I don’t watch much TV, but if there were a channel that played Tony Robbins seminars non-stop, I’d watch it like teenage girl glued to an America’s Next Top Model marathon. Say what you want about Robbins (criticisms range from him being a complete hack and fraud, to him being the second coming of Jesus Christ; my opinion is somewhere in the middle), but his seminars are never dull. The guy knows how to market helping people.

For the uninitiated, Robbins’ seminars have some informal portions where people in the (massive) audience are able to stand up and address their personal issues with Tony one-on-one, in a kind of private counseling session… in front of 2,000 other people. Tony manhandles their emotional worlds, reshaping their realities in front of your eyes, all to thunderous applause. Whether it’s genuine or not, it’s never boring and usually educational.

(A good friend of mine who is a psychologist and therapist refers to Robbins as the Batman of Psychology — sometimes he has to break the rules and do some unethical things, but it’s always for the greater good.)

In one seminar, a middle-aged man in the audience stood up and confessed that he was suicidal. He then shared his story: he was a finance guy, a very good finance guy. He made a fortune and not only that, but his friends and family members gave them their savings to manage and he made them fortunes as well. His entire life he had been successful and made himself and people close to him a lot of money.

And then one day he lost it all.

When prodded by Robbins, his reasoning for wanting to kill himself was that his life insurance policy would pay enough to support his wife and children after he was gone, whereas if he stayed alive, his family would be saddled by debt and left broke. When Robbins threw out the obvious point that while his kids would grow up with financial stability, they wouldn’t have a father, the man calmly asserted, “Yes, exactly. That’s the idea.”

What immediately strikes you is this man’s dumbfounding belief that his kids need financial stability more than a living father. And it’d be easy to discount him as loony for that and be on our merry way.

But if we take a moment and empathize with him and dig a bit deeper into his motivation, we discover something important about his self-perception: This man perceives the value of his own life to be nothing more than financial.

He has no sense of value in himself as a father, husband, friend, companion, not to mention any other skills or hobbies. It’s not just that he thinks his kids would be better off with money than with him, it’s that he believes his only value as a person is his ability to make money.

Superhero Robbins quickly pounced on the nub of the issue: this man had never emotionally invested himself or identified with his roles as a father, a husband, a friend, a colleague — he had invested all of his identity (and time and effort) in making money and becoming rich. Then once his wealth vanished, so did his entire sense of self.

A while back, I saw a short video of Tim Ferriss and in passing he mentioned a concept called “identity diversification.” He more or less said the following:

When you have money, it’s always smart to diversify your investments. That way if one of them goes south, you don’t lose everything. It’s also smart to diversify your identity, to invest your self-esteem and what you care about into a variety of different areas — business, social life, relationships, philanthropy, athletics — so that when one goes south, you’re not completely screwed over and emotionally wrecked.

I loved this idea. It’s one of those ideas that’s so obvious yet elusive. When you hear it, it makes you feel like you just woke up. Identity diversification.

What Is Identity?

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all choose what’s important to us; we choose what we value. We choose the measuring sticks with which we measure success and our self-worth. Common measuring sticks people often choose include: being professionally successful, being highly educated, making a lot of money, being an excellent father/husband, being pious and faithful in a chosen religion, being socially and/or sexually popular and desired, being physically attractive or beautiful, and on and on.

Whatever we choose to judge our self-worth by, be it how big of a fan we are for our favorite sports team or making more money than any of our friends or getting more attention from girls than the guys in our fraternity, we are choosing in which way we want to receive validation to feel good about ourselves. Like a mural, whatever you choose to value and receive validation from conglomerates into your overall identity.

Most of us naturally gravitate toward certain aspects of our identity merely through growing up and having attention or praise lavished on us for particular reasons. Maybe you were the smart kid, or the good-looking quarterback, or the popular musician, or whatever. The validation we receive growing up largely determines how we choose to value ourselves in our adult life.

Some of us also experienced emotional traumas early on and therefore many of us get fixated on certain aspects of our identity more than others. Social pressures can also force us into over-identifying with a certain aspect of our identity and therefore drowning out other areas of our lives.

For instance, the movie Blow is a true story about drug smuggler George Jung. Jung grew up in a poor family with a father who had trouble paying the bills. As a result, Jung grew up identifying disproportionately with earning money and being rich and doing it in whatever way he could. Once he began smuggling drugs, the social pressures of those around him, the drug cartels and the lifestyle he lived continued to reinforce his choice to receive validation from money and wealth. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s fairly obvious that eventually his life unraveled along with all of the relationships which mattered to him.

In my own life, I over-identified with my sex life and the validation I received from women. This lead to me becoming depressed and living on a couch with no job. Later on, when I was building my business and often working 14-16 hour days simply to make a rent payment, a simple refund request or 2-3 days with no new sales could send me spiraling into a depression. Both of these examples from my life were times when I was investing myself completely into one area — women and business — and forsaking other important areas of my life and my identity.

In the case of the man in Robbins’ seminar, he lived an entire life that reinforced his identity as a man who could make money. He worked 100 hour weeks for decades. He made millions. Everyone who knew him, knew him as the man who could make money and did. Many of them knew him and liked him because he could make money.

This constant reinforcement and lack of diversity in his life eventually warped his perception in himself away from being a father, a husband, a friend, a role model, and instead a walking bank account. That’s all that came to matter to him and his identity. He had nothing else going for him because he never invested in any other aspects of his relationships. And when the money went, so did his self-worth along with it.

What Do You Care About?

One could take this advice as merely being a well-balanced individual. The problem is, people can be well-balanced but still not have a diverse identity. They can participate in a lot of different activities, but still derive the majority of their validation and self-worth from one source.

For instance, a well-balanced individual may have a successful law career, a wife, some golf buddies, and enjoy reading in his spare time. But in reality his career dominates his identity. He works so much that he has little to relate to his wife about other than work. His golf buddies are also lawyers. His reading relates to his career. He has no diversity.

