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Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Forty-Seven

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“My grandma kept cash in her bra,” is the opening line in “Everything is Spiritual,” by Rob Bell. Bell was a Christian pastor of a megachurch until 2012. I am not sure exactly how he sees himself today, but I am sure he has clarified that somewhere but not in this book at least.

He writes in bursts. A regular paragraph like this:

“I picked up on all that muted grief floating in the air between my grandma and dad, and from an early age I just wanted to make them laugh.”

To this:

“That’s what I remember.
I made her laugh.
I made him laugh.
If I could get them laughing so hard they were in tears,
I knew I’d done something.”

Then back to regular paragraphs.

Substance

He discusses tripping over what he calls a “spiritual talk thing” and decided that was what he was going to do with his life. So he retells some of what happened before his church voted him out. In this book, he really doesn’t talk about that. You need to read “Love Wins” to get that full story.

He talks about his dad’s father and how he died young and how that somehow influenced his sense of things. He says, “However solid life may appear, it’s also very fragile.” To be fair he says that on two separate lines. This style does allow him to emphasize things without putting them in italics, yet he does that too. Everything in the book has weight in this way.

More examples

In the following the first line is italicized:

“What do you do with the pain in life?”
“You keep moving, keep accomplishing, keep striving. Whatever you do, don’t be lazy. Don’t appear to be coasting. And whatever happens, stay a step ahead of the pain. Keep it buried. Keep it down.”

That is how he thought he should be living his life based on his childhood. Now he sees things differently. He says, “Through the help of a number of guides over the years, I begin to see a new way to be, one rooted in the enduring truth: There’s nothing to prove.” That’s italicized!

Lots more one-sentence paragraphs. Then he says he is telling us about where he came from and who he came from because we are like him. We all come from people and places.

“Our lives are loaded from the beginning with history and drums and love and wounds and tragedy and hope. I’m mysterious enough myself, let alone the ones I come from, let alone all the people I’m constantly encountering with your own hopes and fears and histories and mysteries, let alone this floating ball of rock we call home that’s hurtling through space at 87,000 miles per hour.”

Now that is some paragraph and it gets even more interesting, but you need to read the book.

Things to Remember

This is the kind of book that is free-floating and talks about a lot for things in a sort of order. Here are some items that stood out for me:

“Curiosity is the antidote to despair.” I agree! He says, “Despair is the spiritual disease of believing that tomorrow will simply be a repeat of today.” “Curiosity whispers to you, You’re just getting started…”

“We need forms. But that’s what they are – dust. Dirt. Earth. It’s the breath that gives it life. That gives us life.” “The invitation is to allow sprit to transform all these forms, so the they become everything they can be, guiding us into the fuller experience of the depths of life.”

He has a revelation while talking to Father Jack: “When we take ourselves too seriously it gets in the way of the thing that we are so seriously trying to do.”

He is telling Father Jack all the things he is doing etc.

After a time he stops me
He’s so kind and so firm
And so fierce

He tells me that I have a gift to give, so I should give it. He says that it is a generous gift that we each give to the world, and we should take good care of ourselves. To give a generous gift, we must be generous with ourselves. And to give generously, we must become very good at receiving generously.”

Finally, Death

“There is death
At the end of life,
But for you to be here
There was death, lots of it, millions and millions of times over,
At the start of your life.

He then discusses death and how a lot of sperm had to die to make you. That and a bunch of other things had to happen for you to exist. You are a miracle!

Go Hiking And Think Like A Monk

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It happens all the time! Meditation during a hike. Maybe it is the steady cadence of my feet on the trail or the breathing. Who knows but getting into a meditative state on the trail is not a hard thing to do.

A friend said I breathed like a stove pipe. That was when I was treating through my mouth. Now I breathe only through my nose. It is supposed to be better for you so why not? I am not so sure it helps with meditation. I think the stove pipe method is better.

Automatic

So what I am saying is that hiking automatically helps you think like a monk. You are in nature. It is silent except for your beating heart and steady breath. You can feel the breeze on your face or smell the woods or hear the wind in the trees. I like to focus on my feet hitting the trail.

However, as I said, you really don’t have to do anything and you are meditating. Automatic. Nature gently pushes you into a meditative state.

