates, and both of you are as well. Don’t ever do opiates! If a doctor prescribes them to you, ask the doctor for a non-addictive alternative. If you don’t have a choice, take them as little as you possibly can and stop as soon as you possibly can.
I have a bunch of friends who’ve gotten hooked on opiates and it’s ruined their lives. Only a few of them have even recovered somewhat, and all are changed forever. They seem sad and lost, like they will never see sunlight again. If you get addicted to heroin, come to me and I will help you get off of it, but from what I understand it is hell. Quitting other addictions is much easier. The hardest ones for me have been lifestyle changes, like quitting over-eating and late-night snacking.
There are lots of ways to quit addictions, and I am definitely not an expert, but I know a few techniques that work for me. What it comes down to is getting to a point where you really want to quit. I tried to quit smoking cigarettes for five years, but it never happened until I really wanted to never smoke again. Then it was easy. With quitting video games, it took me riding around in a swamp on my bicycle to have a revelation, and then quitting that was easy as well. The first step is always becoming aware of your addiction, realizing that you do something solely for dopamine and it doesn’t benefit you, and noting that in your mind every time you catch yourself doing the thing.
When you do this, make sure you are nice to yourself. Don’t say, “dammit John, you were so weak because you caved in and ate that cheese at midnight!” It’s important to do it very gently. The things that you say in your head will become your reality. Just make a mental note that you were eating cheese at midnight, put a check on your mental calendar that you engaged in your addiction that day.
The key is to not beat yourself up about the past, to stay in the moment and make good decisions when it’s time to make the decision. Every minute of every day you get to make a choice about what you are doing and how you are doing it. Approach every minute as a new minute; you have the power to do whatever you want in every single minute. Focus your attention on choosing to do the things that will make you feel fulfilled, not the things that will bring you pleasure in the moment. If you focus on leading a fulfilling life, you will begin to experience greater, deeper pleasures that you couldn’t dream of before.
Overeating
There’s a great book, called Intuitive Eating that outlines a concept I like a lot. I haven’t read the whole book, just the first few chapters, but I got some great ideas from it. Intuitive eating is the practice of paying attention to your body to direct you on what to eat and when to eat. If you listen to your body, your body will tell you exactly what you need to eat, and when you need to eat.
I learned about this idea several years ago, but I’m still struggling to implement it because of my addiction to overeating. I am 41 years old as of this writing, I’ve had kids and my body doesn’t have a biological imperative to grow anymore. I am slowly dying, and right now my body needs less calories than it ever has operate.
What makes intuitive eating difficult for me is that when I eat fatty, delicious foods, my brain gives me a big kick of dopamine, and doing this regularly forms an addictive behavior. So instead of eating only foods that will help me, I eat foods that taste good. Instead of eating food only when I’m hungry, I eat food whenever I feel the need for a kick of dopamine, or can’t resist the temptation anymore. I’ve discussed dopamine and addictions in another chapter, so won’t go into that here.
I feel like it is vitally important to not overeat however, thus my constant struggle with quitting that addiction. I believe that lots of afflictions, including cancers and auto-immune diseases can be the result of consuming too much matter. Too many nutrients, too many calories. Our body doesn’t know how to handle all this, so it grows things like tumors that can end up killing us.
I believe this, not because it is a fact, but because I read about a lot of modern scientific research in every field I can get my hands on, and that seems to be a general trend in things that scientists are learning currently about human physiology. It also fits with my worldview, and it appeals to common sense. I’m sure something like cancer or Crohn’s disease is not caused by just one thing either; the world and our bodies are insanely complex organisms, and there could be dozens or hundreds of factors involved in these diseases. The basic principle of being healthy is eating the right amount of nutritious foods and exercising regularly. If you do this, it will make you feel good, and if you feel good, you’ll be happy, and if you are happy, you will probably live a fulfilling life.
