When I was growing up, I loved the science fiction TV show Babylon 5. It had an epic story arc, intriguing characters and cool spaceships. It also had some interesting ideas, one of which was an alien proverb: “Understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.”

When I was growing up, I liked to see things in black and white. It made things easier to understand. I’m right, you’re wrong. It made life easier to go through, judging easier, justifications smoother.

Now that I’m older, I see that there are more shades of gray in the world than pure hues of black or white. That sometimes there are no completely right or wrong sides – you just have to pick a side and face the consequences.

Another saying, Japanese this time not extraterrestrial, goes: “Hell gapes beneath the upraised sword… Step in! And Heaven is your reward!”

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It’s been 2 months since I visited my friend Paiboon in the forest monastery of Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke, and I’ve finally finished the video interview I filmed with him there. I hope you enjoy it.

It was a tremendous learning experience for me, personally, spiritually, as well as technically. I’ve always wanted to visit with Paiboon again ever since I first visited him in 2007. I’ve had the idea of filming an interview with him for some time, to let Paiboon’s friends back in Singapore see how he’s doing and to see a little of what life is like in the forest monastery.

Somewhere along the line, during filming and editing, I realized that the story could be better served by concentrating on the content that was more universal, rather than simply personal, and more people could hopefully benefit from hearing Paiboon speak.

There was a wealth of material I didn’t use, but don’t worry that it’ll go to waste. Paiboon and I have something else to take care of that – something even better, but it’s been delayed due to the floods in Thailand, so the announcement will have to wait.

I haven’t filmed and edited a video since my student days in 2000, so please forgive the errors in the video. I ambitiously took on the project with a Canon 7D, a professional camera that even the pros need to know how to use to get the best out of. I also had to relearn an editing app from the ground up. Working only on the weekends and weekday nights I had free added to the long time it took for me to finally finish.

Special Thanks

This video wouldn’t have been possible without three people. First, my friend Junming of Haroko Studio was the one who persuaded me to get off my ass and actually do it. Secondly, Jason of Brotherhood Films who taught me everything I needed to know to actually film something, and generously lent me the equipment I needed to get it done. Thirdly, my fiancé, who was a hundred percent behind me going off for a week by myself to a secluded village in Thailand. I can’t thank the three of them enough.

And of course, special thanks to Paiboon for agreeing to do this, and the patience of everyone at Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke, who must have wondered what this non-Thai speaking foreigner was doing running around with his camera everywhere. Thanks too to the friends I made there; Sor and Zai, who helped me breach the language barrier and kindly made sure I stayed fed

I had the good fortune to spend a lot of my time with Paiboon, simply sitting around in the temple or doing a one day road-trip around north Thailand. We talked a lot, about Buddhism, life, and of personal things. I met so many friendly and helpful people in Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke, and managed to visit places off the beaten path thanks to Paiboon.

I feel grateful for the entire experience, and I can’t believe I ever hesitated to go.

1. Announcing Project Monk
2. Back from Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke
3. Sunday Dhamma Talk or Buddhism & the City

A friend of mine passed away this week. She was always so much larger than life, it’s hard to imagine her gone. She lived life to the fullest – there are very few people I know personally whom I can say that of, but for her it was absolutely true. That makes the loss of someone so vivacious, courageous and beautiful that much harder to accept.

The night I got the phone call, I thought of this quote. It has never seemed more real to me than it does now.

1. Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart & Intuition
2. A Naked Heart
3. Life on Purpose by Brad Swift

A dream of family, scorpions and death. Waking up in the dead of night, heart pounding. I feel afraid and I don’t know why. Can’t get back to sleep. Wake up, walk around, an awful dread creeping up over my shoulders. Like a cold sheet of ice weighing down my back.

We are so unprepared for death.

We tell ourselves stories to sooth our souls, but the fact is that nobody alive has come back from the other shore, to tell us what really happens the moment we die.

I think of my father. Of how deeply connected our lives are, so deep it’s in our blood, in our bones. I can’t imagine not having him in my life. It would be like pulling a pillar out of my house; a missing space where a force of love and strength used to be.

And yet, I know that I will lose him. Everyone will be lost one day.

