Well, it has been a volcanic month here on Hawaii Island. Mark, Julie, and I hiked to the caldera one morning to watch it all. Enjoy our video of the 150-foot lava fountains!
We are one month into the New Year. The times rolled on past us, and we found ourselves in a new world.
I see several problems for myself in this new world.
1) Getting lost while looking for answers for my next steps in life.
2) Not acting and being too passive.
3) Being forced into situations/actions that undercut my life.
This is a starting list of challenges. Please tell us your challenges, and as a group, we can work on solutions in the Dragon Community Livestream sessions.
Finding Answers
We are facing countless new challenges at this time. My lifestyle and bag of tricks must be updated for this new world.
More and more people are using AI tools to look for answers. Here is a TikTok video example of one person asking ChatGPT for advice on how to face social manipulation. She highlights awareness, resilience and action at both individual and collective levels.
I uploaded AI locally to my phone today so I can use it all more easily, including processing parts of this newsletter. Awesome, but that distracts me and takes energy away from other actions. I just spent hours and hours doing so, slowing down the newsletter. So, this newsletter took three times longer to create due to my AI rabbit hole. The lesson is not to let the process of learning new tools slow you down into doing nothing.
Seeking Inspiration for New Actions
It isn’t uncommon for people to seek inspiration as a stepping stone or template for new actions. Yay, the age of interactive social media comes to our rescue to provide us with a million streams of ideas for our new bag of tricks for navigating life.
I personally found that modern media inspiration tends to go nowhere. Remember when TED talks were super popular, promising many essential steps to a better world? Yet, nothing came out of those TED talks other than many inspirational moments lost to the past.
I have also found that inspirational, feel-good moments can bleed away my personal actions. For example, listening to a fantastic podcast will bleed away my desire to act on that topic. This might just be me, but I have learned to be careful not to overindulge with media and information, or I will simply do nothing and lose my actions in life.
Learning a teaching might feel good in the moment, but nothing happens without applying the teachings over time to your life.
Additionally, it takes energy to get ready and empower an action. After doing all the pre-work to start my action, I am at times not left with energy or the desire to start my actual action.
So, after spending time learning, a person can move and skip their actions. As I get older, I have learned to focus my energy more on my actions than the build-up before my actions.
A secret technique for this is to use your current challenges to create actions that teach you more about life. As Dragons, we discover that our actions end up being our teachings.
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Julie & Mark at sunrise on the way to see Pele.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
-A Taoist proverb attributed to Lao Tzu.
A reminder that it takes personal action, in steps, to move your life to a new destination.
In the past, many times in fact, I would say, “We are starting to write a book,” but every time I stopped, as something else would come up. I would let the world take away my actions, my first few steps.
It would be easy to let the crazy times distract us from our steps. Instead, Julie and I are pushing ahead to write the book. If the world impacts us, we will include dealing with those worldly issues in the books to help others.
We now have the book outline done, we have started writing the first chapters. One action leads to the next step and action. We are learning AI to help review, polish, and publish the book. One action leads to the next step and action. We are now creating a second business and becoming part-time digital nomads. That action opened up unexpected results of opening our home for other dragons, like Mark in the pictures, to come join us on our launching pad to start their new direction in their life.
Our steps are quickly growing into an expanded journey with others and we don’t feel as trapped by the times anymore.
What are your actions?
Take time to flesh out your ideas, setup a schedule and prepare resources. Create an action diary, documenting what you’re doing for yourself, and tracking your results. Then sort out issues as they arise. At some point, share with us and the dragons so we can help push each others actions into greater growth.
Julie and I are there for you, we will provide support and assistance as you polish up your choices.
No one can take the first step for you. It’s your first step! All first steps require faith and bravery on your part. After taking a step, we can join you along the way on the journey and share life experiences.
Julie and I look forward to joining you and all the dragons on this journey that will go beyond a thousand miles!
