Chris Goode

Does Life Have True Meaning?

I got an interesting question in the comment section of one of my previous posts. It asked if there was truly a sole purpose to life, and then elaborated by asking the following: if there’s multiple purposes to one’s life, does it lessen their value?

Before I begin answering what I think the answer to these questions are, I wanted to point out that these are really good questions. It’s important to think about the information you get from here instead of just reading the article’s and moving on. To the person that asked this question, good job on thinking critically :)

Now for the nitty gritty stuff. Let’s tackle the first question first -- is there truly a sole purpose to life?

Well, the truth is I can’t give a guaranteed true answer to that question, I can only give my thoughts because I’m only human. That being said, I genuinely think that each and every person contributes to the world in a manner that results in the best possible outcome. The keyword here is possible, because although an ideal world might be way better than what we have, an ideal world isn’t always possible due to our current circumstances. If we center our ideas around Earth and humanity, it’s blatantly obvious that we have at least one authentic and important reason to be here. However, many people ask the question of why we’re here at all. Even people who are firm atheists wonder why we ended up here and what our purpose is. Why did elpistostege (the fish that biologists think we evolved from) crawl out of the water and begin the chain of evolution that led to humans?

First it’s important to remind ourselves that reason is a human made ideology, at least to an extent. We assume everything happens for a reason (whether we admit it or not) and in turn we can’t wrap our heads around the idea that something might exist just for the sake of existing.

I’m also assuming that this question wasn’t asked in a manner of pessimism -- this person isn’t lamenting and cursing life, asking why we’re here with the unspoken indication that there’s no purpose for it. Turning our attention towards that question with that context might answer other questions though. When someone asks why we do things if they won’t matter in 1,000 years, we often forget that anybody could come up with a span of time where things won’t matter anymore.

This leaves us with a choice: do we choose to not care because eventually nothing will matter? Or do we choose to care because in our time it does?

When the question is phrased like this it becomes much easier to see the more reasonable answer. Sure, you could choose the first option… but if you don’t account for things such as the Butterfly Effect, then of course you’ll fall victim to your brain’s decision to not care.

This answers our first question -- it’s very possible that there’s no reason or purpose to life, but in a relative time frame there absolutely is.

However, there were two questions. The second one asks if one can have multiple purposes in life, and if that’s the case then do they take away from each other?

This question I think I can answer as no more than a human being, and my answer is no. Having multiple purposes can’t take away from life, otherwise we would die as soon as one is fulfilled. Multiple purposes run through one person; that’s why one person can be capable of so much. There’s kids as young as 17 years old who exercise every day, study, learn new things, are getting jobs in fields they’re good at, becoming smarter and faster and stronger and better. Why do I bring up an age group that’s so young? Because it’s easy to see potential in younger age groups, and potential is purpose if executed correctly.

One might consider a father who happens to be a plumber. That father has one obvious job, which is to fix pipes in people’s houses so that their household can function properly and easily. Without plumbers (and all tradespersons for that matter), life is thrown back into the stone age. With that in mind, that plumber is also a father who has to go home and help raise children to be kind, strong, and virtuous. He has multiple purposes, and they don’t lessen the value of each other. A plumber isn’t a worse plumber just because he or she has children, and a parent isn’t always a worse parent just because they have a job. Of course there are exceptions to this rule of thumb, but if things are going smoothly then it holds strong.

So, to summarize: it’s possible that life is meaningless throughout all time, but in relative time there’s multiple meanings that can coexist without lessening the value of each other.

This was a fun post to write, I’m happy someone was thinking critically. Also, thank you for helping me get over 100 followers! It means a lot to me and I’m happy to see this community growing. This community is a reason I smiled today. Be sure to leave a like, share this article with a friend so we can grow more, and follow me on social media as well as on here so you can stay up to date with blog posts. Stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

The Meaning of Life

“The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of Being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.” -- Jordan Peterson

Life is tricky for multiple reasons, and one huge one is that we often struggle to find any sole purpose for it. Although that’s a tricky question with a tricky answer, we can consider what makes life enjoyable.