I went through a phase in my life, where I fasted for five days a month. With a few exceptions, I probably did that for about two years. During a five day fast I would have to work, and so I couldn’t alter my lifestyle very much for the fast. I would drink mostly water, and eat nothing except for an occasional piece of fruit or a few nuts.
The first day of the fast usually wasn’t that difficult, but going to bed the first night could be painful with an empty stomach. The second day of the fast was the worst, but by the end of the second day, all hunger pangs are gone and I would start to feel light as a feather. The next three days of my fast would be amazing. When my body didn’t have to spend all of it’s energy digesting food, I didn’t need much sleep, and so I could work long days with no breaks for food, go to sleep late, and wake up early, fully rested. I had tons of energy and felt light on my feet, like I could do anything.
I intentionally stopped doing these fasts because I had trouble with self-control. For the other 25 days a month I wasn’t fasting, I would eat and drink whatever I felt like and so overall, my health didn’t really improve.
What I’m working on now is changing my whole relationship to food and crafting a complete lifestyle change that allows me to eat much less all the time. My main opponent in the struggle is my my own addiction and lack of self-control. The ideas in Intuitive Eating help a lot with crafting this lifestyle. As you practice paying attention to your body, you will notice clearly when you are or are not hungry, and as you get better at playing attention to your body, you’ll start to be able to feel the things that your body needs and doesn’t need.
As young men, your bodies certainly need a lot more calories than my middle-aged-man body does right now. At some point your body will make a shift from its goal of seeking a mate and procreating to beginning to die. With most men it seems to happen between 30 and 40 years old. You’ll notice that you have less energy, that you start to get fat, and that is a lot harder to lose weight, burn fat and build muscle. Right now your bodies are quick and responsive– the better to attract a mate and make some children, and also a great time to start learning about your body and intuitive eating.
Fasting is very difficult to start because our culture and the pleasure-seeking parts of our mind tell us that we need to eat three meals a day. This is not true. Everyone in the world has different nutritional needs, and fasting is perfectly safe and healthy for most people. Humans have evolved to live with scarcity, and I imagine our distant ancestors would go many days without eating in their lives. I believe that not only is fasting safe, our bodies actually function much better when we fast regularly.
Start by doing a 24 hour fast. Choose a day of the week where you don’t have plans to eat with other people, preferably a busy day, and go the entire day without eating anything. Only drink water and juice. From the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night, don’t eat anything. You can wake up and eat breakfast the next morning. This kind of fasting has been getting a lot of press recently, and it’s called intermittent fasting. There are numerous documented health benefits with this practice.
The next step would be to extend it to two or three days. Like I said above, I think it’s easier if you choose days where you will be busy doing things. It’s a lot harder for me to fast if I’m at home by myself with not much to do, because that’s when my addiction kicks in and tells me that I need to eat something delicious. If you choose a day when you’re busy, you can distract yourself from the mental challenge and work on paying attention to your body in the moment. You will be uncomfortable for the first couple of days. The worst hunger pangs make you feel like you’re about to throw up, but I’ve only had those occasionally and it’s not really that bad. If you can make it through two days, doing a five day fast is a piece of cake. For me, the last three days are effortless and I’m always a little reluctant to eat my first meal after a fast, because I know that it will slow me down.
I am always pursuing new experiences, because when you do something new, you gain a new perspective on the world. Fasting for a few days gives you a very valuable perspective. While you’re fasting, watch other people eating, and notice how you feel. In the first couple of days of a fast, you may feel jealous, hungry, and irritated. After you get through the first two days though you will start to see how fucked up our relationship to food is. You will watch people eat fatty foods be disgusted. You will vow to never eat junk food again. Your sense of smell will sharpen, and you’ll be able to tell what kind of oil a food was cooked in and be able to take apart the ingredients with your nose. Fasting is like a super power. You will have enormous energy, a super-powered senses, your reflexes quicken, your mind will sharpen, and you don’t need as much sleep.
