As a GenXer, I’m feeling a moment of great joy and rage all at the same time as we stand on the precipice of the most significant change we’ve ever seen in over 100 years. How we see happiness is changing, and with that, how we achieve it.
In Chris Gardner’s Keynote speech in the UC Berkeley class of 2009, he tells grads to let go of what others say and to follow their dreams. He rips a paper and says, “That probably feels good.” – “You know what I’m talking about.”
I know what he’s talking about, which I have heard all my life – “Follow your dreams.” In The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie based on Chris’s life, Will Smith’s quote says, “Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream; you have to protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they will tell you you can’t do it. Do you want something? Go get it.” Here are some more uplifting quotes. (Because we all need that.)
Work and life, there is no “Balance”
– there’s just one “life.”
From an early age, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I thought I wasn’t smart enough (social conditioning), so I opted for photojournalism since I fell in love with photography. My grandfather taught me how to operate a camera, and my dad taught me about storytelling.
I worked as a journalist after college and struggled to get a job at a newspaper, so I opted for a “reliable” paycheck making $9 an hour, more than I’d ever made at that time. I was used to working for a minimum wage of $7.25 cleaning houses, hotels, or offices. I did this work before and after college and into my 30s, so I respect all hard workers.
I WAS THRILLED when I finally got my break as a full-time reporter in 2009! Previously I’d been a freelance writer trying to pitch editors and contract assignments. By 2012, I was on top of the world, feeling like I finally “made it,” winning awards for my newspaper and even negotiating a raise at a new daily newspaper job.
At the same time, I was trying to keep off the weight I’d worked hard to lose. My coping mechanism is food, and I’ve had an eating disorder since I was 10, but it wasn’t addressed until I started Weight Watchers in 2008. I’d lost 100 pounds and was dating again after a challenging breakup, and I was trying to learn all the new systems and processes and meet all the new people in a new town.
The truth is, the only job I could get at that time was as a cops reporter, and if you know me at all, you know that I’m a positive person. Covering crime and reporting on breaking news was incredibly hard for me and forced me always to bring my A-game.
It was exhausting, and I tried so hard to do my best, but in the end, I was just not a good fit for that role. Less than three months after starting the new position, I was let go and told that the “rookie” mistakes I made weren’t acceptable. These mistakes included assignments the editor gave and actions from the editorial team that compounded.
At the same time, my father, who was almost 80, needed to be moved into a nursing home and was very fragile. He no longer could remember who I was or could hold conversations. At the age of 32, I lost my dad, who was the man who raised my sister and me. He was a creative artist, cartoonist, skateboarder, storyteller, adventurer, bike rider, and the best at mini golf on rainy days. I tried to grieve his death; but I didn’t have time, I had to find a job.
We can do hard things, but we need support.
https://youtu.be/5DnShD5-Tt8
Doing hard things takes effort, sacrifice, encouragement, and endurance. If you didn’t get these resources growing up and step into the world as an adult without understanding your innate value, how you are unique, or you’ve been told to follow rules that someone else set up, then you are left in the dust, without a sense of direction.
The previous generations taught us that we couldn’t “be happy” until we retired, and to do that; we’d need to work and work until we were “old enough” to get to retirement. The problem with this system is that it is a lie, and there are a lot of exceptions for “some people” and not others.
If you grew up with wealth, you didn’t understand the challenges of the middle class or the lower class, but since the past few years, we’ve really experienced so much loss, and we are now an entire generation of people grieving, tired, and wanting to relax.
The 4-Hour workweek boasted this opportunity to us and transformed a generation who didn’t “fit the mold” of corporate life into an alternative path to happiness. Since then, millions of people have fallen prey to this concept of the “passive income” trap that doesn’t serve anyone. The truth is, passive income isn’t passive. It takes work.
If you don’t want to do the work, you work for someone else. But in no way is there anything that exists that is “passive” because before you get to the “passive” income, you have to create the products, build the systems, manage employees, or scale your business to run itself without you, which takes time, energy, and of course, money.
What opened my eyes over the past few years has been a series of books, documentaries, and reflective thoughts about my personal experiences in life and how society has guided my decision-making process. Without money, nothing can be possible. Without money, you can’t do anything. That is the reality today, but will it be that way in 100 years?
My favorite podcast of the year is We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed, a New York Times Bestseller, selling over 2 million copies. She shares that finding yourself is an inside job. Many of us weren’t “accepted” in society because we didn’t fit “a mold,” and instead of speaking up – we stood down and followed the conforming rules of the world so that we didn’t “create waves” or make someone else “feel uncomfortable.”
But when does a person’s discomfort more important than another? Why is it that we care what others think? Is it because we are afraid of how they will judge us? What if that fear could be eliminated? How could we stand in our skin and feel ourselves?
She explains that we’ve been trying to be good (mother, son, daughter, father, brother, boss, employee, coworker, friend, partner, wife, husband, colleague), which means we strive to be accepted and feel a sense of belonging. This “striving” is never-ending and makes us feel “not good enough.”
