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Photo by author So you went and did something crazy. Something outrageous; something absurd that you considered to be totally outside of your comfort zone. You listened to all the talks. You read a lot of the articles and watched a ton of videos about it. Finally something resonated with you or inspired you. Then one day it all came together and clicked. Even though it was something that you still considered to be well outside of your comfort zone, you did it . You decided to challenge yourself. Past regrets, doubts, and future fears came rushing in before you started, but you still did it. Afterwards, you realize nothing seemed to have changed. You feel like you wasted your time. The world was still the same and you wonder what the point was, you wonder why you even did it at all. But you gave yourself an opportunity. You gave yourself a chance. You allowed yourself a moment to experience something far more challenging than you would have before - something far greater than you normally allow yourself to. The world may be the same, but you’re not. And that’s how it starts. Photo by Grant Krasner Sunrise on the Atlantic Ocean

Photo by author There is a saying - a general belief - that goes something like this;  "If you're on the right path then everything will be smooth sailing."   Personally, I believe this is wrong and couldn't be further from the truth. If you are never consumed with worry, nervousness, or doubt, you are probably not going the right way. If everything is smooth sailing then you are only avoiding the storms. If everything is easy going all the time you are definitely not on the right path.   See, if everything is smooth sailing, that means you're not taking chances. You're not putting yourself in different situations. You are never challenging yourself or your perspective. You're not experimenting or exploring. You aren't making mistakes; which means there is no trial and error involved, which is the only path to progress. You're not getting out of your comfort zone and you're always playing it safe. If there is no struggle or difficulty, You are not putting yourself in a position to learn new and different things. You are only sticking to another's narrative. What if the person you are is not the person you were meant to be?   The truth is…   When you start on the right path - when you sincerely shift gears and start in that direction -   Things will become chaotic and probably scary.   It will be very uncomfortable, And unfamiliar.   It's going to hurt.   And you're going to lose…a lot.   You're going to lose old, familiar mindsets; habits and patterns.   You're probably going to lose friends, and even family members;   You're going to disappoint people and you're going to alienate people.   People you like; people you respect; and even people you love.   But you have to forget everything you thought you knew.  You have to separate yourself from people you know and people you love; from the influencing and persuading voices.  It's the only way to know your own voice.   This is when you are beginning the right path. Photo - Coffee And A Map

Photo by author A lot of the time it starts out as something petty; something small and annoying. But it keeps building. It keeps growing. It never goes away and it eventually ends up becoming something we are used to. Once we get used to it, then it has become familiar - And what is familiar is also comfortable. Sometimes we think there’s too much going on in our lives or in our minds so we distract ourselves. We have to be moving and doing something; reading more drama filled posts, watching videos or shows, working on something insignificant or rearranging the furniture...again. As soon as there is quiet and peace we start to feel uncomfortable. We need a distraction - a diversion - so we grab our phone, turn on the tv or some music, talk incessantly, pursue another certification; anything to not have to face the quiet or to confront ourselves. I've discovered that a lot of people have a great aversion to peace and quiet because they've never truly experienced it. We were told that being still is unproductive and that silence is awkward. We carried that belief with us and we maintain that belief. Hence, peace is often mistaken for boredom. Silence is often misinterpreted as disinterest. Now we are continually on the go and constantly accompanied by noise. Peace may be uncomfortable at first, but constant noise and chaos is not normal. And chaos doesn't look like chaos when it's what we know and what we're familiar with. We won't notice the chaos - the disorder, the confusion, the avoidance, the mayhem - because to us it isn't chaos - It's just familiar patterns . Peace can feel threatening if we haven't really experienced it; Consequently, we don’t understand it, And therefore don't know how to trust it. If we don't understand something or how it works then we won't feel safe or comfortable with it. This, unfortunately, may lead to us using dead-end phrases such as, "I could never do that." And then we will never feel at peace feeling peace. To sit in the calm and be still with ourselves and be in the company of our own thoughts is one of the hardest things to do. Photo - Coffee And A Map

