Category Archives: LIFESTYLE

Is It Unethical to Have Pets?

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Sometimes people ask me about my stance on pets, so I’ll share that in this post.

My family had a pet when I was growing up – a rabbit named Cinnamon. Sometimes it roamed freely around the backyard, while other times they kept it in a large cage. I wasn’t the rabbit’s main caregiver.

At another time my first wife and I got a kitten. I don’t recall the exact year, but I think it was before we were married. We didn’t have the kitten long though. I found out that I was allergic to cats, so we gave it away to someone else, probably a few months after we got it.

We had the kitten in the 1990s in L.A. I might have been vegetarian at the time, or this may have been shortly after I went vegan. I think of my early vegan years as being mainly about the plant-based diet and not about the full vegan lifestyle. I hadn’t stopped using other animal products like leather shoes and belts at that point yet.

I also grew up in a neighborhood where neighbors on both sides had dogs, and I used to spend a lot of time at their houses, and I’d often play with their dogs. I also used to take care of a different neighbor’s cat when they were out of town.

So I have some experience with pets. I understand the value in having them. My views on pets have evolved a lot since I was younger though.

I know that animals can have interesting relationships with people, and I’m in favor of relating to them in ways that respect their freedom and dignity and provide mutual value. I’m also in favor of safety in these relationships when it’s necessary to consider it.

I’m opposed, however, to treating animals as property or to claiming ownership of them. I consider this unethical because it’s nonconsensual. Animals don’t grasp the human world of property and can’t consent to this aspect of a relationship.

I do feel that animals can consent to other aspects of relationships with humans. They can communicate in various ways, such as with movement, sound, and body language. This communication may not always be clear, but human-to-human communication isn’t perfectly clear at all times either.

I do feel that people can serve as caregivers for animals. Within human society, people can assume responsibility for the lives of certain animals. I’m okay with animals living with people too, with some caveats.

I don’t think it’s ethical to constrain animals in ways that disrespect their natural lifestyles and potential. Putting a fish in a fishbowl or aquarium seems very wrong. Same goes for putting a bird in a cage.

I don’t feel that humans are entitled to claim animals as property, whether for food, entertainment, companionship, or some form of service.

You are welcome to disagree with me. Obviously we live in a world where people do claim animals as property. Do you feel that humans are entitled to do so? What gives us this ability? I think the answer is pretty clear: Humans are stronger. We can use our bigger brains to dominate other species. And so we have done so. Does might make right?

I don’t grant humans any high ground of ethics to use this power. I don’t regard claiming ownership of animals as being substantially different from claiming ownership of other humans, which was also done based on dominance. People tried to justify this after the fact with various moral twists, and they don’t hold up.

I think if you’re going to claim ownership of an animal anyway, it’s best to be clear about that relationship. You can do that because you’re dominant. The animal doesn’t have much say in the matter. It cannot give informed consent. You can just take its life and do as you wish with it. Whatever you do after the fact to justify that is your own moral twisting to make yourself feel better about the decision.

You can still love the animal. You can take good care of it. You can mourn it when it dies. You can consider it part of your family. Just note that people have had similar relationships with other people they’ve regarded as property too.

You can do your best to convince yourself that it’s an equitable and consensual relationship, but the ownership aspect is still going to infect that relationship, which will corrupt the relationship to some extent.

That said, you can still have nice relationships with animals without the entitlement of ownership that comes from dominance. You don’t actually need to claim ownership of them.

You can still pretend to claim ownership of an animal for the sake of navigating the human world legally and socially. Pay lip service to that idea to the extent necessary for keeping animals that you care about safe from harm. You may have some tricky decisions to make there, but I think you could make this work.

Claiming ownership of animals damages our relationships with them. You can have better relationships with animals when you don’t try to own them as “my dog” or “my cat.” Bring more respect to your relationships with them instead.

Hummingbirds often fly around where I live. They’re the closest animals I have to pets right now – and lizards too I suppose. I don’t claim ownership of them, but I still enjoy their company. I’ve even pet one of them before. I would never want to cage one though. A hummingbird needs to live a hummingbird’s life – outdoors with the trees and flowers. It’s not my place to disrupt their lifestyles.