This is the reason pick up and dating coaches notoriously have turbulent personal lives and often quit the industry within a few years of starting (as I did): they have no identity diversity. As soon as dating becomes their career, there’s no more division between their dating lives, business lives and social lives. It’s all one big mess. And if something goes wrong in their social life, it puts their business and love life at risk. A break up isn’t just a break up, it’s a PR problem. Meeting a guy at a bar isn’t just a social encounter, it’s a marketing opportunity. As a result, they experience a great deal of emotional instability. One of the only things that kept me sane during my stint as a coach was clearly separating my industry friends from my non-industry friends and making extra time to hang out with the latter. It was the only way I could get away from it all.

I’ve met finance guys who run into the same problem. Work dominates all of their time. Their friends are their co-workers. The books they read and movies they watch relate to their job. Their social excursions are work and networking functions. The women they meet are courted through expensive restaurants and VIP tables. There’s no diversification of where they’re receiving their validation. And therefore their emotional stability and self-esteem is at risk.

If you invest all of your identity in one basket, then you put your self-esteem and emotional well-being at risk.

American Football player Junior Seau recently committed suicide a few years after retiring. A lot of discussion has taken place about athletes and how they can regain their lost identity once they retire. One can’t imagine what they must feel, having gone their entire lives since childhood being recognized for being great at a single activity, and then once they hit their 40′s it’s all taken away.

Seau is not the only casualty. There’s this heartbreaking article about Hall of Fame football player William “Refrigerator” Perry and his descent into depression and alcoholism after retirement. Or this excellent article on soccer legends Pele and Maradona and their inability to let go of their pasts. Or how about this one on Michael Jordan and his continued bitterness and insecurity after retirement?

Three years ago, the thought of my business going under terrified me. I stayed up entire nights worrying about if a new web page would make me money or not. When they didn’t I would lose sleep again trying to figure out why.

Ironically, now that I’m successful in business, my identity isn’t as invested in it, and if it failed tomorrow I don’t think I’d be as devastated now as I would have been three years ago. Why? Because I’ve diversified my identity. I’ve been around the world, speak multiple languages, have a wide array of friends of varying lifestyles, am a good musician, a successful writer now — if my business crashed, it would surely suck and be stressful, but I imagine emotionally I would hold up much better.

What do you care about? I mean, what do you really care about? Invest yourself in a wide range of areas. If you like music, start attending concerts or learn an instrument. Don’t just travel as a vacation, but invest in learning about the cultures. Learn a new language. Make time for old friends. Pick up new hobbies. Get competitive in something. Expand yourself beyond your work and your relationships. Go out for no other reason than to be with your friends. Learn how to dance. Take some time off work. Attend a meditation retreat.

And don’t just do something else, but care about it, invest yourself in it.

Lest you become like our finance guru at a Tony Robbins seminar. Because chances are, the Batman of Psychology is not going to be around to save you.

Every month, I write reviews of recent books I’ve read and past favorites of mine. Past reviews can be read here: Book Reviews

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Controversy has followed Ayn Rand’s magnum opus through the decades, although less from what the book itself states and more from the political lever others have turned it into. Atlas Shrugged is one of my favorite books, and is likely the single most influential book on me personally, that I’ve read in my life. I find it surprising and disheartening how many critics of Rand I run into who haven’t even bothered to read her work.

Yes, her political philosophy was extreme and untenable. Yes, her characters were idealizations and too perfect at points. Yes, she could be a little bit preachy at times. The book is flawed, no doubt. But what she does do is she shows you how successful people operate, from the inside, from within their perspectives, how they traverse the world and its challenges. Through following her characters and their plights, she forces you into identifying with the traits and characteristics that make a person admirable, powerful, and a strong leader. The message you come away with is clear: stand up for yourself, be selfish, be a value-creator not a value-taker, take responsibility for everything in your life, be honest and direct, take pride in your work and what you do, a talent wasted is worse than a talent never had. This book lit a fire under my ass, and I’ve met a number of people who had similar reactions upon reading it. For where I was in my life (an under-achieving, aimless 19-year-old) it was absolutely what I needed to read. It’s 1,100 pages but I read it in three days. I haven’t been the same since.

Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
In the past, I respected Hemingway more than I enjoyed him. His writing left me in awe while making me drowsy at the same time. But when I read Old Man and the Sea recently, it blew me away.

The story is quite simple. There’s an old fisherman in Cuba who is in the twilight of his career. He’s alone, has an old rickety boat, and is considered a joke by the other fisherman. Yet he continues to go out every day, despite not having caught anything significant in a long time.

One day, he hooks a massive fish onto one of his lines. The book is then about the epic struggle to reel in the biggest catch of his life.

The analogy to Hemingway’s life is obvious and touching. The prose is delicate and powerful. The story is interesting, even though there’s no dialog through 80% of the book and I don’t know the first thing about fishing (nor care). Aside from that, Old Man and the Sea may be the most mature statement I’ve ever read on masculinity and what it means to be a man. It’s honest, brash, and humane without being boastful or needy. Hemingway was notorious in his personal life for his ostentatious masculine displays. It’s a theme throughout all of his books. But I think in Old Man and the Sea, a quiet, short novella written in his calmed, depressed old age, he finally nailed it. This book is his legacy. It’s beautiful to read.

The Fourth Economy by Ron Davison
This book is being passed around a lot in internet entrepreneur circles. I saw it pop up a few times, so I decided to grab it.

Its thesis is basically this: throughout the history of the modern world, humanity evolved from an agricultural based economy, to a industrial based economy, to a information based economy and now we’re in the midst of the evolution to an entrepreneur based economy. The reasoning is that to grow, economies must expand, and in each era they expand to the capacity of resources for that particular economy. For example, in an agricultural based economy, growth expanded through taking and conquering more land until there was no more arable land to find. From there, the economy was forced to evolve in a new direciton: instead of finding MORE land, it became a competition to see who could harvest the land the most efficiently. Hence, the invention of machines and the industrial age. The industrial age was limited by what humans need. Once the industrial age fulfilled society’s basic needs, it needed to innovate a new way to grow. It did this through the invention of marketing and selling people not what they needed, but what they wanted (or thought they wanted) instead. Thus began the information economy.

