Big Self writers explore big questions and how to roll in tandem with the universe
Dear Big Selfer,
Viktor Frankl’s famous Man’s Search for Meaning was first published in Austria 75 years ago. The Holocaust survivor hit a nerve in the modern human experience, especially with the growing awareness of the mind-numbing atrocities already witnessed by the first half of the 20th century. Today, we’re as tuned in and informed as ever, and yet sometimes the deluge of another genocide, another shooting, another accident overwhelms.
Our stable of writers has come out with some insightful approaches regarding yourself and listening and learning well from your own and others’ experiences. …
Introspection is useless unless you know how to break out
A Case Study In Love And Engagement
My fiance and I were recently engaged. We went to school at Baylor in Waco, Texas, and she was making the long Thanksgiving journey to meet my parents in Richmond, Virginia. I was 22 and in love, or earnestly believed I was. My fiance — let’s call her Stephanie — had told me all about her bulimic eating disorder in high school. It was behind her now, she said.
It had done some damage, she told me one night. She might not be able to have kids. I recall the night she added this little detail, and I recall being…
“Success, in the words of Winston Churchill, ’Consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm’. The greatest barriers to success so far have been the fear of failure and the failure to learn from mistakes.”
It would seem it is time to make some dramatic changes to our archaic financial systems. Where there is a will there’s a way.
Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity by Bernard A. Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne explores the origins of our current monetary system — built on bank debt and scarcity — revealing the surprising and sometimes shocking ways its unconscious limitations give rise to so many serious problems. This book offers hope both through what we already see emerging through the new “networked economy,” and through new possible creative strategies that this book highlights.
3 powerful mindsets to overcome what your brain naturally wants to do.
When my bike was stolen from my outdoor shed, I took it personally. Why me? Why my bike? Didn’t the thief realize that to make the money required to buy a new bike would take savings and a lot of hard work? How many bike rides would I lose out on, and how would it affect my ability to take my kids on rides?
Why my neighborhood? Why my shed? And this is why we have to lock everything all the time because there are people who don’t respect the property of others and believe it is their right as…
Reality checks on the road to growth and self-awareness
Dear Big Selfer,
Spring has sprung. The blossoms are blooming and the weeds are thawing. And while that generally means we are recovering from the winter doldrums (wrapped in a pandemic), struggles persist. The weather may give us at least a glimmer of optimism, but this week we’ve explored some of the rough edges.
Adriana Sim offers us a vulnerable and deeply authentic look at the struggle of burnout in The Comfort Zone Is There for a Reason.
In it, she discusses her proclivity to fighting through the tough times (just as the self-improvement doctrine generally advocates), and how this…
Blame your mature industry, technology, and pricing theory
Right now, as writers and entrepreneurs who create courses and develop email marketing strategies (and possibly try to earn that “side-hustle” income through freelancing gigs), we are no longer in anything like a “Blue Ocean.” The ocean is red with the chum of online marketeers. The waters are shark-infested.
The waters are crowded with offerings that want to separate themselves as being for those “serious” about their learning. Only the serious would be willing to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars for a course. …
How conscious are the choices you’re making?
We’ve covered a lot of ground this week as the days slowly shift to Spring. If you boil it down, as we emerge by degrees from this first-in-a-lifetime pandemic, questions arise. Who are we now? Do we want to be the same as when this began? How exactly do we want to be different, and hopefully, somehow, better?
Alexander M. Combstrong asks this question in The Undeniable Benefits of Self-Sabotage: What if what we don’t actually want what we’re working so hard to pursue? I can attest: Been there, done that. …
How to automate healthy habits, and disrupt unhealthy ones
Think how stubborn some of your negative habits are. They’re probably pretty ingrained with a lot of unconscious choices that have already been made. They’re probably a part of your routine and the way you respond to your environment.
For a healthy habit to be sustainable, it’s about the process(es) we put behind the purpose. It’s the ongoing, consistent, persistent insistence that we are committed to micro moves over time that finally “melts the ice cube.” …
And remember where you come from
Dear Big Selfer,
It’s lonely out in space, or so I hear. But inspiration hits in unexpected ways. Two of our writers this week found a relationship to the self through the great vast unknown of space. Two others want us to take ownership of our choices and take personal responsibility to find fulfillment and meaning. And still another pair want us to remember relationships and connection are where the mysterious sources of fulfillment emerge.
Maria Milojković leads us off with, You Can’t Live a Happy Life like Danes and Keep Toxic Individualism.
No, we can’t all be like the…
“We cannot direct the wind. But we can adjust the sails.” Aristotle
Dear Big Selfer,
The more things change, the more they remain the same. This cliche wrapped in a paradox has never felt more true than the past year for me. It’s amazing how much whizzes past in our 24-hour news feeds, and yet for the millions of us still isolated in our socially-distanced safety nets, every day has an incredible sameness.
Many of us are struggling with the malaise of burnout. We’ve fallen into ruts and routines that are surprisingly hard to climb out of. How many levels of resistance can we experience one solid year into this pandemic?
Plenty.
Chad Prevost
Big Self Podcast host. Creative Writing Ph.D. I write on Self-Improvement, Mental Health, and Psychology. Join us at bigselfschool.com. @bigselfschool