I’m a full-time technology writer. When Steve Jobs passed away in early October, it struck me deeply, and I spent days reading tributes written to him. Among the many I read, one particularly resonated with me. Jason Snell, editor of Macworld, wrote:

The most one-on-one time I spent with Steve Jobs was a telephone interview for the 20th anniversary of the Mac and Macworld in 2004. We spent six months setting up what ended up being about a 10-minute-long phone call, if that.

My last question to him was—and this was just after the “interim CEO” days—how long he felt he’d stay at Apple. He paused to contemplate for a minute. Then said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Well, you know what the song says. We’re all just renting time here on planet Earth.” His tone seemed very different from the rest of the interview, and I actually appreciated that he was so philosophical about it. Who can say what the future holds?

A while later it came out that my conversation with him took place in the period just after he had received his first cancer diagnosis, but before he had decided to get treatment. It all made a bit more sense then.

“We’re all just renting time here on planet Earth.” It gives extra weight to this part of the Stanford University commencement address he gave in 2005:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

The knowledge of inevitable loss paradoxically makes this fleeting moment of gain so much sweeter. We will all lose each other, sooner or later, to the night. But if today, we are stil here, we can celebrate each other with naked hearts, melting away the ice which clings to our backs.

1. There is No Reason Not to Follow Your Heart
2. Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart & Intuition

Years ago in a personal development workshop, I learned the most important principle about growing as a human being I’ve ever learned, and it’s simply this: Do things that are good for you which scare you. Stretch.

This one distinction has made the biggest difference for me since. Anytime I followed it I’ve grown, even if stretching myself out of my comfort zone hasn’t always led to success. Anytime I’ve failed to follow it, I’ve collapsed within my comfort zone and stayed static.

Even though it was an important lesson, it was really only one half of the lesson I learned then. To identify that there are moments in your life when you need to step up, despite fear, is invaluable. But to realize that there is a force in your life which is acting against you stepping up is essential. And that force is Resistance.

In his powerful book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield introduces Resistance:

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

You will never achieve your full potential until you realize that what’s stopping you from doing it isn’t inactive chance, but an intentional force bent on making you smaller. That the voice urging you to stretch yourself will be countered by a voice urging you with equal force not to do so. Naming your creative force gives your strength, and naming your enemy gives you the strength to fight it. To Stretch, or to be overcome by Resistance. You and I have to choose, everyday.

1. Yoga, PDR & Resisting Resistance
2. Self-Esteem vs. Self-Respect II
3. Unleashing Your Creative Monster: Be Afraid

Talent is a strange thing.

Sometimes you have it young, and it leaves you when you grow old. Sometimes you don’t have it at all growing up, and it appears like a sudden guest when your hair starts to gray. Sometimes it flourishes without you even trying, and sometimes no matter how hard you try you just can’t make it happen.

Motivational types like to say “you can be anything you want to be,” which is, of course, a blatant lie. You can’t be a rock star and celibate monk at the same time. You can’t be a samurai, knight or king. You can’t be anything you want, but you can be something – and there’s great freedom in that limitation.

But it also means you can’t be other things. And sometimes, no matter how hard some people try, their work simply lacks the je ne sais quoi which elevates a great piece of hard work into a work of magic.

I should know. I graduated with a diploma in 3D animation, and worked hard at it. I’m saying working overtime, overnight, over the weekends, studying and working on my own projects after work. But no matter how hard I did it, I could never break past the barrier between good and great.

But when I made the switch to writing, it was like a light had been flipped. Sure, writing is hard too. But it’s hard the way climbing a mountain is hard; difficult but possible. For me, 3D animation was hard like scaling an ice cliff with oiled hands; painful and impossible. Writing can be tough, but fun. 3D animation was never too much fun for me. And ever since I’ve started writing full-time, I’ve been improving day after day; whereas that feeling of upward possibility was never there with 3D animation.

And when I stopped doing what I didn’t love (3D animation), started doing what I loved (writing), a long-lost passion and ability to photograph re-emerged. That’s the odd thing about talent; sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t, and sometimes all it takes is chance and opportunity to find out.