Author looking across an alpine lake ** This article was originally published on Elephant Journal , and can be seen there via the link at the bottom ** *** Other highlighted words in this article will link to additional articles on this blog *** “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” We’ve most likely heard this saying and we may have even used it, ourselves. But what do you suppose it really means? Where this quote originated, or if it’s even the entire quote, is up for debate. This is, however, a widely used quote with varying interpretations. The following is my interpretation: As a society as well as on an individual level, in general, we want someone to lead us and to show us the way to wherever it is we are wanting to go; someone who already has the answers, or so we like to believe. We want someone else to help us make sense of all the nonsense. We want them to tell us that we’re one of the “good ones” and then we want them to lead us to some perpetual feel-good state of being. We’re always looking for a teacher to learn from and to teach us those wise and valuable life lessons—someone to show us how to understand and make the most of our existence. But we seem to be looking for a distinct type of person who will show up in our lives at just the right time to teach us, and we may even be looking for specific types of lessons. What’s more, we usually only want those lessons when we want them, or when we feel like we are ready for them. We may even go so far as to disregard anything that seems laborious or anything that causes us to experience discomfort. So, let me see if I got this straight…there are those who want someone who has already put in the time and the effort and done the hard work to suddenly cross their paths? And they want them to have all these answers that make their lives easier or better, bypassing any hard work themselves? Got it. When we hear the word “ teacher ,” many of us will automatically think of a teacher as another human being. I mean, we do like to personify everything. We give names to our vehicles and all sorts of other inanimate objects. We personify our pets and other animals, meaning we tend to believe that they think the same way we do. We even personify the weather - “Mother Nature,” anyone? What we see depends on how we look, and how we look has a lot to do with the questions we ask. So, while we’ve been busy looking for an actual human teacher, what if we would’ve been spending our time looking for the lessons? Because Life has already sent a teacher. That teacher’s name is Experience. Every experience we have can be a lesson, which makes every experience a potential teacher; an opportunity to improve our skills, to improve our understanding, and to learn. Whatever our experiences are, we should be learning from them. To learn from them we should be observing what happens, how it makes us feel, and why it makes us feel that way. Every experience we have should show us something about ourselves. This is what we should be doing with our experiences. Trick question: if we all have different experiences and different ways of processing those experiences, aren’t we all going to have different answers, as well? Listening to others—those who may have different views, opinions, or beliefs - can always teach us something. But if all we notice are the ways in which they are different, we may feel the need to point out where we believe they are wrong. In this case, we are only focused on our “rightness” and their “wrongness” and we will probably not be open to listening and learning. Every single person we encounter can teach us something we don’t know. But do we ever pause long enough to consider what that may be? Do we ever take into account how it is that they came to know what they do, or to believe the way they do? If we are always examining someone’s appearance or behavior, if we are always looking at what they have or don’t have, if we are always attempting to analyze if they are “right” or “wrong,” if we’re always evaluating how their beliefs and ideologies align, or don’t align, with our own, if we are only assessing our similarities and differences, when and how are we considering what we can learn from them? If this is what we do with each encounter that is had with another human being, how are we possibly going to know when that “teacher” appears? What if we dismiss someone simply because they aren’t like us, but they have an insight or they can explain something to us in a way that can profoundly impact our life? What if that person who was so easily dismissed - probably because they seemed a bit weird or different, or just didn’t act like us or believe like us - actually had a piece of the puzzle that helped us make sense of everything? It’s the hard times that are typically seen as good teaching moments. But those hard times are, quite often, made harder because of our own indecisiveness, our own choices, our own pride/ego, or because of the way we have framed it in our mind, which I brought up here . Yes, we can learn something from every failure. Every shame. Every heartbreak. Every pain. Every close call. Every miserable, humiliating, unhappy, or uncomfortable moment. But even the amusing, the good, the quiet, the happy, the inspiring, the boring, and the beautiful moments hold something that we could learn as well. It doesn’t matter what we know or don’t know. What matters is what we’re willing to learn. And every single moment can be a teacher, a time to examine our own minds and our own life. It often takes time for these lessons to make sense (it rarely happens right away), but every situation, every encounter, every single decision and every single movement that we make, every moment - every single experience we have can teach us something. But if we never question ourselves - never asking “what,” “why,” “how,” of ourselves - we’re just doing what we’ve seen done before and repeating what we’ve heard said before. Aren’t many of the best teachers (the most memorable teachers) the ones who got something out of us that we didn’t realize was there? Aren’t they the ones who empowered us? Don't the really good teachers make us want to learn? Don’t teachers get through to their students the best when questions are asked? Yes, but when it comes to Life we normally only ask questions until we get an answer that satisfies us, then we stop asking questions. We may stop asking questions because we either think we know or we don’t want to know, plus those who are desperate for answers tend to not like a lot of questions. An answer is not a be-all-end-all, but if we’re looking for answers then we are likely to only accept an answer that confirms we are already right. Answers are limiting. Questions are limitless. There is no guru sitting on a mountaintop waiting to impart some timeless wisdom to us. The teacher has always been there. We don’t learn much just by reading or hearing the words of others. We learn more from experiences, practice, and asking questions. It’s those experiences, paired with our willingness to ask questions and our readiness to learn, that teaches us who we are and what we are. So when we’re continually looking for the lessons in life, we may find that life, itself, becomes the teacher. And when we learn those lessons, we may find parts of ourselves that were previously unknown to us. But it is our own expectations and beliefs that usually obstruct everything we could’ve learned along the way - like thinking that another individual will come along to be our teacher. Life, if you ask me, is about learning. And just like it was when we were sitting in that classroom in front of a teacher at one time, there’s no learning without willingness, readiness, and receptiveness. The only thing holding us back is how honest we’re willing to be with ourselves, how vulnerable we’re willing to be with ourselves, and how deep we are willing to go. Life will teach us whatever we want it to teach us - whatever we let it teach us. But we will only receive what we’re willing to receive. We will only hear what we’re willing to hear. And we will only see what we’re willing to see. Thus, we will only learn what we are willing to learn. Everything will tell us what we want it to - until we ask it to tell us something different. Even the wisest and the most all-knowing teacher is, at some point, going to tell us something that we don’t want to hear or don’t agree with. And if we are always looking for someone else to give us life’s tips and tricks and answers, then we are only doing what someone else does. If we are listening to what everyone else has to say about something or if we are holding out for answers that we can agree with, we will never experience the real teacher. Life is the classroom, and class is always in session. When we’re ready, life will teach us. With every experience we have, life is speaking to us. It’s telling us something about ourselves. What we will learn depends a lot on the questions we ask. “Everything that happens to you is your teacher. The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.” ~ Polly B. Berends To see this article on Elephant Journal click here Photo - Grant Krasner

Photo by author 6:45 AM I'm standing outside on an early spring morning. As the sun rises over the mountains in the east, it finds a small break in the morning clouds, illuminating the mountains down the valley to the west. No wind. No traffic out here. Just pure silence . Then an elk is heard bugling from a nearby meadow and his call echoes throughout the valley. A muskrat is spotted swimming in the lake as it creates a v-shaped wake. Two Steller's Jays fly from tree to tree, occasionally dropping to the ground as they investigate everything on their morning rounds. There is peace, contentment, and awe to be felt here in this valley at the break of day and miles from town. I think about how sometimes nature seems violent and unforgiving, while other times it seems tranquil and beautiful. And again I realize, we are not just polarized against one another, but against nature itself. Sometimes it seems to me as if mankind believes that it lives outside the rules of nature. But maybe we just don't understand the rules. If we see ourselves as something separate from nature, we won't be able to see how we are a part of it. Nature is not window dressing to our lives or just something pretty to look at. It is a part of us. And if we lose that connection, we lose an important part of ourselves. Maybe we already have. While our minds were being conditioned, was our inner nature neglected? I wonder; What if, while trying to dictate our own version of balance, we are fighting against nature's balance? What if our attempt to control the world around us is precisely what's causing the problem? What if we tried to adapt to nature rather than trying to impose our will on it? But right now it's time to go into town and to face humanity. Photo by Grant Krasner

