Developing a Better You

Tag: personal development (Page 1 of 77)

The US Election Will Soon Be Over—Then What?

I’m guessing you’re as tired of it as I am.

The texts. The robocalls. The yard signs. The commercials. The mailers. The ads that clutter your social media feeds. In the US, the election season feels endless.

It’s almost over (election day at least—who knows how long the objections, recounts, and lawsuits will last). But when the dust settles, we’ll all still be here. How will we act if “our side” wins? Loses? How can we move forward with grace and unity (hopefully assuming that’s our goal)?

I resonated with the following perspective from Sikh activist and author Valarie Kaur. It helped me prepare for living in a post-election world. I hope it does the same for you as you take another step toward Becoming Yourself. 

What does it mean to return to a kind of wholeness where the way that we love informs what we do in the world and what we do in the world deepens our love?….

What I want to remind us all is that as much as we must fight for our convictions and stand for what is just, remember that all those people who vote against you are not disappearing after Election Day or Inauguration Day. We have to find a way to live together still. The only way we will birth a multiracial democracy is if we hold up a vision of a future that leaves no one behind, not even our worst opponents. So you might be in the position to have that conversation with the neighbor down the street or the uncle at the family table or the teenager who doesn’t want to vote because she’s too cynical. What might happen if you leave them alone? [Philosopher] Hannah Arendt says isolation breeds radicalization. [1] You might be the person to puncture the [social media] algorithm, to sit in spaces of deep listening—and deep listening is an act of surrender. You risk being changed by what you hear. 

We don’t see those spaces modeled in the world around us. We have to create them in the spaces between us. Oftentimes it means listening over time, being in relationship. Human beings mirror each other, so if you come with daggers out, they’ll come out daggers out. If you come out and you really wonder “Why?,” beneath the slogans and the soundbites, you’ll hear the person’s story and you’ll see their wound. You’ll see their grief. You’ll see their rage. You might not agree with it, but I’ve come to understand that there are no such things as monsters in this world, only human beings who are wounded, who act out of their fear or insecurity or rage. That does not make them any less dangerous, but once we see their wound, they lose their power over us. And we get to ask ourselves: How do we want to take that information into what we do next? 

I invite people to take their wounds [and] their opponents’ wounds into spaces of re-imagination—of imagining an outcome, a policy, a relationship that leaves no one outside of our circle of care, not even “them.” This kind of labor, this kind of revolutionary love, it’s not the sacrifice of an individual, it’s a practice of a community.  

When we invite people to practice revolutionary love, we always ask, “What is your role in this season of your life?”…. Whatever you choose, it can be a vital practice of love, of revolutionary love. And if all of us are playing our role—not more, not less—then together we’re creating the culture shift that we so desperately need.

[1] See Hannah Arendt, “Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government,” in The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1976). Adapted from Valarie Kaur, “Becoming a Sage Warrior,” Daily Meditations, October 28, 2024, Center for Action and Contemplation, video, 38:13. 

What a 3-Year-Old Taught Me About Riding Life’s Waves

As I finish my October author tour, here’s a painful lesson I learned during a previous book tour, originally published Oct 14, 2023.

“This is too scary!”

The cry came from a three-year-old in the second row. Other than his parents, the rows of chairs in the bookstore were painfully empty.

I’d been invited by the store to do a talk and reading from my spooky monster mystery series Monsterious, geared for 8 to 12 year olds. Knowing the event was on a Sunday morning and I didn’t have the opportunity to do school visits to promote it, I expected the turnout to be small. How right I was.

The well-intentioned parents obviously didn’t realize that the age level and spooky factor of my books were not appropriate for their three-year-old. I was halfway through the first of three planned readings from my books when the child let his unhappy opinion be known. I immediately stopped and asked the bookseller to find me a Halloween picture book, which I then read to the child. When I finished, the dad bought one of my books out of pity.

On this fall tour, I’ve had 2 1/2 hour signing lines that snaked through large stores, selling hundreds of books in a night. And I’ve had a crowd of three where I read some other author’s book to a toddler. Such are the ups and downs of being an author. 

But that’s not just author life. That’s life. We all experience that roller coaster in our careers, health, relationships, finances, you name it. The question is not “Will we face storms?” but “How will we ride the waves?”

When things are good, it’s easy to become arrogant, to credit my success to my own genius, and to think it will always be this way. When things go south, it’s easy to become depressed, to believe I’m a failure, and to feel the bad times will go on forever. Neither perspective is true. My successes are a combination of hard work and talent, but also luck and the help of others. My failures are usually a mixed bag too, partly due to my own poor choices and mistakes, and partly from things completely out of my control. 

There’s a wise expression that says, “Don’t believe your own press.” Hold both the good and the bad lightly, enjoying your successes, learning from your failures, and letting them both roll off your back. Don’t take the opinions of others or your own internal self-judgements too seriously.

As you ride life’s waves, anchor your identity and self-worth on something that doesn’t rise and fall, that is as steady as a fixed point on the horizon. For me, that’s my identity as God’s child, believing that God’s love for and view of me is independent of my ever-changing feelings or the outward results of my efforts. For you, that might be another relationship or something else. Whatever it is, find something worthy of the wonderful person you are. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

Do What Makes You Come Alive

As I’m currently on book tour, I thought this would be an appropriate post to reshare. It was originally published July 15, 2023. I may be in your area this week and would love to meet you! If interested, check the details at the end of this post.

I struggle with my dream job of being an author.

I don’t mean struggling with the deadlines, the overwhelming edits, the endless marketing efforts, or the career’s inherent financial uncertainty (though those are all painfully real). I mean struggling with the “impractical” nature of writing fun spooky books for a living. With so much suffering in the world, is this really how I should be spending my limited time and energy?

Then I remember what these types of books meant to me as a child. I was a scared kid, afraid of almost everything—the dark, bullies, the woods, the basement. But I loved spooky stories. They allowed me to experience fear in a safe, fun way. And when I saw the characters in these stories face their fears, it gave me the courage to face my own.

As an adult, the impact of stories on me has not lessened. I’m grateful everyday for the bit of escape, of relief, of inspiration, of enlightenment, of recharging that diving into a well-written book or show provides. Stories help me grow and face life with a better attitude and focus.

One of my goals as an author is help kids fall in love with reading, because reading leads to greater understanding, compassion, and empathy for others. I believe those are beneficial traits to develop, especially in our divided world.

Lastly, writing stories and sharing them with others makes me come alive like nothing else. If philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman was right, that’s a good sign I’m where I belong:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

howard thurman

What do you love? What makes you come alive? Cooking? Cycling? Wood-working? Designing? Dancing? Working in a food pantry? Find it. Do it. Share it with others. If you do, you’ll help yourself and the world, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

SPECIAL NOTE: I’ll be on book tour with my author wife Lisa McMann from Oct 11-26, 2024 with events in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, and Texas. I’d love to meet you! For details, see the graphic below or visit my website HERE.

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