#71: Let Ordinary Move You
#71: Let Ordinary Move You
#LifelongLearning #SlowDown #ContextMatters #OpenMindedness
👋 Welcome to this week's Pursuit. My name is Amir, and each week I go over 10 hours of content in pursuit of living a meaningful and fulfilling life. I'm grateful to share my findings with you and hope I can make a small difference during your challenging times. If you're on a quest for depth in an era of superficial abundance, make sure to subscribe and join our journey.
This week’s discovery:
🎓 Learning from Everyone
🚶🏼 Let Ordinary Move You
💪🏼 Limited Power of Free Will
🌑 The Shades of Aliveness
🗒️ A Quote I'm Pondering On
🎵 Music I'm Listening To
🎓 Learning from Everyone
Everyone has strengths, and no matter who you meet, they all have something they can teach you. One way to look at this is to ask, “What skills or experience does this person have that are stronger than mine?” or “What qualities do I admire about this person?” Note that this is different than asking “Do I admire or like this person?” The answer to the latter can be “No” but you can still take away something from your interactions with them.
🚶🏼 Let Ordinary Move You
Practice not getting frustrated when your kid takes 45 minutes to walk around the block. Learn something from their unabashed desire to take forever. Follow their lead instead of assuming they’re slowing you down. Notice the urge to keep moving when what they, what you, actually need is to stay right there, where you are, for longer than is comfortable. Ask yourself what you can take longer at. Pay attention to what you miss when you believe faster is the only way to get somewhere.
Allow your expectations of yourself and others be fluid instead of rigid. Raise them when you can; lower them when you must. Let what you and others are capable of shift as life does. Let this fluidity add to your capacity for real, true compassion.
Stop striving for extraordinary. Let ordinary move you. Let ordinary pull you in as much as the big, booming things. Thoroughly enjoy a green olive. Two green lights in a row. A living room dance party. A good view of the moon. And maybe let yourself be boring sometimes. Let ordinary remind you of what really matters.
Remember that everything will change, more times and in more ways than you can imagine. Remember what is possible in change. Try not to be so afraid of it. Try not to get so comfortable thinking you already know how things will go that you keep yourself from the very momentum you’re seeking. Be open to it so it can find you. It will find you eventually — just not always in the ways you might think.
💪🏼 Limited Power of Free Will
Our perception of free will might be an illusion. Influences on our behavior span from mere seconds ago to thousands of years in the past. Hunger, for instance, can make us less generous and trusting. Environmental factors like disgusting smells can trigger conservative social attitudes. Going further back, our prenatal environment shapes us significantly. If our mother suffered from nutrient deprivation or high stress levels while pregnant, we might end up with higher risks of obesity, hypertension, or mental disorders in adulthood. Finally, our ancestors' cultural norms have shaped how we were raised, and these norms continue to influence us.
With this in mind, perhaps next time we can show more compassion towards those who behave differently from us, and strive to be less judgmental.
🔀 Humility in Changing Your Mind
In the realm of cognitive flexibility, without humility, it is impossible to admit to wrongness, to an attachment to a flawed idea. You become your thought, your narrative; you equate anything challenging it to a challenge of your very self.
🗒️ A Quote I'm Pondering On
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
🎵 Music I'm Listening To
You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:
🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶
🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments
Previously on Pursuit:
