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Dissolving The Ego

Every year, I like to pick a “word” of the year. The word I select is a touchstone and a reminder of what is most important and represents an overriding goal I’ve set for myself and for my life. This year, that word is “ego.”

Each morning, after I meditate, I open the notes app on my phone and read from a document called Morning Ritual.

Dissolving the ego is the single most important thing I can do this year.

When I see those words each morning, I’m reminded of my tendency to be selfish and to cater to my small self.

Remembering to dissolve, and ultimately kill my ego is my path to my big, generous self. The one who remains present in times of crisis, and stress.

It’s unclear why my ego is such a problem, and for decades it ran unchecked, in control. But no more! No longer does my ego drive the ship. Sure, I’m not perfect, and sure, sometimes I slip into old patterns. But day by day, with the help of the word of the year, I shed a little more of my small self, and unlock my big self.

Do Not Stop

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop and Why Commitment is Art

The volume of posts on this blog have skyrocketed to one per day since I started writing again a few weeks ago. There is a reason. It finally sunk in that commitment is art.

I’ve learned that practicing, or finding your art requires true commitment. The ability to sit down and write every day, to produce something worth reading, something honest and something I can publish is not only critical – it is the actual expression of the art itself. This has been an incredible shift in perspective for me.

I started out fast and wrote 6 or 7 posts right off the bat. But now I’ve hit the wall and ideas that seemed worth writing about now seem too hard, or too simplistic to write. Or if I’m really honest about it, require too much honesty. But under no circumstances, will I allow that to stop me from writing something.

This post is likely one of a few that are simply me sitting down to write. Staring at a blinking cursor, wondering what I’m going to write about. I’m practicing my art by writing this post. Not only am I doing the work, I’m also working out ideas in my own head about myself, my commitment and my passion. I’m searching for answers by writing that I’m searching for answers. Very meta, I know.

But the thing is, I’m feeling down today and don’t want to write. I don’t know if that is because the weather is bad, or because I’m just down about one thing or another. I suspect that being up or down is like the tides. They come in and go out and while you know there is a regular pattern, it’s not totally clear why you can’t change it.

The feeling I have of being down somehow has me frustrated. I keep telling myself to buck up, and then remember my meditation practice of acceptance. So I accept I’m down, sit with it and now, I’m writing about it and believe it or not, actually feeling a little better about things.

The very act of sitting down and writing this is art. It may not be world-changing art, but it is art in the sense that I listened to myself, committed to myself and allowed these thoughts to enter the world. That’s art.

So today’s post is just a bit of blatant encouragement. Don’t stop. Keep at it.