Tag: everything

From nothing, comes everything.

Posted on by philipdodson

‘From nothing, comes everything’ wrote one of my favourite people, James Altucher, today in his daily email.

He’s so 100% right, and conversely, from having everything comes nothing.

When we have everything, we are not satisfied, or happy, or content.

We could choose to be, but we are not, it is a lifetime of conditioning to always want something we do not have, always want more, even though we have all that we will need and much more than we will ever need to be fulfilled.

When we have nothing, when there is no food, nowhere to live, we’ve lost everything, then even the smallest improvement in that situation feels like you’ve won the lottery.

If we focused on the process, the journey instead of the outcome, instead of the rewards, then we would relax and learn to enjoy each step of the way, learn to appreciate so much more, and stop sweating about what we do not have.

Some of the happiest, joy-filled and most truly generous people I have met in my life are the ones with the least. When you have nothing, when you do not constantly desire what you do not have, when you accept and are grateful for what you have, then everything that truly matters comes to us.

Life is not about accumulating material wealth, it is about leaving a legacy and accumulating memories for moments we spend with the people that matter, achieving our purpose and making a difference.

I don’t know

Posted on by philipdodson

For a lot of my life, I have been a bullshitter. I have had a view on almost everything from politics, to cooking, to hang gliding blind in the dark while playing the piano.

I have had an opinion on almost everything, this is a conditioning that men suffer from particularly, they are expected to know everything, ‘ask your father’. It’s seen internally by us men that you are weak if you do not know something.

It’s similar to this crap about always having to be tough and not show emotion.

I have been learning, hard as I find it, awkward as it is, vulnerable as it makes me feel, to say ‘I don’t know about that’.

I’ve realised that it’s OK not to know about fucking everything and it’s OK not to have to have an opinion on everything too. I am worthy already like we all are, regardless of what I know and whether I have an opinion on something.

Now, if I want to have an opinion, I am forcing myself to actually find out about something, by asking questions and listening without evaluation.

This is so hard, it is such ingrained habit, learnt in my formative years from a family environment where everyone had an opinion on anything and everything, regardless of the facts or actually knowing a single thing about it.

So I have been learning gradually not to bullshit anymore, I am learning to say ‘I don’t know’. Also, perhaps even if I have an opinion, I am choosing to hear someone else’s first before laying out my views.

I don’t know what this will lead to but I have enjoyed the fact that it is hugely liberating not to pretend to know everything.