How would you feel if a more intelligent AI claimed ownership of you? What if the AI wasn’t even that smart… just smart enough to dominate you? Would it be okay for the AI to control more parts of your life without your consent? Should it constrain your movement to keep you safer? Should it prevent you from having sex to avoid potential problems that could cause?

Do you give animals the same risky freedoms that you’d want for yourself?

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Inviting Disappointment

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If you’re active in online discussions, remember to invite discussions on topics that interest you.

Don’t just post memes or trivial updates about your life. Don’t just read or respond to other people’s topics.

Actually invite discussions to explore and advance what interests you.

This may expose a weak social circle or a weak platform. You may feel resistance to inviting such discussions because you know a certain social circle isn’t up to the task. Maybe you’ve tested this a few times, and the responses have been disappointing.

This doesn’t mean it’s wise to abandon the practice. Instead, practice elsewhere. Find other communities where you’ll find more aligned people who can intelligently discuss what interests you.

If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, can you raise entrepreneurial topics with your social circle and expect intelligent answers? Will you see stimulating ideas being exchanged?

What if you’re interested in human relationships or sexuality? Life purpose and contribution? The Law of Attraction? The nature of reality? Going vegan?

Do you have at least one good social circle for discussing each topic that interests you? It doesn’t have to be the same social circle or platform for every topic.

When I was younger, I had zero outlets where I could intelligently discuss certain topics. That made exploration much harder. I remember it being especially challenging when I was 17 and was having major doubts about religion, but I didn’t know any non-religious people that I could trust to talk intelligently about it. So I mostly had to do all my own thinking and figuring.

When I was 18 and moved to Berkeley, there were lots of people I could talk to about this, which was incredibly refreshing. That made a huge difference.

At another time in my life, I was the only person I knew who was really into personal growth. I leaned heavily on books and audio programs during this time, as if they were my social circle. It would have been so nice to have people to compare notes with and share ideas. Later in life I eventually made more growth-oriented friends, and it was wonderful to finally engage in intelligent discussions about it.

It’s useful to just keep sharing what interests you, even if you’re sharing into a void, and no one else seems to be aligned with your interests. This exposes the weaknesses of misaligned social circles. It makes you face the disappointment of what they’re not providing, so you can’t just ignore that major misalignment. This can motivate you to stop wasting your time messaging into a void and start looking for a better place to interact with like-minded people. It makes you question the value of the social groups and platforms you interact with. That can be a hard truth to face, but it’s good to keep facing it.

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The Baseline of Order

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I live in a gated community with fairly strict standards that all homes have to follow. Anyone who wants to live in the neighborhood must contractually agree to these standards. If anyone falls short of them, they’ll get a letter from the community management association with a request to bring their property up to standard. If they don’t comply, the community association has the authority to fine them and to seek other remedies.

We’re not even allowed to park our own cars on the street, only in our driveways or garages, so there are hardly any cars on the streets. No one can park an RV on the street, except very temporarily for loading or unloading.

No soliciting is permitted in the neighborhood, so it’s extremely rare to see any door to door salespeople, Mormons, etc. The streets in the neighborhood are private, not public, so solicitation is equivalent to trespassing.

Every homeowner has to pay extra dues to make this happen – currently $122 per month.

In addition to this community, I live within a section of Las Vegas called Summerlin, which is also privately managed. To live in this part of town, it costs another $48 per month, and there’s another community association that oversees this area.

So I pay $170 per month in extra community association dues, just to live in this part of the city that’s privately managed. These dues fund the management associations. These dues can increase over time too. I think it was around $115 per month total when I first moved to this house in 2007.

Sometimes this can feel like an annoying place to live. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who dislikes these kinds of standards, let alone having to pay extra for them. You do sign away some freedoms and invite more restrictions to live in such a neighborhood. More than once I’ve gotten a letter from the community association to fix something or other that’s fallen below standard, such as trees in need of trimming. In another part of town, no one could obligate me to tend to such issues that many people would consider minor or irrelevant.