Photo by author The way we measure time in a day hasn't really changed since it was initially conceived of over 4,000 years ago.   There are still 24 hours in a day, as we measure it.  The sun still rises and sets in the same intervals as it always has.    We know this, yet time seems to fly by faster as we get older.   So, if the measurement of time hasn't changed, something must have changed to make time seem to move faster. What was it?   I don't think I've ever had both feet firmly planted in the mindset that time speeds up as you get older.  But since I sold my belongings and began a new and different lifestyle, a strange thing has happened;   Time seems to have slowed down.   How did this happen? Here is what I have discovered...   ******************************   Think back with me, if you can, to those youthful days of exploring and being inquisitive.   Whatever you were doing, you were no doubt fully invested and involved in it.  You were curious about everything.  Everything was new and, as a result, all of your senses were alert.  I'll bet you had no problem trying new and different things.  The only time that time really mattered was probably meal time.   Over the course of time, more and more patterns began to develop in your young life and you started conforming your life to these patterns. Things were simpler and easier when you did so.   Gradually you began seeking what was familiar to you.  In that familiarity things seemed more predictable, but the patterns that developed from following this familiarity eventually became routines, and those routines turned into habits. See, the more familiar something is (such as Time), the less we think about it and the less we are curious about it.   You first learned about time as a measurement.  You broke everything down into those measurements.  Your moments started to be measured by how quickly they went by or how long they lasted.  Then you started watching the seconds, the minutes, and the hours.  Before you knew it, you were counting the days and weeks, the seasons and years.   Then time became information.  "Be here at a certain time."  "Remember that time when…?" There's X amount of days before the project needs to be done or until that long awaited vacation.   The watch on your wrist, the clock, and the calendar on the wall slowly began to dictate your life.   You started running from here to there. You started working long hours at jobs that you didn't particularly like and counting your pennies and dollars.  You accumulated more and more deadlines to meet, appointments, and things to do and places to be.   All you were focused on was the next destination.  Whether it was the dream vacation, trying to get the perfect house, meeting the next goal, some personal fulfillment, or the life on Easy Street.  You spent all of your time somewhere else - somewhere other than where you were. And whenever you did find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, you were just looking forward to the time when you could get out of it. You started putting everything on a to-do list.  You tried to make everything quicker, easier, and more efficient.  Before you know it you weren't only measuring time, you were also measuring things according to how convenient or how comfortable they were. Then one day you drove that same old route to work and you found yourself sitting in the parking lot and you couldn't recall the drive you just made to get there.  You started to wonder if something was wrong with you. Were you losing your memory? Were you losing your mind?? No.   You were living life by the numbers.  Numbers on a calendar.  Numbers on a spread sheet.  Numbers on a nutrition label. Numbers on a price tag. Numbers on a check.  Numbers on a clock. Everything had become centered around numbers. Your mood and possibly your entire life was often dictated by those numbers.   You also got comfortable in routines and habits until one day you suddenly realized that years had passed by and you were left wondering where they went.   You got to a point where you knew schedules but couldn't recognize patterns. You knew the price of things but you didn't know what it would cost you. You had deadlines, appointments, and all types of engagements, but weren't having experiences. Your attention turned to screens and away from yourself. You were continually thinking about the next project, the next meeting, the next thing you had to do or the next place that you were supposed to be. You became focused on the next destination, and you only tolerated the journey. You were just in a hurry to get there or to get it over with. When Time is the focus, there's never enough of it.   "There aren't enough hours in a day!"  "We need more time!"    *************   We hear people talk about how time seems to go faster when we get older. It doesn't, of course.  What happened is we settled into patterns and routines.  We broke Time down into measurements - into numbers. We put everything in our lives on a timeline. We got caught up in that time and in those numbers rather than moments.   Left unchecked, our minds tend to seek what is familiar to us because the outcomes are fairly predictable. Things are more comfortable and take less effort this way.  This is why we like routines and this is how we form habits.   But the issue is that in this repetition , things also tend to lose their meaning. Following the same routine day after day after day desensitizes our senses. We end up going through the motions (auto pilot) while our minds are always somewhere else.  As a result, our days become monotonous and they all start blending together. Routine. Boring and monotonous repetition. Repetition breeds familiarity, and it can be incredibly difficult to stay curious and to pay attention when everything is familiar.   I'm sure we have all driven to some place that was unfamiliar and new to us. Remember how it seemed like it took forever to get there but it seemed so much quicker to get back? That's because on your way there everything was different and unknown.  