Practice

A monk will tell you that they consider meditation a “practice.” Hiking is a practice too. You need to practice it consistently over and over again. Then you go deeper. Deeper experiences in the forest. Deeper revelations. More silence. The “experts” will put a finer touch on it and say it is “perfect practice” the will get you where you want to go.

I am not so sure it needs to be perfect, at least not in the beginning. You can learn from your imperfect practice so the next time it might be more perfect.

Will You Be a Monk If You Go Hiking?

Of course not!. How could you be a monk? You need to go to a monastery someplace for a while to get that official title. However, you might be at least “a little like” a monk when you hike. Certainly, you could think like one for a short time and much more so than if you just drive to work every day or sit at home working remotely and never get out into nature.

So go hiking and think like a monk!

Go Hiking and Change Your Personality

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Well, it could happen! Especially if you have not done any serious hiking before. Maybe you have just been a “nature walker.” Now you are enjoying the scenery but also maximizing the exercise. It could have a significant impact on who you are.

So let’s break it down shall we and see if there might be something to this. At the very least it could mean a positive change in the right direction.

Preparation

When you take on a serious week after week hiking schedule there needs to be some preparation. You need to prepare for the season and then every week get prepared for that week’s hike. If you were the kind of person who sort of lets things happen, having to prepare will change you. It might even bleed into your everyday activities.

After preparing for hiking becomes ingrained as a habit you may find yourself arriving early for meetings because you had thought through how long to would take you to get there and possible anomalies that might slow you down.

The Top Is the Target

If you are not into goal setting before you start hiring regularly, hiking could be just the thing you need to get you started.

Getting to the top is the payoff on any hike. How fast you get there is also a payoff especially if you beat your former time. So you always have two goals. First to make it to the top and then to get there in record time.

Doing this every week makes it easier to set a sales goal or meet a deadline at work. If you are always looking for a “new” top to conquer maybe you will start a company and change the world.

Did It Change?

Let’s say you have been hiking all summer, week in and week out. Have you changed? Sure you have. You can’t do that without changing. Now you are fitter. You are used to being prepared for everything. You are never late. Your whole personality changed for the better.

Bookish Weapon Number Forty-Five

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How often in your life has your personality changed? Benjamin Hardy makes the case that it certainly doesn’t have to stay the same in his book, “Personality Isn’t Permanent.” A bookish weapon for sure. I mean aren’t they all?

You tell yourself that you are who you are and there is nothing you can do about it. You tell others you are “authentic.” You took a personality test and that’s that. Well, this book will make you stop and rethink everything.

The Case Against Personality Tests

The first part of the book is a well thought out case as to why personality is not permanent. He presents you with stories of individuals that totally changed themselves. He debunks the intricacies of personality tests as myths. Myth number one is that they are personality “Types.” He says these are “social or mental constructions, not realities.” Did you know that personality testing is a $2 billion industry?

Personality tests label you and labels are not good. They create tunnel vision. He quotes a Harvard psychologist, Dr. Ellen Langer: “ If something is presented as an accepted truth, alternative ways of thinking do not even come up for consideration.”

He also quotes Dr, Katherine Rogers, a personality psychologist that said, “We know that personality doesn’t work in types….I wouldn’t trust Myers and Briggs to tell me any more about my personality than I would trust my horoscope.”

Personality Is Not Fixed

I found this section to be powerful. He once again quotes a Harvard psychologist, Daniel Gilbert who says, “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.”

Hardy says, “Your personality changes. It has changed and it will continue to change in the future. Consequently, it’s time to start thinking about who your future self is going it be. You don’t want to be surprised, or frustrated by where you’re at and who you become. You don’t want to leave your future self hanging due to neglect, bad planning, or poor decisions on the part of your present self.” He goes on to say that to say, It’s best to make decisions based on what your future, not your present, self wants.” Read that again. Then read it once more!

What to do?

Hardy says that you need to “…distinguish your present self from your future self. They aren’t the same person.” He continues, “The analogy of the future selfs another person may seem like a strange one, but it is rather powerful when it comes to understanding long term decision making.”

“Who you want to be in the future is more important than who you are now. Your intended future self should direct your current identity and personality far more than your former self does.”

Purpose

Hardy thinks everyone should have a massive purpose. “Spending your days on activities leading you to something incredibly important, something you truly value, is how you live without regret.”