Presently our community association is requiring homeowners to repaint their houses. This community was built around 2003, so the paint on some homes is apparently showing its age. I will have to get my house painted soon too. There are only six allowed color palettes for our neighborhood since we have to adhere to a uniform look. I’d have to get special approval just to change from my home’s current paint scheme to one of the other five.

On the other hand, I also like to remind myself of the benefits. I’ve lived in many different homes and apartments over the years, and I’ve stayed in this home the longest of any.

One benefit is that these standards keep the community looking really nice. That’s good for keeping the resale value of homes high, which means more equity for the owners.

Because of these standards, there are rarely any annoying issues to deal with regarding neighbors. For the most part, we don’t have to worry about loud parties going late into the night, loud dogs barking incessantly, etc. Most of the time it’s a very quiet neighborhood, except when landscapers are doing yard work. If some issue comes up, the community association is likely to catch wind of it and handle it. They even have someone drive around the community at least monthly to look for potential issues.

These dues also help to pay for more upkeep and higher standards around the whole surrounding community than the city would normally provide. The streets are repaved more often, so they always look pretty new. There are more trees and plants and nicer landscaping in community areas. There are more parks and nicer parks with better upkeep. There are well-marked bike lanes. There are free bag dispensers for people to clean up after their dogs.

This whole side of town is master-planned, and the design really does seem more intelligent than other parts of the city. There are few traffic issues, so running errands at rush hour isn’t a problem. There’s accessible shopping and entertainment. There’s a fire station and a new police station within easy walking distance, so if there were an emergency, I’d imagine they could manage a fairly quick response time.

The builders and businesses in this part of town have to follow strict codes as well. There are no billboards in the area. Commercial logos on buildings have to be kept low-key, so there are no giant signs for fast food places and such. There is ample free parking everywhere.

When I go to different parts of town, the difference is obvious. Sometimes it feels like I’ve switched cities. The streets are dirtier and more cracked. There’s more trash. There are more weeds. Buildings look more haphazardly designed. Even the traffic lights seem less intelligent. And then there’s the smell… a special local blend of pot and urine.

I feel more relaxed and less stressed in this part of town. It’s more orderly and less chaotic. It’s more stable and predictable. But it does cost more. The additional order isn’t free. It costs more money, and it has a certain psychological cost as well. But it also pays off with some financial benefits (like higher home values) and psychological benefits (like peaceful enjoyment of the community).

I don’t always want this much order. Sometimes it feels too tight, too predictable, and too controlling. But then I recall what it was like to live without this baseline of order for long stretches. I’ve lived in more chaotic and disorderly places, and I generally found it way more stressful. I especially didn’t like living in places where it was hard to get a good night’s sleep.

I don’t mind some chaos when I travel. In fact, I often embrace it because it makes for fun memories. I love exploring areas that feel very organic, like walking around a city that feels like it was designed by a lunatic, not knowing what I’ll find around each corner. Inviting surprise can be wonderful.

At home, however, I do like and appreciate a higher baseline of order. Having that stability in my living situation makes it easier to invite and handle more chaos and risk in other areas of life, such as creative projects, entrepreneurship, and personal growth experiments. When I want to mix things up a bit, I have the option (but not the obligation) to invite more chaos, which can be very stimulating when it’s desired.

At the heart of this, what I really enjoy is having options for exploring my relationship with chaos. I like having the freedom to make conscious choices in this area. I like being able to decide how much risk to take, how much disruption to allow in, how ambitious to be, how much to change at once, and how much stress to experience. This gives me a say in how I explore new growth experiences. To make this work, it’s really helpful to maintain an orderly baseline as a jumping-off point. I can always “go home” to a place of high order when I need to reset.

At other times in life, I lacked this stable baseline and spent way more time dealing with chaotic events and circumstances that I didn’t necessarily want. I felt less free during those times, even though I had fewer obligations and responsibilities. I felt more preoccupied with all the turbulence surrounding me. It was harder to make conscious choices and to focus on creating the experiences I wanted. The chaotic energy swirling around me was always pushing me in different directions. I couldn’t maintain any sense of forward progress.

I share this as an invitation to consider what would actually make you feel more free and what would help you grow.