1. 3 Electrifying Secrets™ to a Madly Successful Blog
2. Speak to an Audience of One
3. Blog as Self-Discovery

Do you believe that there is an inherent purpose to your life? I don’t believe that we’re given a life purpose at birth, but I do appreciate the focus that even a consciously created life purpose can provide.

I was feeling a little burnt out a few weeks ago, and came across Steve Pavlina’s review of the book Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life by Brad Swift. The review sounded interesting, and I felt like I could use the clarity, so I hunted the book down (only copy remaining!) at a local bookstore.

I had a week of leave this week and decided to spend most of it working through the book. (Turns out powering through the book may not be the best way to go through the material, as Brad advises the reader to take some time in between some exercises for thought and reflection.) Did the book deliver on its promise, to “take a major shortcut on the road to clarifying your true purpose” and “infuse the inspiration of purpose into every aspect of your life”? Yes, but not in the way I expected.

Inherited Purpose vs. True Purpose

I appreciate the distinction that Brad makes between an inherited purpose and true purpose. Your inherited purpose is the purpose full of ‘shoulds’, all the things you think you should do instead of what you want to do, and is driven by fear.

Going through the exercises, I could see in my own life how my inherited purpose has driven me to play small, stay safe and not rock the boat, making sure I didn’t shine by telling me I didn’t deserve the attention or to be better than others.

If what my fears had driven me to do in the past didn’t reflect my true purpose, then what could my true purpose be?

Creating a Life on Purpose

I like how Brad says you don’t have to do hours of soul-searching for your purpose. Instead, you can consciously create an aspirational purpose, to drive you to be the best person you want to be driven by your own values and goals.

When I discovered – or rather, part unearthed and part created my life purpose, I felt rather surprised. It felt right, as if this passage summed up how I’d always wanted to live life. But I was also surprised that my life purpose didn’t give me much clarity on what I should do with my life, and this is a critical and welcome distinction in Brad’s Life on Purpose process.

Brad maintains that life purpose is not about something you do; not some role you play or some job you have, that the things we do aren’t what define our purpose, but are expressions of our purpose. Our purpose isn’t what we do; it is what shapes what we do. Purpose is not in the what but the why, not in the doing but in the being.

I also appreciate how Brad says that a life purpose doesn’t stay static. As we evolve, so will our life purpose. I also like how he teaches that as a statement, a life purpose is all but useless until it’s expressed through action, and he gives tools in the books to help with that.

Is Life on Purpose for You?

Do I recommend the book? It’s a little new-agey for me in some parts, with dubiously fluffy statements. But overall I found Brad’s approach to be solid, and pragmatic even (as pragmatic as you could get with an intangible construct as a life purpose). I haven’t done this kind of inner work – sharpening the saw – for some time, and enjoyed learning more about myself, both good and bad, through the exercises in the book. If you’re looking for more clarity of being in your life, than Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life is recommended.

My Life Purpose

Curious about what my life purpose is?

A life on purpose is one of fulfillment through growth and appreciation. It is a life of artistic expression and courageous exploration, inspired by love, wisdom and honor.

Like Brad teaches though, knowing your life purpose is just step one. I’ve still got more work to do on living on purpose.

1. Purpose is an Attitude
2. Announcing Project Monk
3. Yoga, PDR & Resisting Resistance

I recently discovered Beyond Survival with Les Stroud, a documentary series where survival expert Stroud journeys the world, seeking the last indigenous tribes on the planet, to learn from them their secrets of survival – in short, in search of wisdom.

When I watch it, it stirs something in me – and I wonder if I’ve lost my way. The search for wisdom was what drove me to study Taoism and Wing Chun in my youth. It drove me to briefly become a life coach, and start Life Coaches Blog. It drove me to learn from magicians and Buddhist monks, to train with ninjas in Japan and meditate in silence for 10 days. It drove me to practice yoga and learn how to defend myself. It’s the sub-title of this blog, and best represents the most powerful driving force in my life: The desire to learn more and be more.

All that feels far away now.

In my daily life, I sit at a desk most of the day and write into a computer about consumer technology. I love tech and I love writing with a deep passion. But I wonder if I’ve strayed from the path, if where I am is where I am supposed to be – if I’ve stopped searching for wisdom.

1. A Meaningful Story & A Meaningful Life
2. Cheap, Fast & Good