I'm taking a sabbath this weekend after a very hectic couple of weeks of moving to a new city in the middle of a new program launch, amongst about a dozen other wild personal life things I've been juggling. This week's newsletter is an edit of an oldie called You Can't Be Anything You Want to Be. (Spoiler alert: you can be more wholly who you actually, inherently are).

What is your visceral, emotional reaction to the following idea:

“You can be anything you want to be if you set your mind to it”

I consider myself a proponent of human potential — holding certitude in the capacity for people to change, to untangle themselves from the shackles of compulsive conditioning, emerge from tarpit quagmires of hopeless depression and fight the vicious grasping claws of addiction.

If I didn’t believe that we could change through our own efforts, I might still weigh over 280 lbs instead of the lean and muscular 190 I am now. I might still be addicted to cannabis, punctuated with frequent uses of LSD and psilocybin, inhabitant of a fragmented schizoid mind unable to discern reality. I might still be incapable of focusing for more than 5 minutes, lacking the capacity to read so much as a sentence without my thoughts drifting into a dissociative fervor desperate for stimulating distraction. I might still be getting bedsores from the immobilizing depressive angst that bled years of my precious youth.

I might be, almost certainly would be, dead.

The truth is, I never “changed on my own.” My so-called bootstraps were pulled up by an army of lifelines: hundreds of books, thousands of hours spent absorbing videos, lectures, and podcasts; gut-wrenching sessions with coaches and therapists; tearful phone calls with friends; sanctuary offered by family and strangers alike; and moments spent on my knees before God.

I worship at the altar of my being supported.

Yes, I had to bring my own willingness, effort, and openness to the table, but transformation never happened through sheer force of will. It happened because I allowed myself to be carried by grace, and the collective strength of others (what’s the difference, though?)

But I still transformed — from one thing, to another, over and over, like a caterpillar eviscerating into goo in its cocoon to emerge as something else entirely. I’ve been liminal goo a lot in my life.

So I know it’s possible. I’ve beaten the odds. I’ve witnessed miracles. I’ve run with a pack of underdogs who’ve hunted prey 100x our size and strength.

But despite my faith in our VAST potential for transformation, I am coming to believe that we can’t be anything that we want, even if we set out finely tuned, rabidly determined, hyperfocused minds to it.

First, because we don’t actually know what the hell we want. We don’t know what we want, because we don’t know who the hell we are. Whether obfuscated by the sickness of our society and the cultural conditioning we’re subject to, the narrow netting of neurosis, the agonizing anxieties, the autopilot numbing of readily available distraction we desensitize ourselves, we have eroded our lifelines to the authentic aspect of our Selves.

So what we think we want is often reduced to biological impulses painted with what we’ve been conditioned to believe is desirable by the coercive marketing of capitalist consumer consciousness. Think popular New Age spirituality and the “manifestation industry” — with teachings like the Law of Attraction’s biggest appeal being to magnetically pull in money, sex, love, and relationships, without the effortful burden of skill acquisition, character development, or ego refinement through rejection and failure.

Honest Caveat: I do believe that "manifestation" as a reflection of one’s energy is a real phenomenon; I’ve experienced auspicious miracles too serendipitous to dismiss as mere coincidental. But the appeal behind New Age teachings like this lends itself to a lazy materialism that reduces one’s desires to a fast-food equivalent of what our souls long for. Instant egoic and primal gratification in lieu of deepening

I'd read two extremely impactful books, James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code, and Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life; both exposed me to the jarringly resonant idea that we have a dharma, a purpose, a daimon, some fundamental element of unique destiny that we are called to fulfill.

It is inherent to us, inborn, part of our nature, a force which pulls and influences our path, a fingerprint of our essence. And with to accept this proposition is to accept that there are certain things meant for us, and certain things which are not.

I could say that with my natural intelligence, my aptitude to grasp complex ideas, my inborn capacity for systems-based thinking, I could be a high level strategic consultant for corporations, get into data science or AI (applying myself to learn coding and math), or apply myself to contribute to sustainability innovations; I could have a high salary, make a tangible impact on the existential destiny of the species and planet, all of which are important to me.

But I’m not going to do any of that shit. It’s not that I think any of it would be a waste of a life — but it’s not MY life.

I have the theoretical potential to do anything. I’m “smart enough”, “hard working enough”, “determined enough”… but the reality is, there are things in life that are utterly inaccessible to me, no matter how much I stubbornly try to penetrate the practices.

Looking back at my history as a kid, math was such a subject for me. I just zoned out, while other subjects like history, or writing essays in English class that I got to read in front of the class lit me up.

I was diagnosed with ADHD and was unable to focus on much at all, but could sit and play guitar for 15 hours a day with barely any break. I’d quit retail jobs where I felt like the fluorescent lights were like a torturous numbing purgatory, but would jump out of bed to coach people, or serve at a restaurant where I got to engage and “perform/create an experience” for people all day.

I tried taking data science courses, I tried to learn to code — I mean REALLY tried. Eliminated all distractions from my environment, sat focused for HOURS, committed whole-heartedly to the process, and in 3 months time was such a hollow mess of aggravated frustration, that I quit and went back to what I seemed to have natural competency in: fitness, music, writing, coaching, marketing, video, nutrition, spiritual philosophy, social and relational dynamics, romance, amongst others.

For those things, I paradoxically had infinite energy, an unlimited will and drive to create, a natural engagement that seemed to ignite a part of me that was a genius; flow states, confidence, competence, the thrill of mastery, the ecstasy of effortless devotion all were abundant.

And yet, for anything else, veering out of my lane even for a minute had the opposite effect; my life force would abandon me, I would become a decrepit shell of my vital and voracious self, frustrated and bitter, desperate to disappear from the world and become invisible. Everything felt like it was going uphill, compressed by the disdain I felt from the pressure to fit into a box I didn’t belong in, and the guilt that came from not being able to and having to inevitably give up trying.

You might feel it’s a familiar phenomenon; certain activities, subjects of study, ways of being that simply bring you to life, fill you with joy, commanding your presence, invigorating you with the pleasure of eustress in your effortless efforts.

And other opposing forces that feel like trying to chew gravel and rub powdered glass in your eyes with how arduously obstructive they feel to your being.

I think that inevitably we all contend with the most contrarian of bastards, the ‘Allmighty Should’.

Paralyzed by what we feel we should do — to avoid pain, to avoid rejction, to keep ourselves safe, to make more money, to avoid disappointing others (without counting ourselves as a person we shouldn’t disappoint).

We dump our should all over ourselves, dump our should all over our authentic desires, make ourselves wrong for wanting what we actually want, invalidating ourselves with some broken belief system that never has us asking the question “How’s this life working for me?”

Self abandonment is an all-too common story. And if we’re ever brave enough to confront that we’ve been bullshitting ourselves and living someone else’s story, trying to cope with our existence by faking our way through life with a mask we think will keep us safe, then we will inevitably confront the monumental tsunami of grief and remorse that will wash over us.

The lost years and missed opportunities to live as we truly are meant to, the pain of confronting we were betrayed by our very actions, and the cost was our lives, our soul. It hurts. Fuck, does it hurt.

But we must confront that, and we must confront the reality of our authentic selves. That is the only person we ever have had the hope of becoming if we set our minds to it.

🎧 Crispy New Jams

I made this playlist recently, and I'm really jamming to it.

Quote that's on Loop in My Mind

​Father Thomas Keating, a Catholic contemplative, while reflecting on his life:​
"The conviction grew on me that the less I did, the more God would do. That was my conviction."

Big Love,
A 🕊️