Life Lesson

Addicted, But Far From Anonymous

Garth Beyer

You’re an alcoholic. Wonderful!

You’re addicted to sugar. That’s great!

You can’t control the amount of food you eat. Not a problem!

You’re obsessed with exercise. That’s cool!

We all have our dependencies, our addictions. Every single one of us.

My top three addictions are writing, confrontation (challenging everything and taking on challenges), and attempting to have as much wit as Oscar Wilde. These addictions are like badges of pride that I wear everywhere I go. At first I thought how interesting it was that one or all three addictions would be entwined with any conversation or any story I would tell people. Then I realized that these addictions are my story.

Being obsessed. Having addictions. Being dependent. All are powerful traits – and I mean that in a good sense!

The problem with being wedded to certain influences is when you wear the problem like a badge; when being an alcoholic becomes your story; when you tell everyone how attached you are to eating junk food, day in and day out; when you start using your addiction to drugs as an excuse for the life you’ve lived.

I had a friend who suffered a serious back injury. I was one of the first people who heard the story of how it happened. It was pretty silly. Weeks went by and I heard my friend tell the story over and over to everyone he talked to. In fact, by the 6th or 7th time, it seemed like it was scripted. My friend had the story down pat. It was as if my friend was ready to tell it for the next couple months. My friend was addicted to telling the story and dependent on the responses and type of attention that was received. How can my friend expect to recover when the injury is the story, and the story, my friends life?

The same goes for the alcoholic who is fine with telling everyone that they are. Who is fine with accepting that the reasons they treated people poorly and had a shitty life was because they were an alcoholic. They go to AA, to be grouped with other people who think they are special because they have an addiction. Am I against people getting together to overcome something like alcoholism? No. Am I against the idea that in going there that they have a signficant problem, an addiction that influences their thoughts and actions – and they believe they are special cases? Yes, there’s a big problem.

Every one of our addictions, whether it be alcohol, sugar, writing, singing, debating, planting, breaking things, or running; they all put us under an influence. Each addiction acts as a filter on our mind, sometimes filtering out good motives and considerations, sometimes filtering out the bad.

I was on an Improv team for a few years. Our troupe was called Improv Anonymous. We often opened the show up by getting in a circle, telling our names, and talking about our addiction to Improv. When we weren’t doing our show, we still did Improv: in class, at a friend’s house, in Culver’s. That Improv badge we wore with pride, what we were addicted to, altered every part of our lives.

I’ll say it again: Being addicted to something isn’t bad, whether it’s drugs or playing basketball. Being comfortable with announcing your addiction, wearing it like a badge of honor, and letting it become your story; that’s when we run into problems. There’s a reason why it’s alcoholics anonymous.

“The world is just; it may, it does, patronize quacks; but it never puts them on a level with true men.” – Amelia Barr

 

Stay Positive & Just A Heads-Up: It’s Easier To Change Addictions Than To Stop Them

Garth E. Beyer

Well, That’s Interesting!

Garth Beyer

After a truly phenomenal speech, I asked UW Madison’s Dean of Students, Lori Berquam, how she got so great and comfortable with public speaking.

“It wasn’t until I realized I had something worth saying,” she replied.

She mentioned that she didn’t enjoy public speaking for the longest time because she didn’t have anything interesting to say – or at least she didn’t think it was interesting. We shared a laugh together at the idea of how simple it is to be good at anything, not just public speaking.

Be interesting.

You’ll never truly be good at anything until you learn to be interesting at it.

 

Stay Positive & Often Times, Being Interesting Begins With Being Interested

Garth E. Beyer

Why So Many People Talk About Making A Change But Never Follow Through

Garth Beyer

In simple quick terms, it’s because they only talk about following through with the change.

Now that you’re more curious…

In more thorough terms,

we’re naturally inclined to use our imagination and that definitely works to our advantage. However, too often we jump the gun and focus more on what we are going to do rather than the simple – and much more fun – process of exploring our options.

We talk about the diets we will start. We talk about the idea of moving in with someone new. We talk about quitting our job. We talk about taking a spontaneous trip. We talk and never do.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t talk about what we are going to do (there are many benefits to it), it’s more along the lines of suggesting talking about what we are going to do.

Talking as in a two-way street. To talk about the change you’re going to make, it’s one way.

