Do you own or do you rent?
The fulfillment and acceptance you so urgently seek is not at the bottom of a bottle, or at a bar, or from that group of friends, or in bed with another, or from online success — it’s deep within your own soul.
As a real estate professional and a coach, I like to make a lot of house / life comparisons. I love to think of our bodies as the house we live in for our entire lives. Little kids are new construction, as we age, our homes become older houses, but have you ever seen a well cared for historic home?
There’s literally nothing like it. The wood is denser and stronger than wood readily available, there’s character and handiwork unmatched by current homes. And if cared for properly there’s no deferred maintenance, it’s all done on or before it’s time.
I love the idea of preventative maintenance, both in property upkeep and in health. Sometimes we can see something coming, and if we’re proactive, we take action right away. Tree roots growing underneath the house toward the sewer lines? Get that taken care of! Pain in your knee or hip due to an imbalance? Start doing some work to balance that out to prevent a bigger problem on down the line!
Get it? You MUST act as the homeowner in your life. This goes for your physical body as well as all other details in your life. With prices and rates and the market as they are, YOU might be the only home you ever own! I hope that’s not true, but you understand why I might say that.
All that goes to say, when you’re a homeowner, no one is going to be coming through and inspecting and seeing if you dealt with that leaky drain or crack in the flooring or whatever — that’s entirely up to the person who owns the house.
Similarly, in personal development, no one is going to unsolicitedly come up to you and help you make the correct choices for yourself. Sure, when you’re younger, likely your parents have your best interests in mind, but you’re the only one who can make these kinds of decision for yourself.
Think meditation = clearing the roofs and gutters.
Exercise = ensuring the vapor barrier in your crawlspace is in good condition.
Making proper food and consumption choices = installing that higher grade and more durable material for your flooring or countertops.
This shit matters.
You can tell who maintains their physical home from the outside, or well — at least I can. I’m cursed (and blessed) to always be noticing properties and how they’re cared for. You can also tell if someone is taking care of their physical body from the external appearance. Sure, there’s exceptions, but how you do one thing is how you do everything.
How much care and concern and effort are you putting into yourself?
I was at a real estate meeting being led by a painting professional and he asked us, “what is the purpose of paint?” Up until this point, I had never really thought of the role of exterior house paint in the grand scheme of things. If I had had enough courage to say what I thought, I would have said, “to look pretty.”
But NO, appearance is a side benefit of paint, but the main purpose of paint is to PROTECT THE WOOD. It’s literally to make the exterior material of the home to last longer. This is life. What should you be upkeeping or putting extra effort into or going the extra mile for for your own personal soul domicile?
I like the concept of us being spiritual beings having a human physical experience. How much better of an experience do you think you’ll have if you are proactive about your responsibility as homeowner of your meat suit?
Okay, I think I’ve taken this far enough. But sometimes you’re sitting down at six in the morning to write and the ideas just come. I lay awake last night, just wanting to fall asleep so I could get up and write. This morning, I pressed snooze a couple times, but then I got up.
I preach mostly what I need to hear, and taking time for my creative practices can totally fall to the backburner when other “more important” things abound, so here we are. It’s just me and the ants, not even the sun, conspiring to take over the world. The ants I’m talking about are in this ant mountain someone gave Luna for her birthday that I just now ordered the live ants for it. It’s quite fascinating — I’m sure there’s a myriad of life lessons there too.
One more thing: Benjamin Franklin is attributed to have said: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
We are in dangerous territory, my friends, with talk of banning tiktok. It’s obvious that Meta and Youtube and Amazon are jealous of TikTok’s success / reach and are making up reasons to kick TikTok off the playground. I wish there were even something I could say like “we, as the american people, should do X.”
But, what is there to do? They’re not even asking us.
But something needs to happen. If votes actually get counted, these people who would sacrifice OUR free speech and OUR free trade don’t need the privilege of making decisions for us. If votes actually get counted, we are in charge of that. I’m about to become a single issue voter?
Some things to think about this lovely Thursday morning. I love when my brain juices get flowing. One more thing to chew on: my brain juices flow better when I don’t slow them down with alcohol. That’s all. Get em. Peace.