Some people have a very high metabolism and fasting may not be a healthy option for them. Everyone is different, every body is different, every brain is different, so just because these things work for me doesn’t mean they will work for you. However, both of you guys have my genes and same basic body type, so I’m pretty sure you will have a similar experience to me. Try this now while you’re young and experiment with it so that when you get older and your body starts to slow down, you can use these tools to stay healthy and energetic in middle-age. The most important rule is to pay attention to your body. If this is impossible for you as a 20 year old, it may be much easier when you’re 30. Your body will tell you.
Career
There are two types of careers you should consider. One is to pursue your passion and make that into your job. That’s what I do, and it’s very, very difficult, and you probably will never make much money. The other is to find a job that you don’t hate that leaves you enough time to pursue what you’re passionate about. If you choose this route, figure out exactly what it is that you want to do in pursuing your passion, and make sure that the job you have doesn’t get in the way of that. For example, if you are passionate about playing board games with friends, then you need a job that will leave you enough hours in the day for playing, give you comparable schedules with the people you want to play with, and also pay enough money so that you can afford living expenses.
In both cases you will face compromise. If you choose the latter, no matter what your job is it will be taking away time that you want to be playing games. If you choose the former, you’ll have to find some way to make money playing board games, and that will include doing things that you don’t want to do, like making YouTube videos, filling out paperwork for a game company, going to meetings, etc etc.
The longer you stick with it the closer you will become to actually doing exactly what you want to do. I have been pursuing music as a full-time career for sixteen years now, and every year I spend more and more time doing what I want to do. What I want to do is perform my own music in front of people who want to hear it. When I started out, I was mostly playing in cover bands and doing music that other people wanted me to play. But the more time I put into it, the closer I get towards my goal of traveling the world playing my own music for people interested in hearing my music.
I’ve been tempted many times to change to the second strategy. If I approached my career in the second way, I would find a day job that paid me enough money and left me enough time to pursue my own music in time off. This way wouldn’t be any easier or harder necessarily, but it made less sense than the first way because a day job that would pay me the amount of money I need to live in a house and raise two kids would take too much time away from my music.
As you get older, what you are passionate about may change, so you should always take time to reevaluate your life. For example, maybe you are passionate about playing board games right now, and you choose the second option and work a day job that gives you enough money and time to play board games the way you want to. But one day you may notice that playing board games isn’t fulfilling anymore. Or you may just notice a desire to do something else with your time. Or you may get bored. Or all of the above. When this happens, sit down with a pencil and a sheet of blank paper and start writing down things that you like, things that you might like, and ways that you might want to spend your time. Pick the one that is most appealing to you and try it.
Let’s say you choose something like becoming an environmental activist - an environmentalist ninja. Good choice! You want to be a soldier that uses nonviolent methods to bring down polluting corporate giants. Circle that one on your list, and then write down exactly the kinds of things that you want to do: do you want to sneak into power plants at night and fly a drone with night vision cameras to collect data on an evil polluting power company? Do you want to scuba dive and take underwater pictures of a leaky pipe? Do you want to drive a small boat out to an oil spill and rescue penguins? Do you want to break into a corporate pig farm, uncage all the pigs and let them loose?
Then think of anyone you might know who does these kinds of things. Search online, go to the library, ask your local Riverkeeper. In this example, there are organizations like Greenpeace who do things like that, and probably many more covert organizations who partake in quasi-legal or questionable actions against polluters. If you went a milder, more legal route, Riverkeepers do field work all over the world.
Whatever you can think of that you want to do, there’s somebody doing it, and if not, even better. You get to be a pioneer! Next, you would want to see if you could get a job with one of these organizations or people, or you could just email them and ask if they need a volunteer. Anything that you can do to get your foot in the door and start doing the thing that you want to do. Continue pursuing any passion for years, and you will become a master. People will come to you for expert advice. It is a fulfilling feeling being good at something you love.
