Category: Keeping Sane & Productive in an Insane World

The world conspires to make us crazy, stuck, and unproductive. How do we keep sane and productive?

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The Art of Manliness Podcast

I’ve recently entered the world of podcasts. I’ve even started doing a podcast (listen here). The other day, I was looking for a link to one particular podcast, and I was scrolling through the episodes of The Art of Manliness (AOM) Podcast. I realized, “Wow! I’ve really gotten a lot out of these podcasts!”

The AOM Podcast covers a large variety of topics from leadership to penmanship to passion to books to special forces. It’s all there at AOM. The host, Brett McKay, talks to authorities on these subjects, generally people who’ve written books about them.

I was surprised at how many of these podcasts I had started incorporating into my life from new books to sports to poetry to weight loss. AOM’s archives will give you an idea of this podcast’s diversity. Here’s six that I’ve particularly enjoyed, thought about, researched further, and implemented in my life.

  • “How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off Forever” – An interview with Layne Norton, a Ph.D. in nutritional science and a body builder. The key to long-term weight-loss, according to Norton, is calorie reduction in a sustainable way. I’ve tried a lot of things for weight loss, but based on this podcast, I’ve been able to implement and consistently follow a program that has helped me keep my calorie count down.
  • “The Spartan Regime” – This is an interview with Stephen Pressfield who has written several books on the Spartans. The Spartans were fascinating, and Pressfield brings that out well. The takeaway for me was an encouragement that manliness and poetry go together. The Spartans did not pursue much entertainment, but they devoted themselves to poetry and song as well as military affairs. I’ve always loved poetry, and this gave me a new vision for incorporating it into my life.
  • “Myths About Kids and Sports” – Leonard Zaichkowsky has written a book about the best way to get kids involved in sports and help them develop as athletes. I coached basketball this year, and I followed Zaichowsky’s suggestions. He said, focus on actually playing the game in practice. So, we emphasized doing drills less and playing games more in our practices. It was a lot more fun, and the girls progressed just as much, if not more, as in other years.
  • “How Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Will Make You a Better Man” – In this episode, Brett interviews Rener Gracie. This episode convinced me to try BJJ. I used videos at first and then started training at a local gym. I found that it was not only helpful for self-defense but also an intense, challenging, and rewarding way to work out and meet people in the community.
  • “Leadership Lessons from the 3 Greatest Ancient Commanders” – History can be boring, but Barry Strauss has a way of explaining it that really captures one’s imagination. I enjoyed this podcast so much that I started listening to Strauss’ podcast Antiquitas. I also got his book 10 Caesars on Audible and am finding an enjoyable and educational listen.
  • “How to Be a Digital Minimalist” – Cal Newport explains why becoming a digital minimalist is good and how to do it. I got several ideas from this podcast. For example, I now only use Twitter and Faceobok on my computer (not on my phone). This has helped me be more deliberate in my use of these social media platforms. It’s an issue we all probably are or need to wrestle with, and Newport has some good ideas.

Last year, my good friend John McKenzie suggested this podcast to me, and I’m very grateful that he did. So, I’m passing on the resource of the AOM podcast to you. Check it out, listen to some episodes, and let me know what you learn from them.

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5 Things You Can Do to Help You Start Again

In life, you will have times where you have to start again. You have to leave college and start a job, you go to a new school, you lose a friend, or you move to a new place.

Some new starts are harder than others. Three of the hardest are a loved one’s death, the empty nest, and retirement. When someone close to you dies, especially a spouse, almost everything in your life is different. They were a part of everything you did. This is similar to the empty nest. For women especially, you may have built your life around nurturing your children. That shaped each day. Now, every single day is radically different than it was before. For men, the biggest change is often retirement. You found status and meaning in your work. It structured your whole life. Now, you have to fill large chunks of time that work previously occupied. These are all huge changes!

How do we start again when our life changes so dramatically? How do we move forward when we didn’t want things to change?