If you’ve read Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, you understand that he thinks of Being as a noun rather than a verb. He describes it as a part of our psyche that’s originally pure, but dirtied with our own downfalls and sins. Interestingly enough he talks about sins as if they’re a relative term -- in his writing the word sins is synonymous with flaws. Being in turn is something that we try to work towards throughout our life, and he discusses multiple different “rules” that make it easier to do so.

The rules he describes almost sound like something an old man in a cottage would tell you. “Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie.” “Pet a cat when you come across one on the street.” “Don’t interrupt children who are skateboarding.” All of these things appear to be irrelevant and borderline crazy phrases… which is probably why he dedicates an entire book to explaining 12 of his most important rules.

In short, Peterson describes our version of living -- our Being -- as something that should be independent and self sufficient whilst maintaining healthy relationships with others. Healthy relationships are part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; without those we’re simply shells of our true selves because our life lacks any genuine meaning. Part of becoming independent means that you need to be carefree with some things, yet still grounded enough to stop and smell the roses… or for the sake of relevance, pet a cat when you come across one on the street.

Life is short. Too short to worry about why we’re here, but just long enough to crave happiness. Take the time to find a mode of Being that makes you forget about the painful parts of life, and strengthens you for when those painful times come.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Also, feel free to ask questions! Conversations work better than lectures. Stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Finding Light Within Darkness

"Life will bring you great pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy." -- Milton Erickson

Joy and pain are two sides of the same coin, with that coin being life. Unfortunately for some, they forget that you can manually turn the coin over instead of flipping it and hoping it lands on a favorable side. Because of this, they end up stuck on the side that life gives them. Or even worse, they purposefully and prematurely flip it back over.

Obviously it’s incredibly difficult to flip the coin over sometimes. If we follow the metaphor, that’s the equivalent of l]completely flipping our life upside down. Sometimes we don’t have the stability to do this. Sometimes it’s too scary and we end up frozen in place. Sometimes we lack the resources. Whatever the reason, it isn’t always possible to change everything about ourselves.

That being said, we don’t always have to change everything about ourselves. Instead we simply have to seek joy. Like the quote says: life will bring us great pain all by itself. This means that seeking out things that only bring us pain throws our life out of balance and results in us being lost, dazed, and confused. Instead we must search for things that bring us joy. Sometimes we can’t do something and get pure joy from it, but joy in and of itself is all we’re looking for -- sometimes that goes hand in hand with something undesirable or even painful. The best example I can think of is getting out of a toxic relationship. For the person who decides to leave, it can be incredibly painful to back out. Mind numbingly painful even. Regardless of this pain, a separation results in overall joy for both parties. Another good example is an intense, painful workout. Your muscles might be aching and weak, and you might feel useless afterwards in terms of strength. Give it a few days, some good sleep, and enough protein however, and you come back stronger than before (and thus happier).

The idea behind stoicism isn’t always to “just feel better.” Things such as mental illnesses prevent this. What we can do, however, is try to appreciate the good things that we DO have. Then and only then will we find improvement. Then and only then can we grow.

Take some time to smell the roses.

by Chris Goode

What is Coaching?

Coaching is something that's often confused with therapy. It makes sense; both practices involve someone helping another person solve their problems and work around things if needed, just in very different ways. On top of that, therapy can often be a much longer process that's oriented towards unpacking the past in a way to resolve present issues. Coaching on the other hand is typically the discussion of a specific goal or vision and how to create the most efficient and intelligent way of accomplishing them, in other words it's more future oriented.

Someone seeking a coach is really someone who's asking for an outside view that's both logical and simple. Those mindsets can be researched through studying philosophy, psychology, and history. Of course, that doesn't make someone a professional in any of those subjects, but they can most certainly relate those problems from history to problems that people face today. Ancient mindsets and mythologies can be sifted through in order to gain wisdom and as stated before, a logical mindset to problems.

The more I think about it while writing this, the more obvious it becomes that coaching and therapy have very little in common. Of course both provide a lot of help to others, but they go about it in different ways and towards different issues. Because of this it's smart to seek wisdom from both practices -- therapy to help change your way of thinking, and coaching to hear another's. A combination of the two allows an individual to approach their problems from multiple angles, which isn't exactly a bad idea.