The argument of the book is that with the new technologies of the 21st century, we’ve saturated the information age’s ability to sell us what we want, as we are inundated with far more information than we can ever process. So once again, we must evolve to a new economic system. The book argues that that new system is a system of entrepreneurs. Since we all have an infinite amount of information available at our finger-tips, the competitive advantage is no longer providing new information, but finding new and unique ways to organize it and present it to others. It’s a creative economy.

The book also draws historical, sociological, and technological parallels within each era. It should be noted that each era does not replace the previous era, merely supercede it. For instance, when industrialization came about, agriculture did not go away, it simply stopped being the sector in which the most innovation was occurring.

As you can see, the book is quite academic and makes some lofty, big-picture claims. I think some of its claims are interesting to think about, but ultimately not that useful. Everyone enjoys a book that validates their previous life decisions, and I think the hype behind this book is another case of that. It’s argument, at it’s core, is simple: the technological advances are going to make it so that everyone can determine their own career path and contribute their own perspective to society in a crowd-sourced way. Unfortunately, the book never went into much detail about HOW this would happen, merely just that it would happen, at some point, in some way.

In fact, most of the detailed analysis in the book is reserved for rehashing major social changes and technological innovations throughout history. Sadly, the book spends as much time giving histories lessons as it does presenting any sort of predictive business concepts. Napoleon’s campaigns across Europe and Martin Luther’s Reformation are interesting, but 1) I already know about them and 2) how do they relate to entrepreneurs again? All in all, despite being interesting, The Fourth Economy is long-winded and intellectually over-indulgent.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Cheesy title, short read, decent book. It’s cheap, so I’d say it’s worth the money and the few hours it’ll take you to read it.

As with most relationship books, it’s written in a very fluffy way and light on science. But it’s main point is important and useful: that people give and experience love and affection in different ways and this can cause problems in relationships. The author relates these as the “five languages” of love: touch, gifts, quality time, verbal affirmation, and acts of service. It’s fairly self-explanatory, but it’s useful if only to recognize which ways you find most important to receiving affection and figuring which ways your partner receives them.

Everyone naturally expresses love and affection in 1-2 of the five languages, and everyone receives love and affection in 1-2 of the five languages. And if they don’t match up, then it often leads to relationship issues and/or communication problems. Personally, it was pretty clear early in the book that I largely receive love through physical touch and verbal affirmation. The other three I’m more or less indifferent about. Good to know.

Below are my 15 favorite places in the world, presented in order. This list is not scientific at all. I asked myself questions such as “How much would/did I enjoy living there?” “How much do I want to go back?” and “How blown away was I by it?” and ordered my list loosely based on the answers.

These are not the “best” places in the world. These are not even places I recommend visiting the most. They’re merely my personal favorites — the locations that mean the most to me and that I enjoy the most. Take that for what its worth.

15. Prague, Czech Republic

Of all the European cities completely overrun and gutted by tourists, Prague is my favorite. I figured I’d kick this list off with a backhanded compliment. But really, when you wade through the overweight British girls on gap year, Prague’s Old Town is charming. Its vistas are beautiful. And its culture is a nice blend of the best of East and West. Prague is backpacker and tourist hell at times, particularly in the summers. But if you’re willing to get a little adventurous, to stray off the beaten path, to lean into the language barrier and try your luck out in the outskirts of town, you’ll be rewarded with friendly locals, beautiful women, underrated food, and some strong nightlife. Just don’t go to the strip clubs, they’re scams. Wait, what am I saying? Strip clubs everywhere are scams.

14. Beijing, China

The only reason I even stopped in Beijing was because it was the cheapest hub back to the US from Thailand. I had little interest in the country but I figured I may as well stop and see the Great Wall and Forbidden City. Call it a moral travel obligation.

To my surprise, I really liked it and I will go back to China one day. I’m not sure when, but I will go back and I will spend a lot of time there. The culture fascinated me. The city fascinated me. Everything’s new and exciting there, not just for you, but for the locals as well. It feels like a social explosion is happening there. And I’m not sure what it is about former communist countries, but it feels like there’s a sense of community in them, even among strangers, that we lack in the West. I can’t put my finger on it, but perhaps that’s why I want to go back.

13. Jerusalem, Israel

Israel is perhaps the most fascinating place I’ve ever been which I don’t intend on ever going back. Israel is intense, too intense if you ask me. I have nothing against the people and have no position in their religious/political quagmire. I just don’t like going to a shopping mall full of civilians with rifles strapped to their backs.

But that wasn’t even the most intense part. Jerusalem. I’m not religious and not Jewish. But I was still floored by the historical relevance of the Jerusalem. Not even floored, but awed, dumbstruck, mystified. It’s the cradle of civilization. And it only takes a stroll through the Old City to understand why this is the most politically contentious place on Earth: three of the world’s major religions have some of their most holy locations within a couple miles of one another. It’s an amazing disaster, and I mean that in the best way possible. You can be at the Wailing Wall, the final remaining part of the temple of David, and then a few blocks away is where Jesus Christ was crucified, and then around the corner is where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept, and a stone’s throw away is the Dome of the Rock, one of the most holy mosques in the world… all while meandering through limestone paths built by the Romans over 2,000 years ago.

Jerusalem kind of ruined me for a lot of other tourist sites in the world. After Jerusalem, so many places feel insignificant or historically unimportant by comparison. For instance, my trip through Baria Gotica in Barcelona was a snooze, “Oh, this fortress is only 1,000 years old? And those old Roman ruins were built in 500 AD? Oh, OK, where do we eat?”

