My clutch pedal sank to the floor halfway through a Chipotle delivery. I heard a pop, the pedal hit the ground, and my income vanished instantly. I'm a gig worker—no car means no money. It's Sunday as I record this, the Kia dealership doesn't open until Monday, and I have no idea how I'm paying my bills next week. I lost $250 in earnings today.But I remembered the Dalai Lama: "If you can fix a problem, there's no need to worry. If you can't, there's no need to worry. There is never a time to worry."This episode—my one-month podcast anniversary—is about why forcing change never works. I've failed to change my habits for YEARS. Diet, cannabis, video games, nutrition—I'd white-knuckle it for 3-4 weeks maximum, then crash. My wife: "You go in extremes: eat everything or nothing, then wonder why it's not working." She was right. I was treating habits like enemies to defeat instead of patterns to release.Then something shifted. I stopped forcing it. I cultivated stillness instead. I lost 15 pounds without even trying—just by desiring to feel present more than I desired to numb myself with food. The change arose by itself when I stopped striving.Today I walked to the gas station with my four-year-old son Leon, unhurried, and he said "Dad, I love when you stay home with me." I almost cried. I work 50-60 hours a week with no breaks, no days off. The little free time I have, I've been numbing with cannabis (now quitting), video games, and bad food to blunt the pain of not being present for my kids.Featuring Fred Rogers on "this is a noisy world" and how silence is the gift we don't give anymore ("it's the white spaces between paragraphs that matter"), Psalm 23 with Yahweh (being itself) leading you beside still waters, Jesus on "consider the lilies—they neither toil nor spin," Lao Tzu's "can you wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?", Anakin and Luke Skywalker both causing the outcomes they feared by trying to control them, the Buddha on desires subsiding when you simply observe them, and the Zen saying "sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself."Why the harder you try to force habits the more you fail, Paul's ancient struggle "I do what I don't want to do," how a picture of my infant daughter stopped me from eating frozen pizza (considering "how will this affect others I love?"), the difference between pleasure and happiness, and why you can't pull daisies up to make them grow faster.I'm starting a side series on breaking habits—updating you on my fat loss, cannabis quitting, and presence practices. Not to be a guru, but to be accountable and vulnerable.If you've failed to change habits a thousand times, keep forcing and failing, or feel like willpower is a lie—this one's for you. Stop forcing it. Cultivate stillness. The right action arises by itself.Want to share a thought?Support the show🔗 All links: https://linktr.ee/standingnowhere🎧 Listen on your favorite app💬 Join our community on Discord📩 Email: [email protected](Tap “Support the show” above to become a Patron — thank you!)

Ver todos los episodios