You are not a Tree.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree. – Jim Rohn

It is never too late to go in a new direction; you are not a tree; you are here to make epic shit. As French author and Paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once quipped, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” If you don’t like your present situation, move! Change can be extremely tough, but nothing moves until you move. If you do what you have always done, you will continuously get the same result. If you want a different result in your life, you have to do something different. As Newton’s First Law of Motion states, “A body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it, and a body in motion at a constant velocity will remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.”

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

You are not helpless; everything in life is figureoutable; you must take the first step and build up from there. If you don’t like your present job, find a new one or start your own business; if you are in a toxic relationship, set healthy boundaries or leave the relationship. If a situation, association, or thing no longer serves your needs, change your engagement or approach to using or engaging with it. One example that comes to mind is our collective use of social media. Most of us know deep inside that most social media platforms we use constantly are significant contributors to our anxiety, worry, self-comparison, depression and dissatisfaction, but we stay on these platforms because we have convinced ourselves that we cannot do without these platforms. We say to ourselves: How am I supposed to communicate with others? How am I supposed to promote my business? How do I survive without using the internet?

The sad truth about internet communication and social media use is that you can do without many of these tools or by using them more mindfully. In any situation that might not serve my ultimate purpose, I ask myself: What am I becoming? Am I becoming a better version of myself due to my engagement with this tool, person, or platform? If the answer to any of these questions is unsatisfactory, the right thing to do is to re-order your priorities and make the necessary changes. One of the keys to happiness that I found to living a remarkable life is this: You do not have to do anything that does not serve your purpose.

One of the keys to happiness: You do not have to do anything that is not serving your purpose.

Change can be challenging, which is why many of us do not follow through. It will be painful, stressful and difficult initially, especially when you begin to have an expanded vision for your life, but you have to see the end in mind and keep pushing to get the desired result. You might feel stuck right now in your career, finances, relationship(s), or spiritual life, but the only way to make the needed changes is to move; you are not a tree. Don’t like your present environment/city? Instead of constantly complaining about it, please do something about it, see what you are complaining about as a learning opportunity or move to a new city. It is tough uprooting yourself from a city you’ve lived in for a long time; I know that feeling. I have moved cities at least 4 four times in the past 10 years. It is challenging, but you have to see the end in mind.

If something or a situation stops serving your ultimate purpose, change it.

Sunk Cost Fallacy ²

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is the tendency to continue to sink money, time, or effort into an activity/project we know will not give us our expected result. We continue these resources simply because we have already incurred a cost (sunk), which cannot be recouped. We place more value on the project based on how much we have already invested rather than the actual present value.

The sunk cost is very pervasive in every area of our lives as we spend money, time and effort in abusive relationships, loss-generating businesses, viewing boring movies or sports games, nonproductive dating/marriage, or even schooling and career choices. There are many examples of sunk costs in the business world, such as Concorde, Google Glass, and Microsoft Zune.

The Power of Choices

The significant difference between us and other mammals is the freedom of our choices. You can stay or leave, start or end, stay focused or be distracted, complain continuously or do something about your circumstances. As leadership author John C. Maxwell asserted: “We cannot choose how many years we will live, but we can choose how much life those years will have. We cannot control the beauty of our face, but we can control the expression of it. We cannot control life’s difficult moments, but we can choose to make life less difficult. We cannot control the negative atmosphere of the world, but we can control the atmosphere of our minds. Too often, we try to choose and control things we cannot. Too seldom we choose to control what we can … our attitude.”

We cannot control life’s difficult moments but we can choose to make life less difficult.

You are not Helpless ³

“Victims live at the mercy of forces outside themselves.”

There are four characters in every story ¹: The victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide.

The victim is the character who feels they have no way out.
The villain is the character who makes others small.
The hero is the character who faces their challenges and transforms.
The guide is the character who helps the hero.

These four characters live inside us. If we play the victim, we’re doomed to fail. If we play the villain, we will not create genuine bonds. But if we play the hero or guide, our lives will flourish. The hard part is being self-aware enough to know which character we are playing.

If we play the victim, we’re doomed to fail. If we play the villain, we will not create genuine bonds. But if we play the hero or guide, our lives will flourish.

Be the hero of your Life

Heroes are not as strong as you think. They are usually unwilling to act, in need of help, filled with self-doubt, and often incompetent in the very area in which they are given a challenge.

You have Agency

Agency refers to the ability we have to make our own choices. And all of us have agency. Agency can be unfairly limited by factors such as social class, religion, and ability, but agency is almost never limited completely. In fact, very happy people know a secret: a human being has a ridiculous amount of personal agency. A person’s reaction to a set of circumstances dramatically affects how their story plays out.

“If a story is going to work, the hero must not surface victim energy. Victim energy is a belief that we are helpless, that we are doomed.”

Say No to Victim Energy ⁴

Waiting for permission to act is the easy way out . Everyone has to play the hand they’re dealt. This means that you can’t make a habit of pointing fingers, blaming others, or complaining. As painful as it can be, unfairness is baked into every aspect of life, and to make a contribution and empty yourself of your potential, you have to come to terms with it and refuse to be a victim.

“If a story is going to work, the hero must not surface victim energy. Victim energy is a belief that we are helpless, that we are doomed.”

Meditation

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Pause Practice
In our daily lives, we often fall into automaticity and live on autopilot. Pause Practice is a way to pull ourselves out of automaticity and into the present moment.
Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Forget the Stake
The power of presence is about staying completely present in what you are doing at that moment, regardless of the context. Fixating on the context can wreck our concentration; we start getting all worked up thinking about the consequences, but we would be better served by zeroing in on what we are doing instead of why it matters.
Don’t get distracted by the occasion, you don’t need to fret over turning in a special performance. Simply engage with pure presence and full focus and you will get the job done.e

Podcast