The past few years have been challenging for us as an entire society. Over the last 50 years, we’ve heard messages telling us we need something to make us happy we need a new car, a new house, or a new partner. Seeking repeatedly leads to unhappiness, and the constant drip of social media feeds into the belief that we aren’t good enough just to be ourselves.
Glennon says, “Because we experienced the hardship of the pandemic collectively, many of us finally acknowledged what was true before COVID and will be true after That life is freaking HARD. We are all doing hard things every single day – things like loving and losing caring for children and parents; forging and ending friendships; battling addiction, illness, and loneliness; struggling in our jobs, our marriages, and our divorces; setting boundaries; and fighting for equality, purpose, freedom, joy, and peace.”
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Comparison is the thief of joy…. words from David Papa
You are so powerful and perfect as you are. If you could really feel that, from the part of you that knows, you would instantly be free to be who you truly want to be and do what you truly want to do in your heart. Maybe this email will help.
Do you compare yourself to others? That’s not helping.
It’s a disease of the ego, feels horrible most of the time, and keeps your energy locked in a disempowered state.
A few weeks ago, my brain went off on a comparison rant. But I was able to short circuit it and end the comparison, after which I felt amazing. I want to share what I did here with you in video and writing.
I made a short video about it on Youtube. Here are the chapters:
00:00 Bringing an End to Comparing Yourself To Others
00:12 The mind’s painful comparison
00:58 How I let got of the comparison
04:28 A bigger reason to act than comparison and external results
07:17 The liberation of doing actions because of who you are Being
07:45 Using this info in your life for your happiness
Here’s a part of it.
My brain started to think about all the spiritual teachers that have a huge following. The authors, bloggers, and people who make videos that have a huge following. I’m just starting out with this content, and my brain starts saying, I’ll never be like them. I’ll never be like them. How could I ever get to their level? I’m never going to be like them.
Perhaps something like this is familiar to you? But this time, instead of fighting those thoughts, or trying to pump myself up and tell myself how I can totally achieve what I want to achieve, I did the opposite.
I said to my brain, yeah, that’s true. I’ll never be like them. And then I let those feelings into my body. I let those emotions and the beliefs behind them in to my heart, I let them all rise in my body. I just leaned back, I felt the anxiety and judgement behind these ideas. I also felt the presence and awareness that is truly me watching those emotions rising. I allowed all of it, and I just welcomed these feelings and ideas. Guess what? They started to calm down. I started to feel lighter. And then I said out loud again, you’re right, brain. I can’t be like them. I’m not like them. I never will be like them.
And isn’t that a miracle!? Isn’t it a miracle that I’m uniquely me and they’re uniquely them? Actually, if I try to be them, I’m not going to be happy. If I were to get the level of followers that these other teachers have in the way they did, I would not be happy because that’s them doing their thing. My happiness, my peace, my joy comes from me being my signature vibration, my unique vibration in the oneness of the universe. I need to do it in my way. If I’m going to be happy doing it. I can’t be like them and be happy.
I cannot tell you how awesome that insight felt. It was like all the pressure dropped. I was light. All of a sudden, what those “other people” are doing doesn’t even matter.
Do you feel this for yourself? You cannot be like others and be happy because your happiness comes from your unique signature self and the expression of that self. That self is unique on the planet, and that part of you wants to do everything you do in the unique way that is the best match to you. The way you work, the way you play, the way you market, the way you relate, the way you heal, the way you celebrate. You get to choose HOW you do all that. The happy version of that will be unique to you.
But so few of us allow that. So few of us actually experiment with weird ways of doing things that we would love. We are running around following rules, formulas, and the success plans of other people. And our egos eat that shit up and spew a thousand thoughts an hour about how we need to do things a certain way or we are screwed. It’s just habits. It’s just triggers. It’s just conditioning.
Once in a while, you might see someone else’s path that truly inspires you. In their path you see a possible blueprint for yourself in a way that excites you and makes you feel fully alive. Yes! There is no judgement in that moment, just inspiration and the sense of possibility. It will probably won’t last long though, as the ego jumps back in to tell you that you will never be like them.
Next time that happens to you, you don’t have to fight it. Absorb it. Tell your brain it’s right. You’ll never be like them, because being exactly like them will not bring you happiness. Only being exactly you will do that.
There is more in that video. You’ll hear me talk about the connection of comparison to external results. You’ll get some ways to practically apply this. You’ll see my weird way of making videos that feels great to me as I take my son for a walk on a farm path. Stay to the end of the video and enjoy the peppy musical outro.
Love, David
PS – Part of what I am saying here is that your purpose, your happiness, is not a “what.” It’s a how. I see it all the time with my clients. They are trying to discover what they would love to create, but the more important question is: how would you love to create from where you are? Your purpose, your joy is not a specific what, it’s not one thing you could do. Your purpose is something to be embodied and expressed in each moment no matter what you are doing or who you are with. That is how you create what you love in your life. This is the essence of the Being work we do in the Higher Self Circle. If you want to more deeply understanding your most powerful HOW – I invite you to book a gift session with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXHqvf4Cwnk
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