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June 15 - September 23, 2021
A better alternative, in my opinion, is not to subscribe to one religion but to pick and choose beliefs from the entire pantheon of global religions and spiritual practices.
Choose a religion if it gives you meaning and satisfaction, but know that you don’t have to accept all aspects of your religion to fit in.
Your spirituality should be discovered, not inherited.
Questioning religion does not mean that you see the world devoid of spirit, soul, awe, or the connection between all life—true spirituality. Rather you are choosing to discern between true spirituality and the suffocating dogma of ancient cultural traditions that got embedded in the great religious texts.
people who work in jobs that provide them with a sense of meaning and joy retire much later than those who work in jobs that provide no sense of meaning.
When you aren’t suffering for your paycheck, you’re likely to be more engaged and committed to what you’re doing.
how long can you afford to not like what you do given that most of us spend the majority o...
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A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
In my life I’ve always made a conscious choice to work in fields where I love what I do so much that it ceases to feel like work.
When you love what you do, life seems so much more beautiful—in fact, the very idea of “work” dissolves. Instead, it feels more like a ch...
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always seek work that you love. Any other way of living misses the point of life itself. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s doable.
How can we spot Brules that limit us and break free? The first step is to know how they got installed within you in the first place.
how difficult it can be to answer with honesty and sincerity every question a child poses.
It’s time we stopped behaving like submissive prehistoric tribe members and started questioning some of the things our leaders say.
Humans also long for the comfort and safety of certainty, and nowhere is conviction more present than in the groupthink of blind tribalism.
You can take on the beliefs of your tribe, but you don’t have to take on all of their beliefs, especially if their beliefs are unscientific, unhelpful, or untrue.
Have you ever created meaning in your head about someone’s attitude or feelings toward you because of something they do? That’s the meaning-making machine in action.
It’s not all bad; it’s just that many of us need help realizing that it’s not all good, either. Some rules aren’t useful anymore or were never true to begin with. It’s time to uninstall what isn’t working.
Some misfits will fail. But some will succeed, and when they do, they make a dent in a culturescape.
constantly bending and breaking the rules in pursuit of a better way to live, hacking beliefs and cultural norms that most of us accept without questioning:
Extraordinary people think differently, and they don’t let their society’s Brules stop them from advocating for a better world for themselves.
All of us have both the ability and responsibility to toss out the Brules that are preventing us from pursuing our dreams. It all starts with one thing: questioning your inherited beliefs.
You can use the same amazing brain that took those Brules onboard to uninstall them and replace them with ...
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Extraordinary minds question the Brules when they feel those Brules are out of alignment with their dreams and desires.
We have to push our systems—internally and externally, personally and institutionally—to catch up. We do that by making the first move to uninstall Brules in our own minds and then exerting upward pressure on our social systems to evolve.
It can feel a little like free fall when you first start—and it is, because you’re taking your life off of autopilot.
Sometimes things feel chaotic while you take over the controls but ha...
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The great gift of being human is our capacity to see the world anew, invent new solutions—and then use what we know to transf...
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Culture isn’t static. It lives and breathes, made by us in real time in the flow of life, meant to...
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certain rules that lock us into long-held habits and irrational self-judgment could be worth a look
If a rule is based on negative assumptions about humanity, I tend to question it.
Always have faith and trust in humanity.
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
Rules that elevate some while devaluing others are suspect as Brules—such
it’s probably a cultural or religious rule. If it bothers you, I believe you don’t have to follow it,
You do not have to dress, eat, marry, or worship in a manner that you disagree with just because it’s part of the culture you’re born into.
Culture is meant to be ever-evolving, ever-flowing—in a way, just like water.
Culture is like water. If it’s stagnant, as in the case of dogma or the rules of fundamentalist religion, it can be poisonous. Appreciate your culture, but let it flow and evolve.
Ask yourself if these rules truly serve you and if you want to pass them down to your children.
are these ideas—for example, ones about how to dress or traditional ideas of what is moral—stifling and restrictive. If so, let’s allow them to die a peaceful death and cut the cord so they do not end up infecting our children.
Place your happiness first. Only when you’re happy can you truly give your best to others—in society, in relationships, in your family and community.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
“The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.”
don’t let people tell you that you’re selfish and wrong to follow your own heart. I urge you, I give you permission, to break the rules, to think outside the norms of traditional society. The Brules of the parents should not be passed on to the child.
Life beyond the Brules can be scary and surprising and exhilarating—often all at once. People might push back or hassle you, but you must be prepared to stand firm in your pursuit of your own happiness.
It takes courage to break those chains and define your own life.
the more you question, the more your awareness will expand.
look at problems from all angles—to
looking at everything about life from the context of, “Why do we do this?”
I got into personal growth because I was going through a tough period.