There are no easy answers to this question. Adjusting mentally to new places and situations takes time, and it is not easy. Each person has to follow their own path. It’s very hard to know the exact pattern that things will follow when you move forward.

That said, I think there are some things that we can do that will help us start again. Here are five.

1. Take time to say good-bye. Our lives are so busy that sometimes we forget the need to mentally say good-bye to a past way of life. Funerals are one way we do this, but often we rush through funerals. Ancient people would take extended time to mourn a loss or mark a transition. When it comes to the human soul, fast is not necessarily efficient.

2. Be patient waiting for the new start. Even after we’ve said good-bye to the old way of life, we don’t immediately embrace the new or even see the new pattern of life. We may have to wait a long time before we get a vision for a new stage of life.

For me, I saw this happen when I turned 40. I realized that the vision for life I had had from my youth was now complete. I had accomplished everything I had envisioned: wife, stable job and finances, education, kids, etc. I started to ask, what now? A year and a half later, I’m just now beginning to get a vision for something bigger for the next stage of my life.

3. Have hope that a new beginning will come. People do adjust to new situations. It takes time, but it happens. For Christians, we have all sorts of resources from the God of hope (Rom. 15:13). If there is a passage of Scripture that particularly awakens hope within you, cling to it and let it seep down deep in your soul. Here are a few that have particularly helped me:

  • I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you (John 15:16).
  • For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
  • Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).

4. Ask: what do I really want to do and be? Most of us have rarely asked this question. In addition, it may be too hard ask this question in the midst of the pain of saying good-bye. When our head clears a bit, it’s a good time to ask it. I would also suggest that our transition will be easier if we ask these questions envisioning questions before we get to the transition. Here’s a few other ways to ask it:

  • What would I do at home if I had a completely free week without any obligation to take care of others or do a job?
  • If I could retire today, what would I do with my time?
  • What could my life be in 5 years if I worked at it a little bit every day?

5. Ask: what are my current opportunities? Here we can start very small. Who are the people we can reach out to? Who are friends we haven’t talked to in a little while? Does our garage need cleaning? Can we pick up a guitar and start playing it? As we start working on the small things and connecting with those closest to us, a larger vision eventually will emerge.

Starting new is rarely an easy or quick process. However, if we recognize that it is a process, we can smooth the way a bit. If we can even now begin to envision life in different scenarios, we will be better prepared to meet them when we come. If we can fill our hearts with hope from the God of hope, we will be less afraid, more encouraged, and more courageous when the new opportunity comes.

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How to Reduce Frustration and Anger

“Marcus Aurelius had a vision for Rome, and this is NOT IT!” Thus thundered Maximus in the well-known movie Gladiator. It’s also something I said to my wife repeatedly over the course of several weeks, each time I got up from reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. It’s not that I thought that quote was particularly insightful. It just kept coming into my mind, so I said it out loud!

Gladiator is the reason most people know about Marcus Aurelius, but Marcus Aurelius has been famous for a long time because of his life and because of his book Meditations. Meditations is in essence a self-help book that people still read 1,800 years after publication. And there’s a reason for that–it is helpful!

Marcus Aurelius wrote these meditations while defending the Roman Empire’s borders against its numerous enemies. The book is a series of self-contained paragraphs that were based on what Aurelius had learned in Stoic philosophy. Each paragraph contains one idea or thought to enable him or the reader to see things differently and so live in peace with the world as it is and not as he would like it to be.

His basic thesis is “If you are pained about any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.” Frustration is what you bring to the table, and, he often adds, it is in your power to judge the situation differently. Meditations is a book that teaches you how to judge situations differently so you can reduce frustration and anger and enjoy tranquility.

Here are a few examples.

What do we think when things go badly? “Remember, too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune” (4.49).

What if we have to get up early? “In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present. I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going into the world for things for which I exist and for which I was brought into this world?” (5.1).

What if I don’t like where I live? “[W]here a man can live, there he can live well” (5.16).

What if I can’t get away and go on vacation? “Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and you, too, are wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself. . . . tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind” (4.3).

