In it, I talk about the importance of rituals. Now when I say that word, I don't mean doing any crazy taboo stuff like in The Da Vinci Code or anything.
What I'm talking about is the importance of doing a routine that gets you ready and focused for the day.
And you're probably reading this thinking "Jordan, what are you talking about? I don't get it! Please give me an example!"
Well all right, if you really need things spelled out for you.
When I was a kid, I had a lot of energy and I wanted to do everything as fast as possible and I talked a mile a minute (which, living in the south, is a bit interesting since people down there tend to talk more slowly and purposefully). I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 13, and was given Adderall. I remember the first time that I had the pill and the effects that it had on me. I was playing knockout during recess (do kids even have recess anymore), and I had the ball. For the record, I am TERRIBLE at basketball. I don't know what it is. I'm good at every other sport; football, swimming, track, soccer...but basketball and I just have never gotten along.
There I was with the ball in my hand, and I took a shot. Swish. Everyone stopped and stared at me (told you I was bad), and were amazed. I just went to the back of the line. I eventually ended up winning that game of knockout, and doing really well in the next 3 games we played. The next day it was even better; I won one and was one of two left in 2 other games. It was insane.
But something was wrong. I felt...off. I knew when the pill wore off because when I had it, I felt this sense of awareness of everything around me, like I had 100% of my focus on 15 different things. It was cool, but it was only temporary; eventually the drug would work its way through my system and I would no longer be able to focus as much.
This annoyed me a lot. So, in my 13 year old wisdom, I said to myself: "if I can feel like that with a pill, why can't I feel like that all the time?"
So I started experimenting. At first I thought that it was food or developing some kind of mind powers (I was a weird kid). For four years, I tried everything: re-wiring my behaviors, trying different foods, varying the amount of sleep (I stayed up for 2 1/2 days at one point; you see a lot of cool stuff after being up for 50+ hours). Nothing seemed to work for me on a long-term basis; I would get used to everything took quickly.
It wasn't until I was 17 and I took up martial arts that I really started to figure out what would work best. Every class before we started our warm-up drills, we would sound off our school's creed, then do meditation. I remember doing meditation a bit when I sat in on my dad's Tae Kwon Do classes; you sit down on your feet, close your eyes, and breathe. When I was 6, it was not the best thing to do; I was always opening my eyes, peering around people and seeing if they were moving. Fast forward 11 years, and I was having the same difficulty. But this time, I decided to stick with it; I said to myself that I would find out what all this meditation stuff was all about.
So I did. I kept with it. As the classes and days and weeks went by, I started to notice a change in me. I was becoming a bit more focused. I had better form for running during my team practices; I felt very content sitting by myself during lunch (I was anti-social my senior year for a slew of reasons). I felt this sense of peace and calmness that I hadn't felt before.
Soon after that, I started to do medtiation on my own. It started out as just working on my kicks, punches and forms, but later evolved into me sitting with my eyes closed into music. Eventually, the music was turned off, and I started listening to my breathing. I felt much more focused, conffident, calmer, and I had more energy.
And now, to this day, I practice meditation in some form; standing or sitting, meditation by sitting in silence or by going for a walk without headphones. When I don't meditate as much as I should, I know because I get more antsy and irritable. It's helped me clear my head so I can make the big decisions more easily, and with confidence. I didn't stick with it just because it was something I had grown accustomed to: I stuck with it because I enjoyed it. I'm even going to start recording my own meditations that I've created over the years and share them with others.
The moral of my (really long) story: find something that you love, that is "your" time, and you will become a much healthier and happier human being.
Here's the video if you're interested:
Ignore the random cat
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