You were paying attention and taking in everything that you could and your senses were heightened. On the way back, you had an idea of what to expect. Things were more familiar. Your senses were more relaxed.   The element of surprise - unplanned events or unexpected surroundings - is known by researchers to activate the brain's learning capabilities, while a familiar and expected environment soothes and relaxes. In other words; It lulls us to sleep. It sedates us.   It was almost six years ago when I sold everything and began this new lifestyle of traveling and living out of my truck.  Sometimes it feels like I've been doing this forever while at other times it doesn't seem like it's been very long at all.  There will always be periods of time that seem to pass in the blink of an eye while others seem to stretch on forever. That will probably never change.  But all in all, time seems to have slowed down significantly for me.   I may find myself in a place I've never been before.  I may be doing an activity or a job I've never done before.  There are times when I don't know what I'll be doing from one season to the next; whether it's being in a different place, doing different work, or taking on a new adventure - a new challenge.   Because of this, my mind is almost always alert.  All of my senses are regularly activated, and I am more engaged in everything I do.  I may not know where I'll be or what I'll be doing next week.  I may not even know about tomorrow.  But I am here, now.   When we are preoccupied with what is happening right in front of us - right now - it definitely has an influence on our perception of time.  No doubt there have been times, even as an adult, when you got so engrossed in a project or something that you were doing, that you lost all sense of time. Of course, once you stepped away from it you probably thought that time had flown by. But I can also assure you that if you were to do it more frequently - if you start stringing together more and more of those kinds of moments - you would have the sense of time seeming to slow down.   As we got older and time passed, we got caught up in doing the things we felt like we had to do - in doing the things we thought we were supposed to do. We lost that childlike wonder, when everything was new and our senses were more attentive, that seemed to make days or moments or weeks last forever.  Conversely, when we are fully engrossed with what is happening right in front of us, our attention is narrowed.  We aren't thinking about the future or dwelling on the past.  The only thing that we may be aware of, aside from what is happening right in front of us, is that we are breathing. This is when we are experiencing the moment. So, how do you slow time down?    Do something new. Try different things. Be curious. Take on new challenges, And reawaken your senses. There isn't one specific organ in the human body that keeps track of time or helps us form a concept of time, it's all of our senses working together. When we are faced with new, different, or memorable situations, our entire nervous system is taking in and processing all of that information - our senses are heightened - which can lead to the "feeling" of time slowing down. The hours in a day - the space from the sun rising to the sun setting - does not change. But we can create the feeling that it does.   No, we can't get time back, but if we spend our time creating experiences, we can create those moments where time seems to stand still. We're all on the clock, and the clock doesn't stop from the moment we're born, no matter what we may think or believe. Time, itself, is always present and it never stops. Your age? Your age is nothing more than a measurement of time. Your age has nothing to do with time speeding up or slowing down - or anything else, for that matter. Time does not operate differently at different times, or for different people. The only thing that works differently is how we think about it and how we use it. When we were kids we made those moments and we lived in them. But if all we're focused on is numbers, If we're always thinking about that event or that moment in the future, If we're always dwelling on what has already happened, We could end up not experiencing the moments. We could miss the moments. We could miss our entire lives. ********* "Research has shown that humans' perception of time is intrinsically linked to our senses." - Lilly Tozer on Nature.com After writing this article I stumbled upon this scientific research paper. It just so happens to touch on what I wrote about here and it's published on Nature Human Behavior. Photo - Grant Krasner A timeless canyon in Utah