12. South Beach, Miami, USA

South Beach is one of two places in the US that doesn’t feel like it’s part of the US. It also arguably has the most beautiful women in the US (there’s a strong argument for New York City; LA is flat-out overrated, in almost every way imaginable).

The first time I traveled to South Beach, I was young, broke, and dressed like an idiot. I hated it. The second time I traveled to South Beach, I was a bit older, had money, and dressed very well. I loved it. Like it or not, status plays here. South Beach is like a slice of Europe and a slice of Latin America smashed together on a tropical island made of American excess. Great music scene, perfect weather, gorgeous beach. One of the few cities in the US I’d consider living in permanently.

11. Sydney, Australia

Of the English-speaking countries, Australia is my favorite. I really feel like Australia is what the US should have been, were we not so fat or superficial and didn’t spend 1/3 our money on a military instead of health care and education. Australia’s great. They’re like England without the self-loathing and bad weather. They’re like Canada without the snow and ice. They’re like New Zealand without the hobbits and sheep. But before all of my Australian readers start to get a big head, keep in mind that being the best of the English-speaking countries to me is like winning the Special Olympics, you’re still culture-less and a bunch of binge-drinking retards. But at least you get to have perfect weather, great beaches, clean and modern cities, and raging nightlife while you do it, unlike the rest of us.

So why Sydney? I love big cities. And I’ll be honest, I haven’t been to Melbourne yet. Everyone tells me that Melbourne is better — it has more art, more culture, nicer girls. Whatever. Sydney treated me pretty damn well. Wonderful city and I have wonderful friends there as well. All of the amenities of a world class city without many of the drawbacks you get in places like New York and London.

10. Hong Kong, China

If cities were people, Hong Kong would be a rich Wall Street guy with sweat stains and an Asian fetish. Hong Kong has by far the highest population density in the world. Imagine if Manhattan was a gigantic hill and every building was twice as tall. Throw in some sky bridges and the longest escalator in the world and you end up with the most urban environment on the planet.

There are so many young western expats living in Hong Kong, you forget that you’re in Asia at times. The island has everything you could want back home — great restaurants and night clubs, big career opportunities, over-educated single 20-something women — while the mainland still delivers the cultural diversity (or insanity, depending on what you’re going for) that you come to expect from Southeast Asia. I could live here.

9. São Paulo, Brazil

You have not met urban sprawl until you’ve met São Paulo. Most people think of São Paulo as Rio de Janeiro’s fat, ugly cousin with an urban-planning problem. And I guess they’re right… but that’s not all São Paulo is. Most people don’t enjoy São Paulo because they drop in for a few days, find out that it’s almost impossible to get anywhere, spend a fortune on the most basic amenities, can’t find anything interesting or fun to do because they don’t know any locals, realize no one speaks English, and quickly leave annoyed and slightly broke.

If they stayed longer, they’d realize a few things: São Paulo has the best night life in South America (yes, better than Buenos Aires). It has the best food in South America (yes, better than Buenos Aires). It has some of the most beautiful and educated women in South America (yes, better than Buenos Aires). And it’s within a day-trip of a number of great beaches (unlike… *drumroll* you guessed it, Buenos Aires).

You just have to know the right places, which in a city so large, is not easy. São Paulo requires an investment of time, energy and money: three things most foreigners won’t be willing to put in. And I’m fine with that — happy about it, even. The city remains fairly unscathed by the hordes of backpackers, resort-goers and sex tourists which populate Rio. And now that I’ve put the time in to learn the city and meet some special people, I’ll gladly go back.

8. Berlin, Germany

Best nightlife in the world, hands down. And if you don’t agree, please tell me of another place where you can leave a club at 9AM and have there still be a line to get in.

Berlin is almost like its own country, it’s as culturally diverse as you’ll find in the world. From what I understand, when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the real estate market clusterfucked itself. The amount of land doubled over night. Rent prices plummeted, and swarms of artists, musicians, and performers came from all over Europe to live cheaply and lay the foundation to the neo-bohemian smorgasbord of culture you find there today. I imagine the excessive partying came with them.

(Sidenote: Berlin is also a great biking city, which wins big points from me.)

(Another side note: Berlin is home to the scariest bouncer I’ve ever seen in my life.)

7. Singapore

Singapore is almost too perfect. Everything is spotless. The buildings are modern and gorgeous. Everyone is friendly and helpful. Everything is orderly and there’s no crime. Walking around it, you almost wish you could see a semi-toothed homeless man peeing in the street and laughing about it. Just once, so you’d remember that, oh yeah, the world is shit and we’re here to suffer through it together. But in Singapore you’ll never see it. You’ll never see bars on store windows, or police cars checking suspicious alleys, or even gum stains on the sidewalk, or anything but the perfectly clean, the educated and friendly.

I won’t bore you with the history lesson, but I find Singapore’s system fascinating. Chewing gum laws aside, they rate among the best in the world in wealth, education, health and quality of life. They really do have something special there. Staying there is a joy. The people, the food, getting around, all of it. The nightlife isn’t crazy, but it’s quality, with beautiful locals and a surprisingly large amount of international models. The catch is it costs slightly less than the GDP of Ghana to live there. No seriously, Singaporeans laugh at New York and London prices. $25 for a mixed drink, $30 for a casual dinner (for one). $200 a night gets you a small, basic hotel room. If you go, I hope your wallet is fat.

6. Ibiza, Spain

OK, imagine Las Vegas, except it’s on a small island in the Mediterranean. Then replace the cheesy casinos with crazy beach parties, make the clubs and best the biggest in the world, and then fill it with drunk English kids and beautiful Spanish people. Take that, make it 20 times more awesome and that will give you a vague idea of what Ibiza is like.

Ibiza is where I fell in love with electronic music. We had been flirting for a couple years and had a few flings together, but in Ibiza we consummated our relationship. We’ve been happily together ever since.