It may take years to find the thing that you are most passionate about. You may find one thing you like a lot, and hone in, refine and narrow the scope of your activities until you really dial in the thing that you really love doing. It is a great skill to be able to choose to change what you are doing, abandoning one path for another that may be more fulfilling. The more things you try, the more perspective you will gain on this process, and on yourself.
Don’t get discouraged when things get difficult. If you are pursuing what you love, you are doing the right thing and it’s inevitable that you will go through many rough periods in your career. I’ve had many rough patches in my music career. I almost quit and became a fireman in 2008. The day before I was supposed to go in for my physical exam for the fire department, I got a call from the Embers offering me a job. I might have enjoyed being a fireman, and it might even be very fulfilling work for me, but I would always be lacking something in my life if I gave up my music career.
The other side of that lesson is that if you find that you’re not as passionate about something any more, don’t be scared to quit and do something else. I’ve always been passionate about music, but I question myself almost every day. Is music what I really want to do with my time? The answer is usually yes.
Take it slow. You’ve got the rest of your lives to live, and there’s no rush to figure this all out. Neither of you will be olympic figure skaters - it’s too late for that, go ahead and give up on that dream. You have plenty of time to figure out what you are passionate about and orient your life toward that passion. Take your time and enjoy where you are in this journey presently, just keep facing in the right direction.
Health
Most health problems that you have, mental or physical, can be solved by addressing your needs. You have basic health needs in your life, and if they are not met, you will be unhealthy. This could be cancer, depression, addictions, anxiety, ulcers, high blood pressure, stress, migraines, or a million other health problems named or unnamed.
Western medicine takes the approach of treating symptoms with drugs, surgery, radiation and other grossly invasive and toxic means, but usually completely fails to address the underlying problem. Often, symptoms will just come right back, or new symptoms will arise soon after treatment. Other cultures take a more holistic approach to medicine, and us westerners are slowly catching on. Scientists who are on the forefront of mental and physical health research are also realizing that our minds and bodies are one and the same. You cannot treat a physical problem without addressing the psychological components, and vice versa.
We all have basic health needs, and if any of these needs are not met, we will develop problems. Our basic needs are:
Consume the right amount of healthy food and clean water every day
Exercise our body every day
Exercise our minds every day
Get enough sleep every night
Pursue a passion every day
Maintain close and open relationships with our family and partner
Have a healthy and active social life
Work with a guide, counselor, guru, psychologist, or therapist to resolve, incorporate and process all of your trauma
Talk to a counselor regularly to understand your emotional life and work through problems as they arise
And most importantly, in order to start doing any of this, you MUST feel safe. This is the most abundant reason that people are not able to meet these needs. I have spent a large portion of my life feeling unsafe, and I know that until you do learn how to feel safe, or remove yourself from a dangerous situation, you cannot even begin to take care of yourself.
Reasons for feeling unsafe are everywhere. Many, if not most, people feel unsafe with their parents or caretakers when they are young. This can cause trauma that will need to be resolved for the individual to feel safe. This is an impossible situation for a child, because they can’t remove themselves from the situation. However, many, if not most, people reenact these unsafe relationships as adults, by dating or being friends with people who treat them the same way as their unsafe caregivers. This is an endless cycle, and will be repeated until you can recruit some outside help from a therapist who can help you start to see your unhealthy patterns and break out of them. I’ve read books that have helped me break out of patterns, but I could not have done it without the help of a therapist. Having another, trained, impartial person to help you realize and break your negative patterns is imperative.