Would you prefer a baseline of order, a baseline of chaos, or some mixture of the two? If you have lots of order, will you still want to dance with chaos? If you have lots of chaos, will you still be able to develop a meaningful relationship with order? How orderly or chaotic do you want your life to be?

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Appreciation Density

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In the past 11 weeks, I’ve lost an average of 1.15 pounds per week, mainly just by logging what I eat. This simple practice has helped me tweak and adjust my meal choices even though I’m still eating the same foods as I was previously. I’m eating less food in terms of calories, but my current diet is actually more satisfying than before. Since there’s no sense of restriction or deprivation, it’s frictionless to maintain this approach.

Let’s say that the appreciation density of a meal is your overall physical and emotional satisfaction with it, divided by its calories:

Appreciation Density = Satisfaction / Calories

I don’t exactly know how to calculate physical and emotional satisfaction though. Maybe we could rate the satisfaction of meals on a 1-10 scale, but fortunately that isn’t necessary. We can just compare based on equivalent calories by asking whether one meal is more or less satisfying than another. We can also do this at the level of individual ingredients.

Through food logging and a little reflection, I saw that some meals (and some ingredients) are more satisfying than others for the same number of calories.

I’ve learned that roasted eggplant is really satisfying relative to its calories. Peaches and strawberries are super satisfying as well. Steamed broccoli and zucchini with some hummus is a delightful meal – very satisfying for so few calories.

Some foods have diminishing returns if I include too much of them. For instance, 10g of olive oil on a salad may be pretty satisfying relative to the 90 calories it adds. But would 20g of olive oil be twice as satisfying? No, definitely not. Doubling the olive oil might only increase the satisfaction by an extra 20%, so it’s probably not worth it.

Adding 1/3 of an avocado to a salad can be really nice. But if I use a whole avocado, is it 3x as satisfying? Nope. I find that the sweet spot is to use about 1/4 to 1/2 of an avocado on a salad to get the maximum satisfaction relative to the calories.

Through lots of experimentation, I’m gradually figuring out better balancing points where I eat quantities of foods that raise the satisfaction level of a meal but where consuming more would lead to diminishing returns. So when I compose meals, I require each ingredient to pull its weight by meaningfully contributing to the overall satisfaction.

Note that satisfaction is mainly an emotional assessment. It’s based on how I feel during and after eating. How satisfied I’ll feel isn’t perfectly consistent. One day I may find 100g of some item optimal while I might prefer more or less of that item on a different day. By paying attention to my logs and connecting them to my inner sensations, I’m getting better at predicting what kinds of meals to make based on how I feel.

I don’t try to hold back from eating. I eat when I’m hungry. I just put a little more thought and care into making meals very satisfying relative to their calories.

Suppose you eat a 500-calorie lunch today. Have you ever considered how you might compose a 400-calorie lunch that’s actually more satisfying? If you could figure that out, you could shave off 100 calories per day while actually enjoying your lunch more. Now scale this up for every meal and snack, and come up with more solutions and variations. You could enjoy your food more while actually eating less.

I already eat an all vegan, mostly whole foods diet that typically includes 10+ servings of fruits and veggies per day, so take that into consideration. Making this diet highly nutritious isn’t an issue. But I don’t think I’d feel as emotionally satisfied if I tried to adapt this approach to a junk food diet. Whole foods leave me feeling better emotionally and physically.

I’ve been including some small indulgences, but I use them where they really add to the satisfaction. For instance, if I slice up two peaches (100 calories), and I add 50 calories worth of coconut whipped cream, that treat has a high appreciation density for its 150 calories, more than eating three peaches without the topping.

Another nice dessert is one date plus four pecan halves (80 cal). Split the date in two, and push two pecan pieces into each half – it’s like eating raw pecan pie. For this small addition of calories, it’s super satisfying as a little snack.

I don’t worry about empty calories in terms of low nutrition. I frame empty calories as too little satisfaction per calorie, which could include adding too much of an ingredient beyond a certain sweet spot of satisfaction.