After Ibiza, anything else referred to as a “club” feels like a parody, like a cheap knock-off of the real thing. The clubs in Ibiza are indescribable. They’re not clubs, they’re an experience. Rope dancing strippers who play saxophone solos over house music, hip hop performers walking on glass bridges above the dance floor, a club with a wind tunnel built into it, the best DJ’s in the world spinning every night from 2AM until 9AM, drunk Eastern European women running around on the beach topless, ecstasy pills that cost less than a Red Bull Vodka — OK, I’m going to stop there before my lawyer emails me.

5. Medellin, Colombia

Medellin is known for two things: drug cartels and beautiful women. Fortunately, the drug cartels left and the women stayed.

Despite being relatively safe and pleasant now, most people are still terrified of Colombia. I’m living in Medellin at the moment, and I’ve now heard all of the (unfunny) jokes about kidnapping, coke binges, armored cars, getting robbed, etc. I get where people back home are coming from, but if they came down here and walked around they would feel stupid pretty fast. It’s really nice here. The quality of life to cost of living ratio is the one of the highest I’ve found anywhere. Just tonight I described the penthouse apartment I’m moving into next week to a friend on Facebook. When I told him how much I was paying, he took a moment to respond, and then said, “Sorry, I just passed out when I read that number. What the fuck am I still doing here?”

The culture here is surprisingly warm and welcoming. It caught me a bit off-guard, but it’s not unusual for the locals to come over and chat you up during dinner, to buy you a beer and excitedly practice their English with you, or to even invite you to their homes for a barbecue on a random Sunday. And no, I never got mugged, drugged, or robbed accepting any of these invitations, nor has anyone I’ve met here.

4. St. Petersburg, Russia

I love Russia. The food is terrible. The weather is terrible. Nothing works. The service is horrible. People are rude. It’s always cold (it snowed in May when I lived there, MAY!). And everything is overpriced. But I love Russia and desperately want to go back.

Why? The culture. I am enthralled by Russian culture, hypnotized by it. Anyone who’s read my book knows I’m big on honesty. And not just, “Oh, tell the truth, kind of” type of honesty — but painfully real, unpleasant yet necessary honesty. Russians say what they feel and don’t really give a damn who it offends or upsets. And as a Westerner, once I became accustomed to it, the clarity felt amazing, as if I had gone my entire life without ever actually communicating.

It’s not easy to get used to though. Russians are not impressed with frivolities. The fact that I was attempting their impossible language and could even communicate a bit meant absolutely nothing to them. My travels impressed few of them. They were primarily interested in two things: my ideas and my feelings.

It was jarring at first and somewhat uncomfortable. I fell back to the classic English-speaking habit of wiggling my way out of honesty with sarcasm and jokes. Of course, none of the Russians laughed. But pretty soon I began to open up and appreciate it. When my Russian teacher calmly told me my answer was stupid, or when the guy at the gym told me I was trying to squat more than I should be — it stopped stinging and I began to appreciate the authenticity. And once I appreciated that, the other side of Russian culture opened up: the passionate, fun-loving, crazy, side of the culture; the common camaraderie I hadn’t quite experienced before; the “well, we may fucking die tomorrow, so let’s do it anyway,” attitude that went against more or less everything I grew up considering. Don’t get me wrong, Russia’s a pretty screwed up place. But the day-to-day communication there, once you get used to it, is like a drug.

3. Phuket, Thailand

I love Thailand for all of the same reasons most people love Thailand: the friendly culture, the great food, the full-body massages, the insanely cheap prices and some of the world’s best beaches. But there’s something about Phuket that I can’t get enough of, and no, it’s not the bar girls or night life. In fact, out of the top 10 places on this list, Phuket is the only place where I don’t enjoy the partying or night life. It’s disgusting. And I don’t like Thai women.

When I was a teenager, my mom fell in love with Jamaica. She had been all over the world, but for whatever reason, she kept returning to Jamaica — Negril, specifically. She spent a large portion of the next six years there. After a few days in Rawai, a small town at the southern tip of Phuket, I skyped her and told her I think I finally got it. There’s no logical explanation as to why I like Phuket or Koh Phi Phi so much. But if someone said I had a week to live and I could spend that week anywhere I wanted, I’d probably spend it on Phuket, motorbiking across the island from beach to beach, stopping at little bars and restaurants along the way, getting lost in the trees and sand until I was gone.

2. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Most beautiful city in the world. Best beach city in the world. Best culture in the world.

People are either a Rio person or a São Paulo person. Going purely on your eyes and your senses, it’s impossible to imagine why someone wouldn’t be a Rio person. The place is like the Angelina Jolie of metropolises. Brazilians tell me that Rio is great to visit, but bad to live in. I’m apt to believe them, except most of those same Brazilians are from São Paulo. Granted, Rio lacks a lot of the culture, night life and education of São Paulo. But the richer neighborhoods and tourist areas by the beaches are excellent places to stay, and I imagine with enough time one could find things to do regularly.

Regardless, for a vacation, Rio has everything you could ever want. Beaches, food, tourist sites, fun activities, bars, ridiculously good-looking people. I loved it there and can’t wait to go back.

1. New York City, USA

When I was 16-years-old, I went to New York City for the first time. I immediately fell in love with Manhattan and promised myself that I’d live there one day. I still haven’t, but in the dozen or so times I’ve been back since, I’ve made the same promise. There’s an energy to that island that you don’t feel anywhere else in the world.

Manhattan is noisy, crowded, preposterously commercial, and very American. Yet, it doesn’t feel like the US. It feels like its own country. When I was there a few weeks ago, I must have heard at least 10 languages spoken at one point or another during my time there.

