My College Essay

I was cleaning up old files the other day, and I came across this file name: ‘college essay.’

It was in such an old word format, I had to open it as a text file.

I have no idea what the question was, but I was clearly trying to persuade the folks in admissions that I was worthy of entry to their elite school.

I was trying to impress them and be humble at the same time.

I was trying to demonstrate my worthiness without being “too much.”

I was seventeen when I wrote this. I was a baby when I went to college.

I’ll be honest: It’s hard not to eye roll at my 17-year old self.

Why Money Is Part of My Meditation

Many of us have a kinda weird relationship with money. Me too.

I’ve ranged from penny pincher — clipping coupons, checking my budget multiple times a day — to completely reckless — not looking at my balances for months on end. Hoping if I ignore it, maybe it would just go away. (Newsflash: it did. But not the way I’d hoped.)

Sometimes my behavior was related to how much money I was making, and sometimes it wasn’t.

In 2018, I promised myself I would take the bull by the horns and do whatever it took to heal this relationship. My theme for 2018 would be “Easy Money.”

Because until now, Money had been anything but easy.

Abundance is not the cure for scarcity

Do any of these sound familiar?

“I’ll never make enough money.”

“I don’t practice enough.”

“I’m not pretty enough.”

“I’ll never be thin enough.”

“I’m too much for him to handle.”

“What if they find out I don’t know enough?”

Or do you have your own special flavor of scarcity?

These are all scarcity. Different perspectives, different targets, but all scarcity.

The word ‘scarcity’ gets thrown around like a hot potato in circles from personal development to manifestation, from certified financial planners to non-profit execs, from psychological marketers to yoga teachers.

Integrity

You’re made up of a million different parts. Perhaps even an infinite number.

It’s like the night sky. You can look up, and see twinkly lights — you know that some are stars and some are planets. You even know there are some that you can’t see because of light pollution. You know there are more than you can’t see because there so far away, but you still trust that they’re there. Millions of stars. Spread out across the universe – perhaps an infinite number across an infinite universe.

The gift of this life is exploring all the different pieces — and trusting that just because you can’t see some of those pieces right now, you trust that they are there. You keep exploring, keep looking closer, deeper, farther.

Despite being made of infinite parts, you also know you’re one whole. You’re both things: the pieces and parts of you that you can take apart, and the whole together. The old adage says your whole is more than just the sum of those million parts.

The remarkable thing about the matrix that is you is that one part also carries with it the connection to every other part. Sometimes the connection and relationship is easier to see, sometimes it’s more tricky. You know when you move your foot forward to step, something happens in your pelvis. It may be harder to experience what’s happening in your neck when your foot steps forward – but the more aware you are, the more willing you are to explore that connection.

It’s even harder to see those connections in the parts of us we can’t see — but know are there. When you offer someone a kind word, you know that’s connected to your history of experience with them. It might be harder to connect the kind word you offer to that person with your history of experience with someone else, but you’re willing to explore that connection.

What if it’s all connected? What if your foot is connected to the kind word? What if your history of experience is part of the miraculous matrix of your body?

Are you willing to see it? You’re one thing, refracted and reflected from an infinite number of angles.

Integrity is moving from that one thing in an infinite number of directions. You’re brave enough to make decisions from your center, instead of trying to be one thing in your day job and something else at home with your kids. You know the things you say to coworkers affect how you kiss your lover goodnight.

An infinite number of stars, one whole you.