By focusing on enjoying and appreciating my meals relative to their calories, I’m getting more appreciation per calorie today than I was when I started. I really enjoy the foods I eat. It feels like I’m doing the opposite of dieting, but I’m losing weight by eating this way.

This useful frame can be extended to other areas of life by generalizing the definition of appreciation density, like this:

Appreciation Density = Satisfaction / Cost

Cost could be your investment of time, energy, money, or some other factor.

So you could use this frame to select work projects, choose which friends to engage with, or decide how much time to spend on social media each day. Which investments satisfy you best? When does the satisfaction start to diminish?

Imagine what you could discover by combining this frame with time logging. Is 30 minutes of social media twice as satisfying as 15 minutes? How much journaling or meditation time is optimal for you? Would you feel more satisfied with an extra hour in the morning or the evening?

If you’re feel unsatisfied in some area of life, look at your appreciation density. Are you deriving enough satisfaction from your investments? If not, where’s the waste? Where are the empty calories? Where are you investing time, energy, money, or other resources and not getting much satisfaction in return? Obviously that waste needs to be cut if you want to increase your appreciation density.

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The Fashion Of Reality: A Virtual Fashion Show

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Society’s Warning Signs

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Las Vegas doesn’t get a lot of rain – about four inches per year – but when it does rain here, it sometimes comes down in torrents. Homeless people have been known to sleep in the city’s drainage areas and have been been washed away and drowned during heavy rains. My ex-wife was involved in coordinating local search teams to find the bodies.

I’ve seen signs posted near these drainage areas, warning of the dangers. But some people either don’t read them or ignore them, and they occasionally lose their lives because of it.

Most days the dangers seem nonexistent – it’s mostly sun, sun, and more sun here. But it only takes one flooding incident to end a life. You can be right 10,000 times, but it’s that one time you’re surprised that makes the math turn against you.

You can, however, avoid this risk entirely – mainly by learning from the experiences of others. You can become aware that flooding does occur in these drainage areas, and people have been surprised and died from that flooding. And you can choose to avoid making that same type of mistake.

This requires some trust – trusting history, trusting science, trusting math, trusting government, or trusting other people. If you find a reason not to trust, you can more easily dismiss the warning signs. Then you can justify taking more risk, which could lead to an early death if you’re wrong just once.

Many warning signs were created because someone got hurt or killed, and the creation of a warning was a reaction to that event. Often it takes multiple similar events to finally lead to a warning sign.

Cigarette boxes have prominent warning labels because many people have died from smoking. You can ignore or downplay those warnings. You can label them a conspiracy. But you only have to be wrong once to end up the fool.

Notice that in some areas of life, reality does put up warning labels. It cautions you about various problems and risks.

Wear a seatbelt.

Don’t use a phone while driving.

Don’t smoke.

Don’t spend more than you earn.

Don’t drink wine laced with iocane powder (unless you’ve developed an immunity).

Perhaps the latest warning from society is: Wear a mask. Why do we have this rule now? Because people have died from doing the opposite.

You can frame society’s warnings as restrictions on your freedom, conspiracies, or attempts to control you. Or you can recognize where these warnings actually came from. Some people figured they could be right indefinitely, and they were mostly accurate… except for that one time they were wrong and then dead.

Society doesn’t typically jump into creating warnings for rare or exotic failures. It’s more likely that unusual circumstances will be dismissed as bad luck or random flukes. But repeated failures that align with patterns will eventually get some attention, which may lead to a warning, rule, or law being created.

When you have a very low probability of failure, but it’s for an action you’ll take many times over, the long-term risk of eventually experiencing a single failure (possibly a fatal one) could be significant. So do consider leaning on the wisdom of large numbers, which are often codified in society’s warnings. They may help you steer clear of foolish mistakes.

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I’ve Been On A Weight Management Programme. Here’s Why It Didn’t Work.

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Imaginary Failure

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Confidence and certainty are often disconnected from accuracy. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of cases where someone holds a belief that clearly isn’t true.

What you see so clearly in others in harder to see within yourself, however. For that reason it’s wise to identify, question, and test some of your assumptions to see if they’re actually true.

