connection | Exercise and Mind

ONE. It’s a concept that’s quite loaded. When I think of that word, I think of a Yoga studio here in Vancouver that I attended the opening of, filled with stylish yogis doing much better down dogs then me and having much longer hair then me. I think of airy hippies floating around a circle with magic beads encouraging us to become one with the world, our thoughts, others, and roar like the lions (or tigresses) we are. I think of Bob Marley bouncing around with his Rastafarians on a stage with big amps, one love man. I think of one more cup of coffee, for the road. I think of the feeling of walking through the forest with something I cannot call by name tingling up my spine like a vine.

You see, I’ve become conflicted with how ONE can be ONE in our current world’s trajectory, a marketed ONE. It seems to me it’s conflicting. We’re encouraged to get more followers on social media, because when we do, we’ll get more people interested in our images, reading our messages, which means we might make it big or get that big sponsor, you know, become ONE, find our ONE truth. Mo’ money cause this hustler is ONE. We’re given slogans reminding us to get out more, explore more, see more of the world, meet more people, connect with more people… all of this shouted loudly and vibrantly and from hip tongues by society’s climbers, and believed – or perhaps regurgitated – by many more. I’ve believed them for so long, reworded them to explain to others. Moreso, I respect the concepts. Continue reading →

Passion is what life is. No two people have exact same passions, but many people can have similar passions, which provides some sort of connection for us with other beings in this world; some sort of grounds to communicate on and relate.

The secret is to understand what your passions are, study them, learn from them and grow with them in a positive environment.

For myself, to find what my passion is, I need to really understand what my goals are, and what I am trying to do with my life. In reality, the goals and passions kind of sit hand in hand. When I start thinking about these things, my mind naturally flows into the areas of my most passion. Curiously, there are always ideas and thoughts that my passion digs up that are out of this world, while others are logical, standard, and perhaps even productive with any luck!

Without that main effort though, the initial thought: “What is it that I want to do? Where does my mind lead me when I think of tomorrow?” there is no chance at even understanding your true passion.

Passions aren’t just a girlfriend, or love, passion involves hobbies, quests, goals, and accomplishments often summed up in a personal mission statement. They involve anything that when thought about, all other troubles in the world seem to fade away. One believes that to just follow this journey along the passion quest to the end, the world will be complete and fulfilling.

Me? Yes, I truly believe this. An example for me is when I think about photography. Initially it started with a wanting a digital SLR (DSLR) camera, picking out which kind I wanted most, and then having to keep using my old point and shoot camera until I could gather up enough money to get my DSLR. Then it turned into going places to get spectacular photographs that would blow the doors off of National Geographic Magazine. After this, my passion soon turned to how to edit these photos, which format I should be capturing the images in (RAW, JPG, TIFF, etc.) and how to edit them. Learning Photoshop and testing out Paint Shop Pro and all the various builds of each of them was also involving, learning layers and levels and brightness and contrast all turned into one big giant passion soup, something which I enjoy immensely.

For me, it’s easy to identify a passion; it’s something that consumes all of my time. I naturally fall into searching out new ways to do what I’m passionate about, how to become successful; how to grow.

I firmly believe that to be inwardly happy; to be proud and supportive and attentive in every day of your life, one needs to pursue their passions. Once the passions have been categorized or identified then is when the real work starts with brainstorming ideas on how to actively grow and build and master that passion. This takes a lot of focus and positivity to stay aligned with your goals that come with it. One thing to definitely not be afraid of, is when you learn more about your passion, when you grow with your passion you may find that your goals tend to change slightly to align more effectively with your new path, or train of thoughts.

A quote I will leave you with from Gandhi is: “No matter what it is, I make judgment based on the best of my knowledge. If that knowledge shall change and my stance also changes as a result, I will be the first to admit my mistake, and proceed aligned with the new knowledge.”