The first step to breaking free from the past is changing how your brain operates. More important than what you experience will be how you interpret your experiences. The same conditions witnessed by different people will create quite different effects. Your mind is a factory for turning raw observation into elaborate paradigms of meaning.
Author: Gregory V. Diehl
Gregory Diehl left California at 18 to explore our world and find himself. He has lived and worked in 45 countries so far, offering straightforward solutions to seekers of honest advice and compassionate support in the development of their identities. His first book, Brand Identity Breakthrough, is an Amazon business bestseller. His new book, Travel As Transformation, chronicles the personal evolution worldwide exploration has brought to him and others. Find him at: http://gregorydiehl.net/
Who Do You Think You Are?
It is tempting to settle with the influences we have early in life. They give us guidelines that we think that we can always fall back on when the life’s new challenges come too quickly or hit us too hard. If you have the courage to undo the foundations of your upbringing, you will open yourself to all the versions of yourself that you can become. This is how you figure out what you actually care about.
Follow the Mythological Path in Life
Our lives become a part of mythology when we pursue personal transformation through primordial patterns in the human psyche. We follow the hardwired path to arrive at superior versions of ourselves. The stories which have recurred with the greatest longevity in our cultures are those which appeal most profoundly to our underlying program for progression through life.
Your Life is a Series of Narratives
Narrative is selective truth. It is the little patches of reality that contribute to a cumulative purpose. Narrative is always in the eye of the beholder, for he selects which parts of reality he considers important for his own purposes.
Love without Discrimination is Meaningless
Choice is what will unlock your ability to accomplish your most heroic deeds. Discrimination is what will unlock the path you will follow and the battles you will fight. Choose wisely.
“But Gregory, Why on Earth Do You Need so Many Passports?”
Since it is not practical (and in most cases impossible) to exist beyond the influence of nation-states, the next best option for the exceptional person seeking to expand his identity is to embrace multiple nationalities.
The Role of Money for Greater Personal Happiness
Money is humanity’s imperfect attempt to objectivize countless subjective valuations. Value exists only in the opinion of the individual beholder. It is a measure of personal happiness. What makes one person happy will not work the same for another, even in identical circumstances. It is natural for everyone to seek out the actions, ideas, and items which aid them most according to their own valuations.
What Teaching in China Taught Me About Freedom and Individuality in the World
Working in education gave me unique insight into the parts of culture normally hidden from outsiders and casual tourists. It also gave me a deep resentment for those who maintain their culture at the cost of corrupting young minds. To see children be made into vessels for arbitrary cultural values on a massive scale would be the fire that would consume me.
Procreation is not Parenting
Send him mail. “Insight for the Young and Unrestrained” is an original column appearing every Thursday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Gregory V. Diehl. Gregory is a writer, musician, educator, and coach for young people at EnabledYouth.com. Archived columns can be found here. IYU-only RSS feed available here. It’s been part of my long-term mission in life…
Why Every Man Should Work with Children
Send him mail. “Insight for the Young and Unrestrained” is an original column appearing every Thursday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Gregory V. Diehl. Gregory is a writer, musician, educator, and coach for young people at EnabledYouth.com. Archived columns can be found here. IYU-only RSS feed available here. By now, most thinking people know how important the…