A good place to start is to consider what other people experience routinely that may seem to be difficult or impossible for you. This can help you identify some beliefs about yourself that may not be accurate.

For example, could you earn $100K in a week? For many people that’s no big deal. They could decide to do that for fun and make it happen. If you think it’s impossible for you, is that factually true? Or are you just placing unnecessary limits on yourself?

Could you eat vegan for a month and like it? If you never test it, you might be limiting yourself unnecessarily.

Could you attract an amazing relationship into your life right now? Or have you ruled that out because of the virus situation or some other limiting belief about yourself?

How would you know that you can’t make $100K in a week, love vegan food for a month, and attract an amazing relationship? You obviously would have had to have directly tried all of them – with intention and direct action. And your efforts would have needed to fail repeatedly, not in your mind but in reality.

So how many different ways did you actually try to earn $100K in a week with that as your goal? How many 30-day vegan trials have you done? How many verbal rejections have you racked up regarding your ongoing efforts at inviting an amazing relationship? Can you produce a long record of real failures? Let’s see it then!

And if those endeavors all ran into hard stops, what else did you attempt instead? Are you still running into hard stops, again and again. Or did you make the mistake with replacing them with imaginary soft stops?

Be very careful about placing limits on what’s possible for reality to deliver. It may very well honor your self-imposed limits.

What if you ditched those limits? What if you invited experiences that would violate those limits, just to see what would happen? What if you leaned into actions that directly oppose your old assumptions?

Maybe your assumptions are reasonably correct. If so, you’ll find out soon enough by testing them. Reality will knock you back down. You’ll run into a real obstacle that you can’t pass.

Make sure that this is what you’re actually doing. Let the obstacles you encounter be real ones. Deal with real problems that actually come up. Make reality say a hard no to your requests.

Don’t pre-make these decisions for reality. Don’t create imaginary obstacles and mistake them for real ones.

Fear isn’t a real obstacle. Impostor syndrome isn’t a real obstacle. Harsh criticism from your parents isn’t a real obstacle.

Run into real obstacles, and deal with real problems.

Honestly, when was the last time you ran into a real obstacle, a genuine hard stop from reality? How do you know that reality actually dealt you a hard stop? How do you know that it wasn’t just saying, “Not this way, try again some other way”?

When did you stop facing real failure by replacing it with imaginary failure?

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Your Social Communication Spectrum

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Yesterday I was conversing with Rachelle about how to communicate with someone who has what you might call lower than average emotional and social intelligence but is otherwise extremely bright. (It’s not a member of this community by the way, and our interactions are normally short and infrequent.)

Rachelle noted that he, “seems to have no clue about interacting with people.” The rest of our conversation proceeded like this:

Star Trek geekiness aside, the point is that it’s best to present an interface to him that he understands if we are to have any hope of communicating with him. He doesn’t seem to grasp emotional communication, so if we expect compassion or caring from him, we’re only setting ourselves up for disappointment or frustration.

However, if we limit ourselves to a narrower subset of the human communication spectrum, like if we talk to him like we’re speaking to Alexa or Siri, he responds to that perfectly fine. Other people might find such communication too curt or bossy, but he wouldn’t take offense. Being too gentle is more likely to offend him.

Now consider that other people will likely learn to offer a communication interface that they believe will be acceptable to you. If they see you as a compassionate and caring person, they’ll be more willing to open up about their feelings. If they see you as as very logical person, they may seem your rational advice more often.

Where people detect awkwardness and discomfort from you with a certain mode of communication, they’ll be more likely to avoid interfacing with you on that basis. Consequently, you won’t necessarily connect with people as much in the ranges where you convey resistance and discomfort. This means that the range of human communication you typically experience will have some gaps. Other people may communicate a great deal within those gaps, but they’ll probably avoid interfacing with you within certain subranges.

Now when you’re on a path of personal growth, you’re likely to open up and expand your frequency ranges over time. Areas that were once outside your comfort zone may become comfortable for you. Sometimes you may need to communicate and reassure people that you can handle a range that they might think is beyond you. Now and then it’s good to let people know that they won’t offend you or make you feel uncomfortable if they try to interface with you in some part of the spectrum where they may otherwise be cautious or hesitant.