Manhattan has the best of every culture represented. Chic Venezuelan food in the East Village before a live theatrical performance by an Argentinian troupe, French cuisine the next night before hitting a club to dance to dub step until 4AM on a Wednesday. Manhattan has anything you want, whenever you want it. It has every scene you could be into — whether it’s pretentious hipster rock, cocaine-addled fashion shows, head banging black metal concerts, quiet jazz lounges, after work happy hours, drunken Irish pubs with shitty folk music — you name it, you can find it in New York, and likely any night of the week. That goes for food, music, performances, hell, even people. Where else could I chat with an Ethiopian women about what it’s like to live in another country while on my way to meet a Brazilian girl for lunch at a favorite Thai restaurant? That’s right, no where.

I spent the past couple weeks giving Models a long overdue update and revision. All in all, I cut out about 30 pages and added another 10. Overall, the book is not significantly different from the previous version, so if you’ve read it once and have kept up with the blog, then there’s not any new earth-shaking content. All previous buyers will be receiving an email with the new version of the book later today.

The list of changes:

• The book’s subtitle is now “Attract Women Through Honesty” rather than “A Comprehensive Guide to Attracting Women.”
• Fixed at least a couple dozen small grammatical and wording errors. Cleaned up and shortened the wording in many places.
• Removed some assumptions about female evolutionary behavior in the beginning of Chapter 1, and reworded it in places to make it more gender-neutral.
• Added a major section of The Pain Period to the pain period section in Chapter 3.
• Clarified some language in Chapter 4 about honesty and boundaries.
• Removed entire “Treasure Hunt” section from Chapter 6.
• Removed a number of paragraphs in Chapter 6 about accepting rejection. The whole chapter was fairly redundant and is now shorter.
• Minor edits to section on foreigners/race, mostly reworded and rewrote a few sentences to clarify points.
• Trimmed the beliefs and self-selection section slightly, it was long-winded.
• Rewrote some paragraphs in the section on “The Most Beautiful Women” in Chapter 8. I have more experience with them now.
• Changed the name of Chapter 9 to “How to Be Attractive” from “How to Be Handsome.”
• Deleted color/complexion section in Chapter 9. Simplified and trimmed the fashion section in general.
• Trimmed fitness section (no pun intended) in Chapter 9 as well.
• Small revisions in the how to be fascinating section of Chapter 9 (tried to make it shorter).
• Small touch ups all the way through chapter 10.
• Added more emphasis on giving up porn in the section on sexual motivation in Chapter 10.
• Added and edited some paragraphs in the beginning of Chapter 12 on intention and how it affects communication.
• Cleaned up Chapter 12 in general, deleted some paragraphs in the creepiness section, was messy and redundant.
• Touch ups throughout the Chapter 13; cut out some parts of the conversation section.
• Deleted and rewrote parts of “the perfect date” section in Chapter 14.
• Rewrote part of sex section putting more emphasis on consent and acknowledging a woman’s objections.
• Replaced a lot of “guy” and “guys” with “man” and “men.” Replaced a lot of “girls” with “women.”

On top of that, I’m lowering the price down to $19.95. We’ll see how it affects sales, but I imagine this will be a permanent change. Since we’re reaching a more mainstream audience now, I would rather get as many men as possible reading my stuff than making a huge profit margin on it.

Are You Frustrated By Women?

Get your dating life handled. Become an attractive man once and for all, without faking it or pretending to be someone you’re not. Models: Attract Women Through Honesty has been referred to as the best book in the field by many, and has received five-star reviews from all over the world.

I want to help men understand the idea of “analysis paralysis” and when and how they do it. I want to help them understand that sometimes their minds and intellects are distracting and diverting them from their goals rather than helping them to achieve them.

But how do you intellectually explain to someone that their over-intellectualization is just avoiding their anxieties and emotional problems, their real problems. How do you get them to understand that when they perceive everything through an intellectual lens? How do you show them that most of their planning and studying has been a means to AVOID their goals rather than a means to ACHIEVE their goals? How do you distinguish between that fine line of planning just enough and planning way too much? Where is that line?

I think the line between analysis and over-analysis is where more thinking makes action less likely rather than more likely.

But a certain internal awareness is required to recognize this. And I’m afraid the men who are disconnected the most from their emotions are going to see this idea as merely another invitation to analyze their own thoughts and actions even further, rather than getting in touch with the underlying emotion and anxiety, thus once again avoiding their goal.

I wish I could figure out a way to write in such a way to tap into each reader’s personal self-awareness in such a way that they actually feel themselves over-analyzing, over-thinking, and making something far more complicated and drawn out than it needs to be. They can feel the avoidance, the mental garbage, the thought vomit spewing out drowning out their ability to act.

I suppose any technique used to do this would require playing with perspective — presenting thoughts in a first-person perspective, but making an obvious meta-perspective of satirical analysis of said first-person perspective. That way the reader can directly relate to the immediate writing while being forced into a meta-awareness of the writing — a postmodern form of life advice.

How many paragraphs should I make it though? Studies show that most readers tune out after 500 words or so, yet my metrics show that articles of 2,000 and more words are read and shared the most often. Ironically, a blog post lacking in analysis paralysis would be short, yet the first-person meta-perspective technique described above would necessitate a longer post to fully communicate the point. Should I be blunt about being blunt, or be long-winded to demonstrate why you shouldn’t be long-winded?

And then there’s the issue of vocabulary. Do I use big, fancy, psychological words to play up the whole over-analysis spoof? Or do I keep things simple and to the point. I’ve always worried about user readability. I’m kind of a dork and over-use big words and maybe that turns off some readers. Who knows, maybe I could have twice the readership if I wrote like a 15-year-old. And if I had twice the readership, that means potentially helping twice as many people. I should apply the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale to some of my articles, cross-reference them with my traffic metrics, and then tabulate those along with my marketing surveys to find the correct readability and proper vocabulary based on the site’s reader demographics, performance of prior articles, expected education level of various readers, and then of course, a qualitative analysis of commenting histories.