The subject of today's post came about as a reminder to you that I'm a transformation coach -- and I'm here to provide you that outside view on some of your problems. In order to set this up, go to "Contact" and follow the directions it gives you. Other than that make sure to leave a like and follow, stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Hidden Desires

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” -- Carl Jung

Unconscious thoughts and desires have a tendency to appear in our day to day lives without our knowledge. They’re expressed through subtle actions or thoughts, and executed in ways that we think we came up with all by ourselves. In a way we did, but it’s a part of ourselves that’s separated from every other part of ourselves. Talk about intricacy.

Conscious thoughts and desires, however, are often thought of too much. By that I mean we spend so much time thinking about these things that we take action on them at the wrong times instead of just letting them flow naturally. This usually doesn’t result in anything too bad happening, but most bad things happen because of this.

With that knowledge in mind, it’s wise to consider what could happen if you make your unconscious thoughts and desires into something conscious. Things such as biased opinions will become apparent and we’ll be able to swing the pendulum the other way and cancel them out -- but only if we’re aware of them. Until we make those unconscious thoughts something we can purposely think about, we’re stuck. We end up lost in our own world, wondering what decides our purpose and how we end up where we are. Our unconscious becomes “fate.” because we’re unaware of what it does and how it influences us.

Considering this, meditate on your unconscious today. Ask yourself questions about things and wait patiently for your response to come to you.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Be sure to stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

Creating Meaning

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to ultimately be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” -- Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who’s known best for creating what we now call Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In short, it explains what we crave as humans and in what order we crave them. Interestingly enough, the highest level essentially states that we’ll begin searching for purpose beyond our selves. To add onto the mystery, this quote encourages us to look inwards for outwards reasoning.

This quote allows me to strongly elaborate the idea that each of us contributes to the world through embodiment of our truest selves. It’s an idea I’ve spoken about before, and I’ve explained that a perfect person doesn’t exist because of said idea.

Maslow points out that we must be whatever we can be. This means that whatever we can’t be, we must not be able to be. Talk about double negatives…

In other words, we’re all capable of a lot of things. Probably millions of different things that we don’t even realize or appreciate. However, we must constantly be those things -- otherwise we’re an incomplete piece of art. Take that with a grain of salt though; if we really truly aren’t able to do something, we aren’t meant to. This aligns with Murphy’s Law, which states that anything that can happen will happen. Whatever we can do, we must do. Whatever we can be, we must be. It’s quite an interesting idea to toss around your head.

Doing everything we can allows us to be successful in society, but being everything we can allows us to be at peace with ourselves. It allows us to rest our heads on our pillows every night and think “Wow. I earned this rest because I really did a lot today.” Of course, we’ll probably fall asleep shortly after that thought if we’re truly doing our best during the day :D. Eventually this leads to overall satisfaction in our lives because we constantly are able to tell ourselves “Hey, I’m doing good. I’ve done all these things today and I’ve kept my mind clean today. This is good. I’m okay.”

Do what you can. Strive for what you can. Be your best self, and you might just realize that your best self is better than you could ever imagine.

by Chris Goode

A Humble Opinion

“Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.” -- Jordan Peterson

There are only so many things we can be capable of. It’s a concept we’ve discussed multiple times before: nobody is perfect because a perfect person makes everybody else useless. What we haven’t discussed, however, is the idea that we often spend so long looking towards things to gain that we don’t appreciate the things we already have.

Because we’re raised in a society that’s often encouraging us to be better and strive for more, we almost never take the time to appreciate what we already have. Oftentimes this leads us to forgetting our virtues, which prevents us from building upon that and improving upon those.

A good analogy I heard once is that virtuous behaviour is like owning a gun. Even if you’re a really good shot and can nail the target every time, you’re still going to get rusty if you don’t practice. This doesn’t mean you can just hang the gun up on the wall either -- you have to actively use it and practice the drills and protocols that go along with it. The same applies to virtues. What we have can’t simply be admired, it must be put to use as well. Saying you’re a disciplined person doesn’t hold any value if you can’t prove it.

It’s also important to remember that the things that other people have weren’t earned easily either. They most likely didn’t just wake up with a magnificent ability one day; they worked and disciplined themselves to become better at whatever it is they’re good at. Appreciation of this fact is a necessary part of growth and self development, but obsession over another’s talents is the pathway to our downfall.