When you feel unsafe, your body has a hardwired response; fight, flight, freeze, or placate. This response evolved before humans existed, when our ancestors were something similar to reptiles, and is built into the foundations of our nervous system. You can learn how to control your body’s response to danger, which I’ll write a chapter about later. When you experience a traumatic event, the trauma gets ‘stuck’ in your mind/body, and your fear response (fight/flight/freeze/placate) gets stuck in the ‘on’ position. You will continually be in this state of stress until you can process your trauma. Most people that I know have not done the necessary work to process their trauma and they are stuck in a fear state. This shows up in all kinds of ways, from social anxiety, ADHD, unhealthy relationship patterns and choices, inability to stand up for yourself or your loved ones, depression, anger issues, avoidance (which shows up as disorganization, inability to start or finish projects, lack of energy), decision paralysis, and much more. I could write an entire chapter on each of those responses just based on my own experiences with them, and actual psychologists and researchers have written hundreds of books on this subject based on dozens of years of research. I’ll provide a list of books at the end of this chapter that go further into this subject, which I strongly suggest you read.
Until you have addressed and resolved your trauma, and adopted a lifestyle that meets your needs, you won’t be able to grow, to become a bigger and better person who is happy and successful in the world. Many people achieve financial success despite their trauma, but it takes a huge toll on them because they don’t live a healthy lifestyle and are usually motivated by fear. These people will destroy their relationships, develop cancer and other health problems, traumatize their children, alienate their friends, and live a miserable, wealthy life. I see this all the time. A lot of my friends go another route; they fail to address their trauma, and become amazing, emotive musicians that can’t organize their life enough to pay their power bill, and they end up making beautiful music but dying poor and early.
Once you learn to see your own trauma, you can start to see other people’s trauma and you will notice it everywhere. I will write an entire chapter on trauma, because it is THE MOST important thing you can understand in your life. Trauma is everything. Our minds, personalities, and bodies are shaped by it. In order to become the men you want to be, you will need to address your trauma.
I know that I have been the cause of a lot of your trauma in childhood, and I’m sorry. There are things I did or said to you guys that I regret every time I think about them. But I tried to be a good dad, and I did the best I could. Most parents do the best they can, but parents are just people, and we fuck up! We have bad days and we yell sometimes. Or take our anger or stress out on our kids. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t have trauma from their parents, and I think most people I know have a lot of trauma from their parents. But trauma comes from all over the place; you are small and vulnerable when you’re young, and lots of things feel threatening and overwhelming, which can be traumatic. I have trauma from teachers, bullies, friends, pets, snakes, spiders, and treehouses. You might think that some of this trauma is so minor that it shouldn’t be called trauma, but in your brain and nervous system, trauma is trauma. Your body experiences threat whether you’re on a battlefield being shot at or bitten by your pet hamster, and it all needs to be processed in the same way. The sooner you find a therapist and get to work processing your trauma, the sooner you can start to grow and become the person you want to be.
I don’t discourage you from seeing doctors. I see a doctor every year for my physical and blood work. I’ve seen specialists like dermatologists to have things removed from my skin, or urologists to get a vasectomy. Western medicine has and can achieve miraculous things. The point of this chapter is to impress on you that doctors are just people, and medical school only teaches them a very narrow, limited, antiquated view of what health is. They can mend a broken arm or remove your spleen, but can’t begin to figure out what causes cancer, migraines or insomnia. If you go to them seeking a cure for a symptom, they will give you drugs that will barely help, cause all sorts of side-effects, and in all likelihood will cause a problematic imbalance in your body. Before you go see a doctor for a physical or neurological problem, analyze your life. Are you meeting all of your needs? If not, then I would bet all of my money that changing your lifestyle so that your needs are met will solve your problem, for free, without drugs. And you will be happier, more energetic, more successful, and will love life more than you ever have.
But if you break your arm or poke your eye out with scissors - go the hospital! Quick!
Here are some books to read if you want to learn more about this. I strongly recommend you check these out. The more you understand about how your mind and body work, the more you will be able to take care of yourself rather than relying on others to take care of you.
The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van den Kolk
The Pocket Guide to Polyvagal Theory, by Stephen Porges
The War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield
The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot
Self Therapy, by Jay Early
The 5 Personality Patterns, by Steven Kessler
Healing Trauma, by Peter Levine
How to Train Your Mind, By Chris Bailey