Category: 67 steps

Stept 13: Amish vacation, Tap dancing to work and Avoiding what you love.

The Amish set up their lives in a way that they have everything they need and they are doing it in a natural way, like it’s something they are born to do. In natural rhythm and therefore they don’t get burned out. They don’t feel the need to go somewhere else to escape.

There seems to be a principle here somewhere, but I don’t know what to call it exactly… maybe the fine tuning of life. Set up what you have in life in a way that it’s part of you and you don’t get sick of it and need to get away from… Continue reading “Step 13 – Amish vacation, Vacation mentality”

Hi Sophie,

This step is about ‘mastering the wrong things’ – the how and why of self-reliance.

He starts right out with the principle that we MUST be self-reliant. Interesting.

I have always wanted to be self-reliant, but I never thought of it as something that we MUST do in order to have success in every area, but in the context of all of these steps, which are about taking responsibility for our decisions and the paths we take, I think I have a much clearer grasp on this… as in ‘if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me‘… self-reliance.

I never looked at it that way before. I do see that there can be negatives to trying to do everything ourselves, and that there’s some truth both to delegating and to doing things ourselves, but in this context it seems that even delegating well would be a form of self-reliance in that we’d be taking the responsibility of making sure something is being handled properly that we might not have the time or expertise to handle. Continue reading “Step 50 Mastering the wrong things and blue eye shadow numbnuts”

Hi Sophie,

Wow, today’s step was so interesting, something I never considered at all but I completely see it – preconditioned helplessness. ‘Learned helplessness’-this is definitely a brand new concept to me… but I definitely see it, looking at all of the diet plans & health books since way back in history, looking at all of the millions of self- help books & programs, it does seem like we are all convinced that some outside help is necessary to achieve anything at all, myself included.

I also hadn’t thought about why on earth we’re so afraid to take a risk… I wonder if that same media bias that clouds over the long process involved to start something and doesn’t show the long process helps to perpetuate the fear of starting something. Continue reading “Step 7 Learned helplessness”

Hi Sophie,

Step 6 was very timely for me after our call today.  The main principle that I got out of it is ‘ slow is smooth and smooth is fast’, in a different set of words.

It really made me think though- I never considered the huge part that media bias plays in conveying that success comes pretty quickly without too much effort…that it  forms our internal timelines for success- money, fitness, etc. I can totally see it though, that we never see the process, because it’s not a good story.  I believe that also because of the media and TV in general, even if they showed the process people wouldn’t have the attention span to hang in there & watch it. Continue reading “Step 6 Media bias”