Traveling Forever Blog — Change the world, one journey at a time.

“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.”

- Ray Bradbury

Why do some people seem blessed with infinite luck and passion? Why do a lucky few get to do what they love and get paid extremely well for it? Why do so many things seem like uphill battles?

Their secret is intensity. Without intensity, all their effort is wasted.

Understand: If you half step, you will fall on your face. You will create things nobody cares about, and you will waste your own time. You’ll grow frustrated, and nothing will go your way.

Care about what you do, and only do that which you can focus completely on.

The Power of Intensity

Let me start with a story about a skateboarder I knew.

He would come to the skatepark, and skate for thirty minutes. Everyone else would be skating for hours, but for him, it was always thirty minutes. Like clockwork. He’d warm up, then just take off. Everyone else had to stop and watch. He’d be operating at a level five times higher than anyone else. The energy level he brought couldn’t be sustained, but that wasn’t the point. He was literally shutting down the entire place and every one just stood with their jaws on the floor.

He did it all with intensity.

This is what so many people miss in life. They never figure out how to build intensity and focus completely.

Building Intensity, Building Focus

How can you come correct? I’ve wondered this myself, I’ve wondered how I could bring a complete, all embracing focus into my skateboarding, into my businesses, and into my writing. Yoga helps, and so does meditation, but it doesn’t break the real barriers down:

How to get around my judgmental mind, and get to that state of complete intensity, immediately?

Time spent unfocused is just time wasted. We must always be chasing the tail of our own focus, in whatever we are doing. Nothing happens outside of the moment, and yet it is so rare for us to ever give it complete attention.

Where does passion come from? From pretty pictures, from grand ideas, from big dreams late at night? We all want to experience this emotion called passion, but it seems nearly impossible to find it in the real world. Instead of great jobs saving the world, we’re giving jobs flipping burgers or turning out code like a machine.

Hacking Your Mind Into Passion

The trick is, we must trick ourselves. Our “passion” is nothing more than an emotion we give to ourselves. We don’t need visualization, we don’t need positive reinforcement, we don’t need any of that.

Understand: We dole it out from our own minds.

It’s tough to believe, but it’s true. Our minds are in complete control. We can decide how we feel about something, and instantly we will connect with it or not. It is up to us to see things from a point of relation, or not.

Passion is when you relate to what you create, and have a higher purpose for it. A moral imperative, plus a relation. It’s almost a formula.

Moral Imperative + Relation to Work + Enjoyment = Passion

What do you relate to, what can you give back, what do you enjoy doing?

We can enjoy doing any damn thing we commit ourselves fully to. Humans beings have done it all, but the only ones who get to truly enjoy themselves are those who give back. These are the people who get blessed with that thing called “passion”, and these are those people who don’t get burned out. It’s impossible to walk uphill every day, to push against your own inner inertia every day. We must give ourselves the leg up of passion, of compassion. We must ask ourselves what, if anything we have to give back.

Then we can step on the landmine of ourselves, and be proud putting ourselves back together.

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1. Serve A Purpose or Be Pulled Out

Every year, we gardeners work our asses off for our plants. We prepare the soil, clear the ground, and bring in fertilizer so our plants can grow to their maximum potential. We work hard so our plants can grow strong.

Because they give us fruits, we give plants all they need.

On the other hand, plants which do not serve a purpose, plants which only seek to take fertility and light, without giving something back are called weeds. We pull them out because they give nothing back to the garden. They are selfish, and because of this, they are quickly pulled out of the productive garden.

Lesson: Contribute first, and you will be taken care of.

2. Work With Forces, Not Against Them

There are two philosophies when it comes to a garden. One believes the world is out to get your precious plants, and the other believes the right ecosystem must exist for optimal growth.

The one who believes the world is out to get his plants uses chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to keep his plants alive and productive. In doing so, he contaminates his food with chemicals, kills insects, and creates a “sterile” environment for his plants.

In the other, companion plants are planted, birds and insects encouraged, and flowers planted for others. The farmer hopes everything will balance itself out in this biodiversity. If an insect starts to take over, it is immediately eaten by its predator.

Can you guess which type of gardening is more fun?

Lesson: It takes too much effort to fight against the will of the world. Seek a place to work within natural forces.

3. A Little Every Day

If you’ve ever had a garden and left it for a few days, you know what this means. A garden left untended for even a week quickly becomes and impossible task. Weeds quickly establish themselves and entangle the rest of your garden. It becomes a monumental task to undo all the work of weeds and insects.

Working a on a garden every day, it’s almost as if there is no real work. Walk, look, pick a few weeds, and chew on a few tomatoes. There is no massive effort required.

Lesson: Work against entropy. Visit your garden frequently and check its health.

4. The Best Gardens Are Symphonies

The best Gardens are truly symphonies. There isn’t a plant in a place where it doesn’t belong. Individual plants have their own strengths and weaknesses, and a great gardener knows his plants personalities.

Every plant is planted according to its personal cycle. The quick growers are planted to give shade to the slower growers, and everything works together.

Lesson: Work from the personalities of individuals, and give them the communities they need.

5. Work According to the Season

Gardeners only have one year at a time. And each day within that year happens within a season.

So we focus on what needs to be done, today. Even though we constantly look to the future, we spend time within our garden today, working on its immediate needs. Within the winter months we plan and scheme, but during the Spring, Summer, and Fall we work.

Lesson: Put in the hours when necessary. Plot and scheme when the time is right: when there is no growth.

6. Screw Subsidies

For most corn and soybean farmers, growing food is a losing proposition. It isn’t until after they get their couple hundred dollars in subsidies that they “make” a profit.

Gardeners, on the other hand, get no subsidies. Everything planted must create more than was put in. The properly designed garden outputs more than put in. An improperly designed garden requires support and subsidies.

Lesson: Make sure you get more than you put in.

7. We Are All Farmers

No matter where you live, you must eat. Your food purchases decide how food gets grown.

So like it or not, you are a farmer. We are all farmers. We all decide how plants get grown, either directly or indirectly.

Lesson: We are all leaders, we are all in business for ourselves.

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Come Correct Or Stay Home

“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.”

The Power of Intensity

Building Intensity, Building Focus

Hacking Your Mind Into Passion