moments

How to Not Cry Over Spilled Milk

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Spilled milk

Recently I knocked from my fridgetop an adorable little bottle of Spanish balsamic vinegar my mom brought from Barcelona. I was feeling especially grounded that day and somehow, before it even struck the floor, I was over it.

On a different day I might have sworn and fretted about it, cursed myself as I picked up its pieces, felt bad about wrecking a thoughtful gift from my mom, and pondered my chronic failure to keep my belongings organized and in good condition. One thought may have led to another until I decided I was in too bad a mood to write than night, watched nature shows and ate Ben & Jerry’s, and went to bed disappointed with myself.

Sour moods are like that — infectious and self-sustaining — and they’re born in the moments when we feel resigned, disappointed or incompetent.

Normally, when something breaks like that, there’s a rather strong reaction. The body tenses, gasps, swears, maybe groans like Homer Simpson. The mind sulks, scowls or scorns itself.

It doesn’t feel good. We feel run over, shameful, wasteful, distinctly worse off than we were before this (latest) minor tragedy. A little cloud forms over one’s head: loss. Read More

by David on October 1, 2009
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What’s Your Problem? And Why?

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rain

A recurring theme in Raptitude is that why is a more useful question than what. Why is the mother of all whats, and tells a much more meaningful story.

A 600-foot triangular stack of stones sitting in the Egyptian desert for five thousand years is notable, but it’s the mystery of why someone was compelled to build such a thing that makes it so intriguing. If we only look at events and things, and judge them as if they were isolated entities, we can’t possibly understand them. Everything is both a cause and an effect, so there is no way of knowing what something is if you never look at why it is.

So if that isolated entity is something in your life that you want to change, such as a personal weakness or a lingering dilemma, your efforts to solve it may seem to be in vain. Your plan, at a glance, makes sense, but the problem keeps coming back. Try as you might, ten years later you still haven’t lost the weight, found a better career, or learned to play piano.

Contemporary self-improvement material seems to be concerned simply with what you should do:

To be more productive, start doing this.

To lose weight, eat this and don’t eat that.

An isolated tweak to one troublesome part of a person’s behavior can’t possibly address why they do it. There is a whole lifetime of momentum behind a person’s habits. To change the trajectory of something with as much inertia as an adult human life, we really have to understand the forces that put it into motion in the first place.  Read More

by David on September 17, 2009
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The List

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Post image for The List

As promised, here is what I plan to do before I die. This list is now a permanent addition to Raptitude.com, and the most up-to-date version can be found by clicking “The List” tab on the top of any page.

If you want to make your own list, here is the comprehensive guide to making one that you will honor.

A few notes:

You’ll notice my list is very travel-heavy. One of my major goals in life is to achieve a location-independent income, which will allow me to move around the globe without the constraint of limited vacation days. Without the intention to live this kind of lifestyle, my list would not be realistic to me and I’d probably soon forget about it. I have tried to eliminate redundancies, but some are inevitable. I want to see the Louvre and tour Paris, but it is unlikely I’ll do one and not the other. Still, both are important and I don’t want to leave either off my list. The list is not complete. I cannot be sure I’ve thought of everything that deserves to be on it, but this is a pretty good start.

Here goes.   Read More

by David on September 10, 2009
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How to Make a Life List You’ll Actually Do: A Comprehensive Guide

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surfing at sunset

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way. ~ Christopher Morley

The principle of the life list is simple. You list all the things you want to do in life, and cross them off as you do them. Try to do them all before you die.

It’s easy and fun to make one, but to create a list of dreams that will actually come true is not quite as simple as merely writing down what you want.

You may have made a life list before. Where is it now? Probably in a landfill, like most life lists. It’s too easy to let life get in the way. You get busy, tied up with more immediate concerns, and your dreams become less and less relevant to your actual life.

But not everyone’s list gets abandoned. John Goddard is known best for living out the ambitious life list he made at age fifteen.

Even though it includes many difficult and humongous items (for example, number 113 is “Become proficient in the use of a plane, motorcycle, tractor, surfboard, rifle, pistol, canoe, microscope, football, basketball, bow and arrow, lariat and boomerang,”) as of today he’s checked off 111 of his 127 goals, and some are partially complete.

Why did that 15 year-old boy’s list go on to define a lifetime of achievement and adventure, while most life lists are eventually forsaken?

Because he really meant it.   Read More

by David on September 7, 2009
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What Your Dinged Up Car Can Teach You About the Universe

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ding!

Just behind the little gas tank door on my Honda, there is a silver scratch in the paint, about the size of a dime. It looks almost like an upside-down Nike swoosh. The panel is a little bit dented.

I know exactly when it happened.