And fonts. Research shows Arial is most readable, but I feel like a Serif font demonstrates a more erudite tendency to over-think simple situations. Also, they’ve found screen resolution has a great deal to do with font readability. I imagine most of my readers are young and savvy and not reading this at a low resolution, but isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?

Readability is so important. I really, really, really want the reader to get the point that they should not be over-thinking simple situations, that they should just get to the point and go for it and learn from their failures. I think (hope) that constructing a post which is over-thinking a simple post about over-thinking will not cause readers to over-think the simple post.

And then there’s the formatting techniques to increase readability such as catchy headers, lists, and sparse and short paragraphs broken with double line-breaks.

Perhaps I should create simple lists for people: “7 Signs You’re Over-thinking Your Life,” or “5 Most Common Situations You Think Are Difficult, But Actually Aren’t” or “10 Reasons Why Your Mind Is Screwing Up Your Life,” or perhaps “6 Ways to Think About This Blog Post Too Much.”

Wow, this is getting pretty dense. It’s a lot to keep in mind. I should construct some sort of model to organize all of the important information I’ve uncovered about writing a blog post about over-analyzing blog posts. I should organize the information in a simple, and easy-to-understand matter. Yes, that’s important. That way, I can write the blog post quickly and easily when I finally get around to it.

The model should have three primary components: aesthetics, theoretical content and organization. I’ll create a 7-point step-by-step process for organizing the blog’s content as well. Theoretical content and framework should come first, organization second, and finally aesthetics. Perhaps I could compare my model to other blog posting models and combine their frameworks to get a more complete understanding of how I should explain analysis paralysis to my readers. Yes, in fact, while I’m at it, I should dig up some books and research on prose, persuasion and presentation. Three P’s. I like that. I’ll write that down and organize all of my sources into one of each of the three P’s and then transpose all relative information into my aggregation of blog post models (mapped out in an Excel spreadsheet for easy comprehension), and then from there, recreate my original 7-step process for writing the post itself.

Wow, I’ve already accomplished so much, I can’t wait until I actually do something.

So often, men take simple situations and over-complicate them. They do it out of nervousness, anxiety or pride. They assume, since something feels difficult, then it must be because they lack the proper knowledge to do it, not that it’s merely emotionally difficult for them.

Intellectualizing situations distracts us from the difficult truths: that she simply doesn’t like you enough to call you back; that there’s no guarantee that your new business will make money; that no matter what you say to a woman when you meet her, there’s always chance she will reject you; that no matter how much you plan every minute of your vacation, you will not enjoy parts of it; that breaking up with your girlfriend will be incredibly painful no matter how go about it.

Analysis paralysis allows us to avoid a difficult emotional situation while feeling like we’re accomplishing something by analyzing it. Our minds leads us into an illusion of progress and effort without actual real progress or effort.

The best answer to most problems is usually the simplest one.

She’s not playing head games by not texting you, she just doesn’t like you. The only way you can know if your business idea will work is by trying it. You won’t know if a woman will reject you until you speak to her. You won’t know if you like your vacation until you go on it. There’s no easy way to dump someone, so just do it.

Stop thinking and just do it.

Science goes through fads like anything else. Every now and then, it becomes fashionable to describe phenomena with one theoretical framework. At the moment, it’s en vogue to interpret human behavior and sexuality in terms of evolutionary psychology.

“Men are hardwired to spread their seed to as many women as possible.”
“Women are programmed to seek the alpha male of any group, regardless of commitment from other men.”
“Men are evolutionarily designed to be dominant.”
“Women are hypergamous by nature.”
“Humans are meant to be polyamorist by nature.”
“Women are innately attracted to size and strength.”
Etc.

Newspapers, magazines, journals, dating advice websites and blogs are rife with language like this. Some draw reasonable conclusions. Others draw some pretty drastic and ghastly ones. The implications is the same across all of them: human sexual behavior is preordained, and men or women who deviate from it are either psychologically dysfunctional or are denying their instincts for the sake of power and dominance.

In Medieval times, the Catholic church decreed a version of human nature which was unwavering and unscientific. Sex was only permitted between a man and a woman who were married before God, in missionary position, and only for the sake of procreating. There was no evidence or falsifiable hypothesis to this, it was simply intuited by the intellectual elite at the time and passed down as fact through the population.

Strangely, something similar seems to be happening with evolutionary psychology and its interpretation of sex and human nature. Not that evolutionary psychology doesn’t have some truth to it, and not to say it’s not more correct than the Catholic Church’s version — it does have some truth to it and it is more correct. But its hypotheses are not falsifiable (and some argue, therefore not scientific) and many of its conclusions are merely intuited, not actually tested.

The goal of this piece is not to argue that evolution is wrong or that it’s a poor explanation for sexual behavior. On the contrary, I believe it’s the best one we have at the moment. The goal of this piece is to show that most non-scientists who speak about evolutionary psychology and its implications on sexual behavior have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about and should be listened to a with a healthy amount of skepticism.

I’ll begin with a short explanation of genetics, so everyone’s on the same page. I’ll then get into the major categories of errors you see: genotypes versus phenotypes, evolutionary stable strategies, and distributions across populations.

If this sounds about as exciting as prying shards of glass under your fingernails, then I assure you, I’ll keep it as interesting and light as possible. Last thing I want this blog to become is an academic bore. But I strongly believe this is an important topic, particularly for smarter men and women who have found themselves leaning on statements similar to the ones above to justify their actions or beliefs.

Genetics for Dummies

I’m not going to bore you with the Biology 101 version of genetics. If you want a more detailed explanation, I recommend Wikipedia’s thorough introduction to the subject.

We all have DNA. DNA is made up of thousands of nucleotides. These pairs of nucleotides are called genes and they are the blueprint for our bodies. Our bodies — our height, eye color, hair color, skin color, etc. — are determined by our genes. These are called traits. When we make sexy time with somebody, we shuffle and recombine our genes together, which then produce a new human being. This is called an accident, and often ends in child support payments. This new human spawn will then share a combination of traits of both of its parents. Daddy has green eyes, so little Timmy does well. Mommy has webbed feet, so does Timmy.