When I was younger, some frequency ranges felt uncomfortable to me, but now I feel a lot more comfortable with them, partly due to deliberate stretching and partly due to racking up more practice.

Many years ago I’d have felt uncomfortable if someone cried while talking about an emotionally vulnerable issue with me. I’d have tried to dodge and escape such conversations, not wanting to go into that range with anyone. Today I feel the opposite. Not only does it not bother me when someone shares something emotionally vulnerable, I tend to see tears as an indication of trust, authenticity, emotional honesty, and depth I feel honored that people trust me as someone they can share their feelings with. Sometimes I even comment that I “love making people cry,” and I’m only half joking when I say that. It’s nice when people feel safe enough to express this range of emotion. I’d actually like it if more people felt comfortable with tears and less embarrassed or stigmatized by them.

Another area that took some practice was learning to communicate about topics you might call spiritual or woo-woo. At first I felt a little hesitant writing about such topics publicly, but as I leaned into this, I gradually felt more at ease, especially as so many people in my audience responded positively and wanted to see more on those topics. Lately we’ve been having some really interesting discussions about the Law of Attraction, manifesting, and the nature of reality in Conscious Growth Club. On this morning’s coaching call, we started testing a new intention experiment to see what, if any, effect it has on us.

Two areas where I’ve had a lot of practice are talking to people about their problems and their desires. People have told me details about all sorts of problems they’ve experienced – financial problems, relationship problems, business problems, family problems, health problems, emotional problems, and more. They’ve also opened up about many different types of desires and needs, including some personal and intimate desires they don’t normally share with other people. So I’ve had plenty of time to become comfortable with this range of communication. I actually find it rewarding to gain this perspective on humanity. One insight I’ll share is that people who are struggling are often a lot more aware of their deficits and less certain about their desires, whereas people who are thriving tend to be more in tune with their desires and less concerned about areas where they aren’t doing so well.

I’ll also note that when you communicate publicly with a wider spectrum, you’re more likely to make someone uncomfortable. It’s hard to avoid stepping outside of someone’s comfort zone sooner or later. One way to deal with this is to back off and restrict your range. I dislike that approach because it makes me feel stunted; it’s harder to feel like I’m being honest if I hold so much back. So instead my approach was to learn to feel comfortable with other people’s discomfort. Then I can write about more topics, knowing that someone may feel uncomfortable with that range of communication, and just accept that it’s going to happen repeatedly. Another useful frame is to also consider that people are choosing to read, watch, or listen to what I publish; it’s not being forced upon them.

In one-on-one conversations, I usually prefer to constrain myself by respecting someone else’s comfort zone. So if I know they aren’t comfortable with a particular range of topics or communication style, I won’t push them to go there. But when communicating with a bigger audience publicly, I don’t find that approach tenable. It’s too constricting to limit myself to topics or communication styles that won’t make anyone feel uncomfortable. You’d be surprised at the sorts of things people find objectionable.

When your social interactions start feeling a bit stale, boring, or predictable, you may want to broaden your range. One good approach is to start communicating about topics that make you feel uncomfortable. Step into your own range of awkwardness, and explore that for a while. This isn’t easy, but it works. Many people will respect you more for simply trying to communicate about something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Imagine how impressed Rachelle and I would be if the guy we referenced in the beginning of this article started opening up about his feelings or if he said that he wanted to be nicer to people. We’d be shocked initially, but we’d also really respect him for just making the effort. We’d be super supportive as well.

I too have noticed this reaction from people when I’ve made a genuine effort to expand my range. While some people won’t follow me into a range that feels awkward to them, many more are delighted by my efforts to stretch.

Just realize that no matter how wide you think your range is, it’s still limited. The full range of human communication occupies a wider spectrum than any individual can experience in a lifetime. There’s always more to explore and experience. You probably won’t have to look very far to find additional subranges that make you feel awkward or uncomfortable. Challenge yourself to explore one of those awkward parts of the spectrum now and then, so you can enjoy the rewards of expanding your comfort zone over time.

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Couple Ties The Knot At Canada-U.S. Border

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