Deciding you are going to make a change in your life is truly great and usually the tipping point kind of attitude people need to turn their life around or redirect it in the way they want. However, if we explored the options we have; if we discussed with others what making the change will entail; if we imagined a hundred different scenarios regarding the change we want to make, but also the changes we could otherwise make, then we will be much more likely to follow through.

When we think in concrete terms, “I’m going to do this,” our brain subconsciously works to give us reasons not to. As a result, the change we said we were going to make, we don’t.

To follow through with a change you want to make, start talking about it.

 

Stay Positive & You’re Imagination Is Pretty Good At Making What It Thinks Into Reality

Garth E. Beyer

Why It’s So Hard To Connect

Garth Beyer

We wear too many accessories. Too much cologne. Too many patches, badges, and pins. We can’t connect using these mediums. Just because you share the same band as someone, doesn’t make you connected. It’s simply a visual effect, a momentary lapse of our barrier.

Look at what you wear, look at your desktop background, look at your Facebook profile. Trying to connect to someone by asking them their “favourites” is like selfishly stating that you’re going to have a ham sandwich two weeks from now. Just because you will, doesn’t mean you will have someone else to eat a ham sandwich with you. There is no connection in it, or in favorites, emblems, and markers.

The stylization of our lives, in comparison with others, is just a way to calculate the possibility of having a better time in the future – it, in no way, guarantees there WILL be a future.

The internet is playing a dictative role in preventing connections. Yes, you read that right. In one sense, on face value, the internet is corrupting the connection (or in many cases, preventing it completely). It allows us to emblematize ourselves and to show our aspirations, but it’s where all talk and no action happens.

The internet has sucked us into what I plainly call, The Search. The internet strives off of us being on it. And when you think about what we search for on the internet, we can Google a question, but we’re not looking for an answer. No. What we are looking for is a connection to the people who are asking the same question and a connection to the people who are answering that question. (Neither of which – the question or the answer – can provide. They are again, merely symbols providing an illusive connection.)

Because of The Search, we’ve been programmed to think that there will always be someone we can “connect” with better. So we ask different questions, search for different answers, IM this person, comment on this post, etc,. We explore the social networks, follow people, “like” pages, and view profiles to see if the person or group will be a suitable match.

And, of course, once we find someone. We begin our search for the next person or group without creating a real connection.

This in turn, plays an effect on our real world, the unplugged world. For years people would advocate that you never settle for anything but the best: in relationships, in friendships, in partnerships, in business, and so on. Now the current trend, the dominating idea in the physical world, is that there is always someone who you can “connect” with on a greater level.

The Search mentality equated with the online world, has now become the mentality of the unplugged world. This leaves us with the reason why it’s so hard to connect with people.

– continuation of post is open for discussion –

 

Stay Positive & Maintain A Positive-Realist Mindset, The Online World Is Not A Utopia

Garth E. Beyer

Not Cool Robert Frost

Garth Beyer

Robert Frost, who died 50 years ago, was awesome. I’m awesome. But this kid even says it better than Robert Frost and I combined!

Stay Positive & Dance

Garth E. Beyer

Breaking Habit / Tradition / Just Like Old Times

Garth Beyer

All Over Coffee

Click to enlarge

Paul Madonna (the name) may make you think of singer/songwriter Madonna, but that Madonna is not nearly as truthful and real as Paul, the creator of the image above.

I had to share this image with you. I want you to realize – much like I did – how entertaining it is. How true, powerful, and, well, funny the actions of the narrator are. It’s a positive feeling.

Now, imagine being the person who throws the linguini. (Maybe you already have.) And you began to think how you can’t do it. You fear getting in trouble. You don’t want to stand out. Everyone’s eyes will be on you. People will judge you.

Yet, you didn’t think that when you originally read the caption to the picture. It wasn’t until you imagined being in that position.

The quickest way to break habit, make a rumpus out of tradition, and prevent just like old times from occurring, is to – well, I gave it away already.

Break habit

Make a rumpus out of tradition

Prevent just like old times

Stop convincing yourself to remain compliant, to be comfortable with mediocrity and normality. If it wasn’t for someone to stand out, Paul may never had the idea to create this image, I would have never seen it, and you would not have been sparked with the thought of creating your own image, your own story. And I’ll tell ya, people love stories.

 

Stay Positive & Just Fun Times

Garth E. Beyer