#5: The Fellowship

Hi wonderful people!

Welcome back and happy Friday.

There is so much good that comes from writing.

Quote this Week:

“Give me the courage to show up and let myself be seen.” — Brené Brown

Excited to get into it!

Society

Fun!

Leaving the gym yesterday, I ran into my friend.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Alright,” he shrugged.

“Why just alright?”

“A lot’s going on at the office. I manage relationships.”

“Of course you do, you’d be great at that!”

He chuckled, half-smiling. “Oh… I guess.”

“I’m sure clients love that smile when you talk to them,” I said.

He paused. “When I started this job, my boss told me I smiled too much.” He laughed, but it faded. “Guess I don’t have it anymore.”

I stopped him. “That smiling guy I see right now, he’s obviously still in there. He just needs a little love to come out again.”

Growing up, my parents would talk about having ‘balance’, Ben.

Whatever that meant. I resisted balance. Why would I have balance if my greatest achievements came when I was out of balance, at the extremes?

Balance = Boring

Extremity = Achievement

I believed the only way to succeed was to put my head down and never look up. Always doing more. Work harder and harder. Never enough.

If I didn't go to extremes, how could I achieve?

It wasn’t until the things I loved most — my relationships — started to suffer that I began to question my approach. I was so certain of how life should be lived. Strive for the top and work as hard as possible. I was quick to give advice and unable to see another way.

Not necessarily the best recipe to connect with others.

I was achieving, so I must know best, right? Wrong.

Looking back, the more extreme I became, the less I laughed. An odd metric, but true. True laughter, I’ve come to realize, is a form of self-love.

I laugh all the time, I begrudgingly thought to myself. Not.

I’ve learned that balance isn’t about suppressing my ambitions. My parents weren't telling me I couldn’t pursue these big, audacious things but they were challenging me to explore different approaches to achieving them. It was about integrating the other side of the equation into the journey. FUN!

Yes, fun.

Why would I want to have fun in this process? I can’t have fun if I want to do great things?

Oh, yes I can.

I believe there is a side to life that is fun and joyful that allows us to experience something far greater than any ‘thing’ can give me. To neglect fun was to neglect a part of what made me human.

You can create an incredible quality of life while also having fun in the process. I believe it only amplifies the impact you can make.

I believed that to achieve great things, life had to be hard.

I no longer believe that.

Work hard, yes, but lose the miracle of life in the process, I don’t buy it.

Spirituality

Cornbread

I often take long weekend walks through my neighborhood. I am able to find peace and silence. On one such walk, I encountered two gentlemen on a front porch. I waved and exclaimed, "What a beautiful day!”

One of them responded, "Thank you so much for waving!" Then, with a warm smile, he added, "Hey, can you hold up a moment? Can I give you a hug?”

Now, that was a new one for me. I had never before seen someone so moved simply by a wave that they'd want to give a hug, but I was more than happy to oblige.

He came over, gave me a hug and said, "My name's Cornelius, but friends call me Cornbread.”

Curious, I asked, "Why is that?"

He chuckled, "Well, it’s because I love cornbread, of course!"

After another quick hug, he returned to the porch.

The world is a better place with people like Cornbread in it.

Human Psychology

Math

Recently, I spoke with a woman, who shared her love for architecture and the problem-solving it entails. As we discussed the role of math in architecture, she admitted, "I'm not a math person.”

Curious, I asked her, “What was your favorite subject growing up?”

“Math” she replied.

So what happened?

Like her, I once loved the problem-solving behind math and figuring out how all the pieces fit together. However, many years ago, I stopped.

It was the first day of high school geometry class. I had that first-day excitement and was ready for the school year. After brief intros, we dove straight into a review assignment on the things we were expected to already know. It was then that I realized there were gaps in my understanding.

My middle school had prepared me more than my classmates in some areas and less in others, but that geometry class didn't align with the preparation I had received.

(Un)Fortunately, I had already figured out how to get good grades in subjects I was less interested in. That week, as we moved on to the next chapter, I began to solve for grades instead of learning. My understanding and love for math began to drift away.

Since then, I’ve often said, "I'm not a math person," but that's not true. I’m TOTALLY a math person. I LOVE MATH. Math is all around us. It’s fundamental in describing and understanding the structures and patterns of our visual world. And I love learning about it!

Now, I'm revisiting these gaps to rebuild my foundation. It's humbling, but I want to try something out that I once (and still secretly) loved.

Is there a skill that you loved that at a certain point you stopped learning?

Nature:

Natural light! A wonderful thing.

I had been searching for a place to do my work, one with abundant natural light.

I recently found it and I am so grateful!

Book I am reading: I Can See Clearly Now by Wayne Dyer

Thing I did: I did one week of no music and it was not easy but neat to see the dependencies I had on it.

That’s a wrap for another edition of the Fellowship Newsletter! Thank you for reading! If you think someone else might enjoy this, please share it with them.

Peace and Love,

Ben