To summarize: satisfaction and growth comes from an appreciation of what you do have and a humble acknowledgement of what you don’t. Try not to confuse the two.

by Chris Goode

A Gentle Aggression

“Face the demands of life voluntarily. Respond to a challenge instead of bracing for catastrophe.”

A big problem that a lot of people have is they become so anxious and worried about future events that they don’t actually end up doing anything about it because their fear holds them down. Their fight or flight response works, but it tenses up. Many people don’t understand that it’s not just fight or flight, there’s also freeze. Fight/flight/freeze. Those who end up worried about their future aren’t fighting or flying -- they’re freezing up and letting things take them by the horns. They’re committing emotional suicide by leaving themselves out in the cold dark abyss of an empty mind.

Fortunately for us, it’s possible to make ourselves not freeze if we can simply become aware of when it is that we freeze. This is a humbling experience, and it’s one that you’ll need to do on your own. Others can’t do it for you, they can only support the actions you take to move towards success. And you can’t do it if you aren’t honest and accepting with yourself, because your ego will stop any progress from happening.

Reflecting on stressful situations and becoming aware of our reactions benefits ourselves from all angles. It allows us to realize what it is we need to change, which honestly is usually the only thing stopping people from changing themselves.

Peterson’s quote revolves around the idea that life is going to throw things at you no matter what. It’s going to break you down and beat you until you’re barely breathing. Then -- and only then -- will you have the opportunity to prove that you’re strong mentally. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, then it’s time to start preparing for it. Push yourself mentally often. Discipline your emotions and make yourself level up into something stronger, and smarter, and healthier, and better.

It’s important to prepare for challenges, but not catastrophe. A good way of thinking about the difference is as follows: preparing for challenges is getting a really nice weapon, while preparing for catastrophes is getting a really nice shield. The difference between the two is that one is far more aggressive. In our day to day life, aggression doesn’t equate to violence because there’s no need for it. However, there’s still a need for aggression in some parts of our lives. Perhaps we have a workout we need to crush or a book we need to read. Maybe we have something to finish at work, or maybe we really do need to be aggressive in terms of violence. It applies to many different aspects of life and if used correctly can benefit us hugely.

Take life by the horns before it does the same to you.

by Chris Goode

An Unusual Source of Wisdom

“Perfection and power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love.”

-- Uncle Iroh

Uncle Iroh is a fictional character from an animated kids show called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Although the show is made simple for children to understand, a second look and a second thought reveals an astonishing amount of underlying messages, wisdom, and maturity for older audiences to learn from. I definitely recommend it to anybody who hopes to learn a thing or two while watching an enjoyable show.

Back to the matter at hand. Perfection and power -- are they really overrated or is that just something that we’d like to think so that we don’t have to feel guilty for not achieving them?

I think it’s the first one. Of course I could be wrong, but hear me out before you dismiss it as a fact.

We’ve established before that nobody can be perfect. The perfect person is flawless and can do anything. They’re the best at everything and nobody can beat them at anything. Then of course this eliminates any need for other people because the world doesn’t need them (Disclaimer, the world needs everybody, otherwise we wouldn’t be here). So to summarize: perfection is overrated.

What about power? Power can be a useful thing for people to achieve whatever they want. It overrides others desires and stops them from stopping you.The only problem with power is that power corrupts. Any traits you have, whether positive or negative, will be amplified to it’s loudest potential. Although this might be great for the flawless person, nobody is flawless. It’s kind of funny that power and perfection would go hand in hand if they were perfect.

So we know power and perfection are overrated, but is happiness and love the right decision...?

Well OBVIOUSLY. Although some people aren’t too big on the love thing, happiness is generally something that we strive towards at all times. By the way, love is more than romantic. People express it in many different ways -- platonically, romantically, familially, etc. There’s a lot of love in this world, and it’s our job to share it.

Choose the light. Otherwise we’ll never win.

by Chris Goode

Setting Goals

“Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful.” -- Jocko Willink

I find it funny how many of Jocko Willink’s quotes align with stoicism philosophies. He says he doesn’t follow stoicism, and yet here we are…

The subject of today's discussion revolves around setting goals. Goals can be tricky sometimes because we have a tendency to try and arrange too many too quickly, which results in a complete lack of success and just a flop.

