Spotting My Dragon | Questions Answered
Hey there Network, busy week, just took the time to write this up, but as promised, here are my reflection questions answered! If you didn't catch the 1st post — these were sent to me by a friend and are actually Yom Kippur annual reflection prompts but I thought they were a phenomenal general prompt given our theme this month.
1. By this time next year I'll...
Most likely be preparing to live in London which is kind of crazy. 2020 has been a sporadic year for planning ahead so we'll see what 2021 has in store, but it's a dream of my girlfriend's to go to grad school for architecture there and discussing the future, taking on this new opportunity to search for novelty and rewrite challenge for myself is something I feel inclined to pursue. I envision WAND operating stably in wherever we are active in the US and I look forward for the opportunity to introduce the largest Airbnb market in the world to our app if I do make it to the UK.
I'd also like to have completed renovating my home for my sister to move into as she heads up to St. Louis to go to grad school for Veterinary work after completing her undergrad where we grew up.
2. How would you like to improve yourself and your life next year?
I'd like to be completely free of financially incentivized responsibilities. This has been one of my primary life goals since I was in my early teens, having seen what it's like to be burdened by debt in adulthood. I've been moving closer and closer every year, which is in part what yielded my post last weekend about transcending incentives. In short, I want to move from the money incentive which I label alternatively as freedom to being solely incentivized by what we often refer to in the network as the daemon.
3. What have you learned since last year? About yourself? About the world?
I've learned too much to put in one paragraph but some of my biggest takeaways have been that when you're doing you're called to do, things work out. I'm saying this now as the fact I've discovered it to be. Better put:
"And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I don't often tangibly know what I want, but it feels much like a horizon. I can always tell when I'm moving towards it and I can tell when I'm not.
4. Who do I need to forgive? Who has asked me to? Can I?
I need to forgive my oldest friend and who many don't know to be a co-founder I had when starting WAND. I was resentful for a long time because the burden to steer the ship was placed on me very early on for a number of reasons that I see now are neither of our faults exclusively. I feel at the surface that I've achieved a semblance of this but time will tell as we continue to rebuild that relationship.
5. What changes would I like to see in my community and the world and how can I contribute?
I look often at the world and feel anxiety when I see others spending their attention & acting in response to false truths that the cabal has placed before them as a false incentive mechanism. I want do what I can to bring people together to independently amongst each other, discover what they deem to be true with all the information available to them so they can best act in accordance with how they are capable of making the biggest positive impact on the world. It's for this reason, I'm so passionate about the work we're doing within this network.
6. Where is the land of my soul?
Nixa, Missouri. I read a paper a few days ago that describes in part of my interpretation, the decisions of the past as an input function to a local region that is deterministic to that agent's future. Because it's where I spent most of mine, when I return home to visit family and interact with my few remaining (geographically) friends, I feel very rooted in my sense of original self which is a much appreciated counterbalance to the individual dissociation I sometimes feel in uncharted territory.
7. What sustains me in times of challenge?
Individuals in my life play a huge role. In times of challenge, I'm often in my element and feel relatively little stress unless I don't have a certain amount of control over the outcome. That's where a hint of anxious stress comes in that is eased when taking my mind off the issue, spending time with those I love.
8. What do you need to release/embrace in order to shine brightly?
In regards to #7, I need to release this need for control. Like we learned in Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the path is often ambiguous and being okay with that ambiguity and pursuing the unknown with an endearing curiosity is something I'm actively working to improve on. Around the time of my Arch Grant Journey as I was waddling in this unknown, I can refer to a note I took in my journal on 9/1 —
Some people would rather accept an early loss than endure the ambiguity that precedes success.
— Yours Truly
Simply put on the embrace side, I need to try more that I otherwise wouldn't for fear of failure.
9. Where do you need to heal?
My mother (preferably referred to as 'oven') was a less than ideal nurturing parent to say the least. Thankfully my father did an extraordinary job playing both roles for my sister and I. I've made exceptional progress here already contending with what I think are some nominal abandonment issues and a hesitancy to truly connect with another individual in fear of exposing myself to the potential to experience similar pain.
If you made it this far, that was quite a bit to share and really cathartic to be honest but I appreciate your attention and regardless of vulnerability in the content, am always open to criticism.