It was a Friday in June 2006, I was new at my job, and I had just screwed up bigtime. I had transposed a few digits in my field notes and something ended up being constructed improperly, to the tune of about $5,000.

My boss had received a phone call, informing him of my costly blunder, while the two of us rode along in his truck back to the office. Things had been blowing up all day, and that was the last thing either of us wanted to hear. Painful silence.

Then my cell (for which he pays the bill) rang. Sheepishly, I answered, knowing it was a personal call. My friend wanted to go camping right after work. Feeling a desperate urge right then to get the hell out of town, I said yes and then quickly got rid of him. The awkward, silent ride continued.

When I got home, I hurriedly unloaded the work-related equipment from my trunk to throw in my camping stuff. I really wanted to be gone.

I had a bundle of wooden stakes under one arm and an aluminum range pole under the other, when I heard Right Said Fred playing behind me. Suddenly curious, I spun around to look for what kind of bizarre character would be blasting I’m Too Sexy from his car in 2006, and whacked my own car with the metal tip of the pole. Read More

by David on August 14, 2009
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This Will Never Happen Again

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Post image for This Will Never Happen Again

Nothing is permanent.  That’s not really news, but it may mean more than you think, on a day-to-day level.

In each moment, everything around you is constantly changing, and it never changes back. It’s always new.

Some changes are subtle, some dramatic, but all of it is changing.

Life is uncertain by its very nature.  Except for this:

No matter what is happening right now,

It will never happen again.

Not quite like this anyway. Read More

by David on June 4, 2009
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You Are the Greatest Story Ever Told

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A good scene

I have great news.

You are the star of the most poignant film ever conceived. An unprecedented epic saga, it is filmed in one continuous shot, from the first-person perspective. The sets are rich with detail, the lighting always underlines the mood perfectly, the cinematography always magnificent yet unpretentious.

The supporting cast is top notch, too. There are no histrionics, no miscast actors, no flubbed lines. They all deliver the dialogue impeccably, each line timed and inflected perfectly for its respective scene. The protagonists’ friends and lovers will make you laugh out loud, swoon with desire, and feel a sense of belonging and respect. The villains make you feel afraid, furious, depressed, and alienated.

Often the people in the story will look right at the camera, and reveal the stunning depth and density of their character to you.  Why are they even in this story, and why in this particular chapter? What role are they here to play: the advisor, the fool, the expert, the disciple, the love interest, the diplomat, the instigator, the enemy, the martyr? Read More

by David on May 11, 2009
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The Most Important Thing I Ever Learned

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Clothesline of photos

If you read Raptitude you’ll see me talk a lot about moments.  By the end of this post you’ll understand why I use that word so much.  I grew up thinking the word moment referred to specific instants in time, usually where some significant event occurred.  There were historic moments, life-changing moments, poignant moments, tense moments, touching moments, Kodak moments. They were events to be remembered, reminisced about, or photographed.

Whatever they were, they held you captive.  Everything else seemed to drop away, and you just watched.  They seemed to be isolated from the normal, linear course of time.

As for the rest of life, it just seemed to be the normal, steady current of ‘stuff.’  Some fun, some pain, some hope, some confusion, some excitement, some tedium.  Same same but different.

When I was twenty, desperately leafing through some forgotten self-help book, I came across a peculiar line.  Read More

by David on April 1, 2009
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How to Improve Your Quality of Life by up to 90 Percent

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A foreigner

“Children are all foreigners.”

-R.W. Emerson

Children have a precious talent. They become enamored so easily, and by anything. Take a walk through a park with a young child, and it doesn’t take long before he’s stopped, crouched on the side of the path, captivated by a red leaf or line of marching ants. Wide-eyed and oblivious to you and everything else, he just watches.  He’s become enraptured by a curious sight that is — to him — a miracle.

About six years ago, when I was at my most miserable and unpleasant, I remember being asked by a concerned family member, “Well when were you happy?”

I had to think about it. “When I was a kid,” I answered, vaguely aware that it was not really an exaggeration. In particular I remembered the feeling of sheer abundance of summer break: sixty straight days of nothing but exploration and imagination. Read More

by David on March 19, 2009
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How to Keep Life Fresh, For Free

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Leaf with droplets

It’s one of life’s best highs. That certain freshness you find only in new experiences. Getting off the plane in a new country, settling back as the lights dim before the movie starts, driving your new car off the lot.

Of course, it soon goes stale. We’ve all had the experience of excitedly tearing the gift wrapping off a new toy, only to be bored with it a week later. Even adults do this.

Why is it only that good when it’s new? And is there any way of finding that freshness in something that isn’t brand new?

I’ve discovered a few ways, but the one I’m about to share is especially interesting.  Read More

by David on March 17, 2009
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