One thing I found particularly insightful was the idea that human beings are social animals. “For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth” (2.1). Humans are made to work together. Consequently, “[t]o act against one another then is contrary to nature and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away” (ibid.). One of Marcus Aurelius’ constant themes is that those who act against others act contrary to their social nature and thus harm themselves.

An important corollary of the social nature of human beings is that when someone acts against us, they cannot do us harm because we can still act in kindness toward them in accordance with our own nature. This does not mean that we should not try to teach them, but when they do not accept correction, we must bear with them. This is what our nature requires.

Similarly, to do good to and love others is natural to us. Consequently, to love or do good is its own reward. As Marcus Aurelius writes, “Have I done something for the general interest? Well, then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to your mind and never stop doing such good” (11.4). If we viewed things this way, we would be less concerned with whether or not others appreciate what we have done.

One thing that regularly frustrates me is other drivers. So, I have made it my resolution to seek to let others drive how they want and not let it change my emotions.

The other day, I was waiting to pull up to a gas pump. I could not line up directly behind the car at the pump, and so I parked a little bit to the side. As soon as the car at the pump pulled out, another driver darted in and took my spot.

My first thought was, “What a jerk!”

Then, I remembered Marcus Aurelius. I realized, the driver either did not know I was waiting, or he did. If he didn’t know, then it was a mistake, and there was no reason for me to be angry. If he did know, then he only harmed himself by acting contrary to his social nature. Having to wait a few seconds for another pump did me no harm. Besides, who knows what priorities, hurry, or difficulties this driver might be experiencing that day?

A few seconds later, I pulled up to another pump, filled up my tank, and left the gas station . . . with a pleasant tranquility.

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The Good of Waiting


Homer Simpson once told his children, “Now we play the waiting game. . . . Ahh, the waiting game sucks. Let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos!” And that’s pretty much how our society views waiting (as the commercial above illustrates).

To some degree, our society is right in this. As American humorist Evan Esar put it: “All things come to him who waits, but they are mostly leftovers from those who didn’t wait.”

We should be active not passive. We should not wait for life to happen. We should make things happen.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described this powerfully in his poem, “A Psalm of Life”:

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

This is a poem about doing, acting now and not waiting. The poem, however, ends in a tantalizing way:

Let us, then, be up and doing,
with a heart for any fate;
still achieving, still pursuing,
learn to labor and to wait.

Learning to wait. It’s as if Longfellow understood that as much as we want to act, waiting is a part of life.

In fact, we wait all the time. We have to wait to get our driver’s license, to get married, to have children, to find out what job(s) we will have, to see how our children will turn out. When things change or collapse around us, a new start eventually arrives, but it often takes time.

In the Bible, waiting is not only part of life, God makes us wait. The whole Bible, in a sense, is about waiting. In the Old Testament, people are waiting for the Messiah to come. In the New Testament, people are waiting for the Messiah to return.

When Jesus went into heaven, he told His followers to wait for the Holy Spirit. Why didn’t the Holy Spirit come right away? They had to wait 10 days before the Holy Spirit came? That’s not that long, but why not right away?

These biblical facts indicate that waiting is not a necessary evil. It is good. But what good could there be? Consider:

1. Waiting builds anticipation.

When my wife leaves and goes to the store, I’m happy to see her return. However, when she goes away for a week, the anticipation of her return builds throughout the week. By the time she returns, I have a new appreciation for her and greatly anticipate her return, making our reunion all the sweeter. The waiting built the anticipation.

2. Waiting enhances enjoyment.

One thing I have done this past year is try to do fasting, purely for health not religious reasons (though I do believe in fasting for religious reasons). I tried to do at least one 24 hour fast (lunch to lunch) each week. By the time I got to the lunch that ended the fast, I was more excited than normal to sit down and enjoy the food. I felt like I was feasting because I had been fasting. Waiting enhances enjoyment.