However, there is a solution to this: prioritize your goals. Prioritize your problems. Make a list and write down clearly and precisely what needs to be done. Doing this allows your brain to stop wandering and worrying about things that aren’t important and instead use that anxious energy to move and get things done.

That being said, the order in which you make your list is important as well. You can’t put “clean the house” at the top of your list if you have more urgent matters to worry about (although it is important to get your life in check before you try to conquer bigger problems). Making a list with the highest priority problems at the top and the lowest at the bottom allows you to get your things done and simply work towards one of them at a time. Think of it like having a bucket of apples. Taking a bite out of each apple technically doesn’t count as eating an entire apple. To you it might feel like it because your stomach is full, but to anybody else looking in the bucket it would “just be a bucket of half eaten apples.” Finish one apple at a time however, and that bucket full of half eaten apples becomes half a bucket of apples. The same applies to completing your tasks that you have every day. If you do a little bit of everything, nothing is complete and you’re still just as unstable as you were before. Complete one task however and suddenly you have an anchor; “At least my house is clean.”

It’s also important to have both short term and long term goals, but don’t focus on both at once. It should never be “I need to get this done so that I can move on to this.” Instead, focus on one. “I need to get this done so that I don’t have to worry about it.” Or, alternatively, “I need to get this done because it moves me closer to this other goal.” Those two can fall back on each other whenever one of them fails.

by Chris Goode

Reflecting on Past Knowledge

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.” -- Marcus Aurelius

Strength means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To some it’s being able to withstand a lot of emotional pain. To others it simply means the ability to move a lot of weight. No matter what you think of strength as, you know it’s a requirement to persevere through life.

So how do we find strength? Well, like Marcus Aurelius says, by realizing you have power over your mind but not outside events.

We’ve discussed before why it’s important to make your mind a fortress that you feel safe in. A guarded mind is a mind that can’t be beat down by outside forces, but only it’s own inner forces. This is a concept we understand well.

What I haven’t discussed as much before is the second part of the first sentence of this quote. We know we have power over our mind, but we often forget we have no power over outside events.

This is an important thing to remember because it can remove a lot of stress from our minds.

If we don’t have to worry about outside events, we don’t have to waste time or headspace worrying about how to change those things. We can simply focus on our own thoughts… which is usually the only thing we try to do. If we can combine these forces however, focus on our own thoughts AND not worry about outside forces, that’s twice as much power dedicated to our goals.

Before you know it, your focus on your goals combined with your lack of stress dedicated to exterior forces results in a lot of progress in a short amount of time and a lot of happiness.

by Chris Goode

Modern Stoics: Part Four

“You must own everything in your world. There is no one else to blame.” -- Jocko Willink

Jocko Willink is a retired naval officer who served in the navy SEALs. Although he’s specifically said he doesn’t follow stoicism, there seems to be an overlap between what he values and what others value.

One of Willink’s phrases that he often repeats is “Discipline equals freedom.” He claims that this isn’t a contradiction, it’s an equation. What does this mean?

If giving discipline means receiving freedom, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us that we can always do something to free ourselves from whatever it is that’s stressing us out.

The other quote at the top of this page reveals Willink’s philosophy of what he calls extreme ownership. This is essentially the idea that anything that happens in your life is something that you have responsibility for. Everything that happens in your life is your fault. Not your boss’s. Not the system’s. Not your coworkers or the employees. Yours. You and you alone are responsible for 100% of what happens in your life. On the surface this seems daunting and life draining, but after some careful thought and consideration you realize that 100% responsibility means you can control anything that happens to you. You can stop yourself from being stressed out by removing the things that are stressing you out. You can fix that relationship with whoever you seem to be arguing with. You can push yourself to do better… the list goes on.

Apply this logic to your everyday life and you realize how important it is. You and you alone are responsible for keeping your diet in check. You and you alone are responsible for making yourself workout everyday. You and you alone hold yourself accountable to your challenges, and you and you alone can confront them. Again... Scary on the surface, but comforting underneath that.

So. You know who’s responsible for fixing your problems. Hold them accountable and charge forward with confidence.

Like what you read? Be sure to share this post with your friends and family, comment what you'd like to hear about next, and follow this page. It helps me out a lot, and you can always change your mind later. Be sure to stay tuned for future posts, and try to be the reason someone smiles today :)

by Chris Goode

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