He advises to select one major goal and use it as a filter for everything else. “One goal creates focus. Focus creates momentum.”

The author advises us to use a journal. I like that as it is one of my four strategies in “Attacking Adversity.” While journaling he says to ask these questions: 1. Where am I now? 2. What were the wins from the past 90 days? 3. What are the ins I want from the next 90 days? 4. Where do I want to be in three years? 5. Where do I want to be in one year?

More

There is so much more to this book and that is why you should read it. Hardy discusses trauma and how it affects people. Also, the need for a professional counselor when you have no one else to “witness” your feelings. He discusses how to shift your life story so that when you tell people about you it is your future self that shines.

Go Hiking And Love What Is!

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Sometimes I don’t feel like hiking. Like right now I am not looking forward to climbing anything this weekend. It sometimes takes me a few days to get psyched for it, especially after a particularly difficult climb the week before.

What I do is wait it out. Usually by the time hiking day arrives I am ready, but once in a while I’m not. Then what do I do? I go anyway.

Love What Is

It is a matter of accepting my state of mind and believing that it may change once I am underway. If it doesn’t the I love what is.

When you go hiking you do not always have to be ready for it. There are times when you just aren’t. Those times might include snow or rain or hot days.

An Example

This last weekend it was very hot. I climbed to Camp Muir once again. One of the big reasons I climb it is because it is very hard and I believe doing hard things is important. As I said it was hot with the temperature at Paradise at close to 70. Yes, I know that isn’t hot in other parts of the country and world. It was 5:30 AM and still dark.

As I climbed it got even hotter and then wind started to blow. That cooled things down. There is always a crosswind on the snowfields so you have to make sure you have something for your ears even in summer.

Then looking west I see a storm. Rain can be seen in the distance. You don’t want to be caught in a storm on Rainier. Even low visibility makes things difficult. As the storm moves towards me the sun is blocked and it gets cool very fast. I am still on my way up and a long way to go. People I spoke with on the way up said that this incoming storm surprised everyone. Fortunately, as the storm gets close to the mountain it splits in two and goes around the mountain.

So I make it to Camp Muir which showcases even more tents than usual. My guess is that nobody is using sleeping facilities due to close quarters and the pandemic situation.

Coming back down the mountain the snow is soft and that means two things. First, it is safe to Glissade and second, it is easy to fall when jogging. I fell five times, once where it was pretty steep and I started to slide but caught myself.

The good, the bad. Love what is and go hiking!

Go Hiking and Dream Big

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What if you have never hiked a mile in your life? So start dreaming, but don’t be a daydreamer. Take action. Walk outside your door and down to the end of the block. That’s it. It is a start.

Ok, what if you just hate the whole idea of hiking. Fine! You can still exercise. You can find something, anything to get the blood pumping.

Start Dreaming

It can start with dreaming. Planning what you are going to do. Got it down on paper. Pull out all the stops. Now use that dreaming to motivate yourself through what Tony Robbins calls the “Dickens Process.” Have you heard of it? Well, first you look at the present and ask yourself what you are missing out on and how exercise would help you. Then take yourself back into the past five or ten years and experience how not exercising has hurt you. Then take yourself into the future, five, ten, twenty years, and see how not exercising has hurt you. I am oversimplifying this process. The questions you ask yourself are critical, but it works.

Habit

If you want to make it a habit you need to have the motivation, the ability, and a prompt. That comes from one of the three big books on habits. I think it is BJ Fogg’s book.

Make the first exercise you do small. Really small. One pushup. Yes, just one. And after you do it celebrate! Really celebrate. No, not with a bag of fries or a bowl of ice cream. Jump up and down and shout. Feel it. Get excited. Over one push up? Yes! It will reinforce the habit. I like what Jordan Peterson says. He says to make it small enough that you would be willing to do it. Then you can add to it. Two pushups. Walk around the whole block.

Nutrition

Do this with your diet too. I make a lot of noise about exercise, but you can out eat your exercise no matter how much exercise you are doing. I used to run fifty to sixty miles a week, week after week, month after month. However, I ate peanut butter and toast every morning. Not one slice of toast, at least four. Not one tablespoon of peanut butter, but I had it slathered on the toast. I ate fast food too. So I stayed far fatter than I would have been if I paid any attention to diet.

And I hope you like to hike. If not just start small. Go hiking!