3. Waiting builds strength.

Waiting is saying “no” to present good in order to experience something good later. When we say “no” to present good, we become stronger. We learn to live without. Pleasures have less control of us, and we become more self-controlled. When we trust that God will give us good things in the future that we don’t see now, we build more dependence on God and less dependence on things. That’s how waiting builds strength.

4. Waiting engenders gratitude.

When you move to a new place, you have to build new relationships. This takes time. As you wait, you feel lonely. During this time, you can take stock of who is currently in your life, who has been in your life, and who could be in your life. As you feel lonely, you realize how good it is to experience the blessing of love and friendship. You become grateful for what you actually have, and so waiting engenders gratitude.

5. Waiting awakens desire.

I talked to a gentleman recently who had lost his parents at a young age. This was a terrible event for him and extremely difficult. However, what it did do was make him realize what a good thing he had in his parents. This awakened his desire for community and made him more ready to embrace it wherever he could find it. The lack made him desire something all the more.

Waiting is rarely easy and sometimes extremely hard. However, it does promote virtues that enable us to grow as individuals in a way that few other things can. If we can see that waiting has good in it, then the next time we have to wait, we will be better equipped to embrace it and let it have its work. As the prophet Isaiah put it, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (40:31).

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How to Make Good Life Transitions

How do we let go of the past and embrace our present opportunities? The key is learning to make good life transitions.

We all will experience many changes in our lives: leaving home, marriage, having children, watching our children grow up and leave home, moves to new places, retirement, new jobs, deaths. How will we navigate these many changes?

For those looking for help in making good transitions, I would recommend William Bridges’ Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Bridges provides a helpful framework for thinking about how to make good transitions. He argues that moving forward consists of three elements: saying “goodbye”, waiting, and saying “hello” (his terms are an ending, the neutral zone, and a new beginning). Let me explain each element.


 
Bridges makes a distinction between the actual events and our ability to accept them and embrace them in our hearts and minds. Saying “good-bye” is not the actual change, i.e., the move, the lost job, or the death. It is the point when we come to accept the change in our hearts and minds. For example, we may move somewhere new, but a “transition” is the process of coming to accept living in the new place.

All societies have recognized the importance of saying “good-bye” in their funeral rites. Funerals are a way of saying “good-bye” to a loved one. In our society, we often rush through it, but the wisdom of the ancients recognized a lengthy time of mourning. We also often miss that other changes require a “good-bye” like growing up, retirement, moves to new places, and different seasons of life.

The second stage in a good transition is waiting. In between the “good-bye” and the “hello” is a waiting stage. This is a time when the old is gone but the new has not yet fully formed. A good example of this is the death of a spouse. An old way of life has died with the spouse, but what the new way of life will be is not immediately clear. There is a time of waiting. Retirement is often also like that. For years, you have had a rhythm of going to work. Now, you don’t know what you are going to do. Before the new pattern emerges, you must walk through the wilderness of waiting. This can be hard.

The third stage is saying “hello.” This is the moment when we embrace the new reality. After waiting for a time, we embrace the new reality in our hearts and minds. It could occur while you are sitting on your porch and all of a sudden thinking, “This is my home now.” It could be a flash of insight that gives you a vision for a new future. It could be a decision to go back to school to begin a new career.

Let me give an example from my own life. When I came to my current church, the church had faced a hard change from a large building in town to renting a small facility part-time. They had also lost leadership. We needed a vision for what life as a church would look like in our new situation.

About a year and a half later, I was thinking deeply about the organization of the church, and I came to a realization: I didn’t need to. We had found the new pattern already. I had to make the transition away from crisis to what I might call normal church life. It was a mental transition, and it took place one day while I was walking in a flash of insight. Later, my wife and I marked this transition with a party celebrating what I called “The end of the beginning.”

Adapting to changes is rarely easy, but it is a necessary part of flourishing in this life of changes. If we can recognize ahead of time that transitions are a process of saying “good-bye” to an old reality and “hello” to a new and that they take time, we will be much better equipped to embrace the future God has for us when the next big change comes.

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