The Road Less Traveled

To what extent do you want to live your life as a prey animal?

In this episode, I explore the dangers and benefits of breaking free from the herd, the marked zebra phenomenon, and missing the safety of what you've left behind.

Jordan B. Peterson & Warren Smith Interview:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000679402431

Warren Smith Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@SecretScholars

The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parent. (Carl Jung)

When we as parents (or coaches, mentors, teachers) don't actualize our own potential or hearken to our callings, we have one of the following effects on those following and looking up to us:

1. We live vicariously through them, putting pressure on them to finish our dreams for us. Then, nobody lives their lives, because they're busy aping the ones we were too afraid to live for ourselves. (Who will live your life if you do not?)
2. We suffocate them when we are afraid of them outshining us. Their souls shrivel and the light goes out of their eyes. This is the story of the Oedipal, devouring mother, or the evil stepmother in Tangled. This happens when we aren't actualized ourselves, and our children/students are all way have to ensure we are worth something.

In either case, we lose the person we love, because instead of inspiring them into expansion, we either drive them away, or we drive them to dilution and decay, thereby losing them through a thousand silent concessions.

From Carl Jung’s The Red Book, page 187

The cumulative effect of small stressors, and how they bring back negative inner narratives. This episode is something I wrote in 2015, when I was working through my eating disorder and just beginning to learn what it means to take care of myself so I could extend care to others.

Blog post: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/we-live-in-a-pixel

Life is a picture, but you live in a pixel: https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/life-is-picture-but-you-live-in-pixel.html

Hugs being good for our health: http://youtu.be/GW5p8xOVwRo

Abel brought his best and got more. Cain didn’t, destroyed his ideal, and was left with less, his lineage becoming murderers.

Abraham gave his best, and got it back.

He sacrificed his best to what is highest.

JBP also was talking about the Pieta, the mother’s crucifixion. The job of the mother being to offer her son (her best, herself) to the world, for it to have its way with him.

So doing, our sons become men, able to contend with the brutality and complexity of life.

We let go. Completely. Mary’s left hand is raised, perhaps for hope, perhaps to symbolize letting go, perhaps in worship.

Jordan Peterson eloquently tied this into becoming friends with one’s adult children. How does one accomplish such a thing? By raising, then releasing them.

Jesus Christ operated entirely by invitation, never by force.

This is the same way your adult children come back to you as your friends.

“The complete abdication of force.”

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/notes-on-jordan-b-peterson-s-april-23-2024-lecture-in-austin-tx

When I see someone dedicated to their craft, I am drawn to their character. When I see someone who’s been willing to buck the status quo of comfort and complacency, delay gratification in any way, alone if need be, I become less afraid of success and the loneliness that I previously perceived would accompany forward momentum.

These single-minded growers keep me inspired, by the fact that they are doing it for themselves. I don’t want to miss out on progress, excitement, and new learning.

They show me what is possible, and they prove that the common doesn’t have to be the inevitable.

The best thing they are doing to create a positive impact on the people around them is to become their best self, spiritually, intellectually, financially, and physically. And that’s not even why they’re doing it!

They hold me accountable by their very existence.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/accountability-i-don-t-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Compose: To put together, construct.

Confidence: To have full trust

The etymology of these words reveals why we are so drawn to confidence and composure, and can be found here: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/composure-and-confidence

These things happen iteratively, laboriously, and always intentionally.

Love and self control combined?

That's power.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/on-defibrillation

A spectrum of modes with which to operate in our worlds:

Isolation > Self Sufficiency - Dependability - Interdependence > Codependence

How do we avoid the extremes, build a strong sense of self, and stop feeling at the effect of all of the opinions around us? How do we fortify our own confidence, so we can relate from a place of strength? What is the bridge between the extremes of isolation and codependence?

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/self-sufficiency-and-interdependence

Beauty tells you to be more than you are. Beauty tells you to aspire to that which is beyond you.

What bothers you? That’s what calls you forward into who you could be. That’s what calls you forward into participating in the process of setting the world right, and there’s meaning in that.

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/overwhelmed-by-beauty