Photo by author Which is worse; Saying we appreciate or desire to have a certain trait, or being completely uninterested in that very same trait? We all know the type - The person who is diligent about their eating habits. The person who never misses a workout or a day of work. The one who seems to always be locked in and has laser focus. We can say we value the traits of self-restraint, self-control, and self-discipline, but we usually seem to gravitate towards those who seem to be less in control, less disciplined, and even more flawed. Then we sit and talk about the ones with the traits that we say we value as if they’re gifted, that it's in their genes, or they're some "exception to the rule" (BTW - what "rule" would that be, exactly?) OR that they're odd or something is wrong with them. We may mock, try to peer pressure, or altogether dismiss, those with great self-control or self-discipline and then complain about how we can’t get our own sh*t together. If I’ve seen this scenario play out once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. So what separates the persistent kind of person mentioned above from everyone else? They did not discover some magical secret, routine, strategy, life hack, or technique. No, it's really much simpler than that. They realized, on some level, the psychological effect of their choice of words. They realized that what they say to themselves about themselves - and believe - matters. The words we use filter into, and give shape to our thoughts and beliefs, which gives shape to our actions and our attitudes - our behavior. The words we use gives rise to our thought processes and our perceptions. Our words can enable us or hinder us. Our choice of words creates our limits and our potential; Our hopes and our fears;  Our doubts and our expectations.  Everything in our lives can be a result of our choice of words.  If you change what you say to yourself about yourself; If you change the way you talk to yourself; Everything, in time, changes. "Yeah, yeah. I know. I know." Anybody can say they know. That's easy and requires zero effort. Just because we can say something does not mean we live it or even believe it - but we can convince ourselves that we do. Not until it is practiced and lived, is it really known . If we say we value something but don’t practice it, much less believe it, then it’s only lip service. Lip service never did anything for anyone. Pic - An overlook in the Ozarks, by Grant Krasner

Photo by author Every single one of us has a story to tell. We can also read just a few chapters of somebody else's story and think we know the whole book. Some have only read a few of the earlier chapters. Some have only read a few of the middle or later chapters. Some have skimmed the whole book and think they know the entire story. Never mind all of the character changes and location changes and plot twists that make it such an interesting story. Don't judge a story by the chapter you left on or walked in on. As far as your own story goes: Everything you read, Everything you watch, And everything you listen to, Influences the stories you tell yourself. And the stories you tell yourself affect your emotions, your relationships, your health, your limits... They affect everything. It's a story. It's a story that you may have pieced together from what you read and watch, and who you listen to. It's a story that someone may have told you at one time about what you could and couldn't do - about what you were and were not capable of. It became a story you told yourself that you chose to believe. These stories go on for years, if not decades, until one day a seemingly radical and transformative concept may enter your mind; That you can change the story. It doesn't matter how boring or insignificant you think your life is - or has been up to this point - we all have something in our story that can help someone else; Maybe even change their life. It's never too soon and it's never too late. You can change the story at any time. Change what you watch, Change what you read, Change who you listen to, And the entire story will begin to change. It's your life. It's your story. You get to write the script. In every moment you have a chance to make that change - to change the narrative. You just have to decide to do it. Photo - Grant Krasner sunrise at Lake Mead NRA, Arizona

Photo by author "If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?” - Erich Fromm I worked for the same company for many years. It was a privately owned company when I began working there but the company was eventually sold to a corporation. Soon after that it did what corporations seem to do. I remember when they began letting people go. I recall watching two men that I had worked closely with getting shown the door. I think they were both somewhere near their mid 50's and had a good 50 years of experience at this place between the two of them. Within a year of being let go, both of them had passed away. It was said that without their jobs they had lost their identity, their purpose. We tend to cling to things that we believe give us our identity. Things that we have no control over and that can change in an instant. What happens when those things are suddenly gone? Who/What am I? What if the ideals that we have about our life are not our life? Take away your name, your social security number, your phone number, your work ID number, your address, and any other number that you associate with your identity. Take away your job title and any other title that goes next to your name. Remove what people think of you and, while you're at it, remove what you think about yourself. Forget about your education, your status in society, all of your experiences and your ideas. Forget your entire history. Let go of every concept, every thought, every story, every goal and every belief that you have now or have ever had. Take away everything you have ever earned and everything you have ever learned. Take away all of your possessions, your achievements, and everything you think you know. Forget about every thing and every one and every feeling that you are attached to that you think defines who and what you are. None of these things are you, they are only pieces of you that you gave significance to. But when you take them away... What's left? Who are you? What are you? You… Are... LIFE!! Pic by - Grant Krasner Oregon coast