Some traits are better than others at surviving or replicating. Therefore these traits will tend to procreate more often and become more common in the gene pool. Other traits are worse at surviving or replicating (such as sickle cell anemia), and therefore will be less likely to procreate and sometimes weeded out of the gene pool altogether. This process is referred to as natural selection. Over millions of years, entire species evolve and adapt, change and grow through the process of natural selection. Genes which create traits which are poor at survival eventually go extinct, while genes which create advantages to survival and replication continue on and dominate the next generations of species.

Eventually, someone took the idea of natural selection and began applying it backwards. They said: “Well if humans are already like X, then that must mean that X is a genetically advantageous trait or behavior.” They then try to explain why this trait or behavior is advantageous to survival over the alternatives. A simple example is an innate fear of snakes and spiders. Recent research suggests that our fear of snakes may be innate. The evolutionary psychological explanation of this fear of snakes would be that having an innate fear of snakes proved to be advantageous for survival (snakes are often poisonous), therefore a large percentage of the population demonstrates this trait.

A more complex example may involve the claim that all women are biologically attracted to sexually dominant men. The evolutionary psychological explanation for this would be that for a woman’s genes, it is in their self-interest to seek out the strongest and most powerful genes to replicate with, therefore women who sought out dominant, powerful men would be more likely to survive and replicate, while women preferred weak and submissive men would be less likely. Therefore it’s more natural for a woman to be attracted to a dominant and powerful man.

Another example concerns monogamy. Evolutionarily speaking, the more promiscuous someone is the more likely their genes are to survive and reproduce, implying that natural selection would select in favor of promiscuity. Even despite social constructs of monogamy and fidelity (handed down by power-structures to control property and populations), the humans who still remain promiscuous and cheat on their partners stand the greatest chance of passing their genes on. Indeed, research by biologist Robin Baker suggested that as many as 10% of children are raised by fathers who are not their biological fathers. Therefore it’s more natural for humans to be non-monogamous, even despite social structures such as marriage deeming them to be monogamous.

Makes sense right?

Good. Because the two (common) examples above are the examples I intend to tear to shreds. Let’s start with phenotypes.

Genotypes and Phenotypes

The phenotype is the outward expression and behavior of a genotype. The genotype is the genes which make up the phenotype.

Promise me something. The next time someone tells you that such-and-such behavior is evolutionarily preordained, or that such-and-such physical trait is genetically superior, promise me that you’ll immediately call bullshit on it and not take that person seriously. Generalizations about genetics like this simply cannot be made without massive caveats. Things are not so simple.

When someone says that men are evolutionarily designed to be jealous, what they’re describing is a phenotype. When they say a certain hip-to-waist ratio is genetically superior, they’re actually describing a phenotype.

When discussing “human nature,” people invariably mix up phenotypes and genotypes. Any biologist worth his salt knows better than to claim anything as being “human nature.”

Phenotypes are not determined strictly by the genotype. Phenotypes are determined by some combination of genotype (the genes), the environment (climate, food, resources, etc.) and development (psychological and biological past of the individual). When barley is grown a low altitude it behaves very differently from when it’s grown a high altitude — so it makes little sense to ask “what is the true nature of barley” because there is no such thing.

Similarly, a woman raised in a third world country, with a history of psychological abuse will likely exhibit far different sexual behavior from a wealthy woman with a healthy childhood in a first-world country even if they had the exact same genetic makeup. If our sexual and social behavior and attributes were purely defined by our genes alone, then identical twins would behave in the exact same manner in any circumstance. This is simply not true.

Another misunderstanding is the idea that there is a “jealousy gene” or a “promiscuity gene” or a “monogamy gene.” False, false and false. Genotypes are comprised of multiple genes, sometimes hundreds. A change or variance in any of these genes can cause a deviation in behavior. Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene:

“The manufacture of a body is a cooperative venture of such intricacy that it is almost impossible to disentangle the contribution of one gene from that of another. A given gene will have many different effects on quite different parts of the body. A given part of the body will be influenced by many genes, and the effect of any one gene depends on the interaction with many others.”

Also, Stephen Jay Gould in The Panda’s Thumb:

“There is no gene ‘for’ such unambiguous bits of morphology as your left kneecap or your fingernail. Bodies cannot be atomized into parts, each constructed by an individual gene. Hundreds of genes contribute to the building of most body parts…”

The idea that there is some underlying “nature” of human sexuality or monolithic traits that compete and were weeded out of the gene pool are over-simplifications of an extremely complicated system of behaviors which we still do not yet understand completely.

Evolutionary Stable Strategies

Still with me? If not, here’s a video of adorable kittens to give your mind a minute to decompress, because shit’s about to get real here in a second.

OK, so now we understand that phenotypes (what’s expressed) differ from genotypes (the actual genes). Phenotypes are not determined by genes alone. So your ex-wife’s insane jealous are some combination of her environment (i.e., you), her personal developmental history (daddy never hugged her), and of course, her genetics (crazy mother-in-law). We also understand that genotypes themselves are a mass of various individual genes and it’s impossible to point to a single “jealousy gene” or “promiscuity gene” and say that it’s correct, incorrect, better or worse.

Moving on…

Aside from being complex and varied, natural selection doesn’t necessarily always produce one phenotype as the victor. Natural selection may determine that a population stabilize around multiple phenotypes in a certain proportion. (Stay with me, this is important.) This concept is referred to as Evolutionary Stable Strategies and was introduced by the biologist Maynard Smith. Using computer simulations, Smith was able to discover that many populations benefit from not having a single phenotype win out in the gene pool, but maintaining a balance of multiple phenotypes.

To make his point, he constructed a simulation of a population in which two opposite phenotypes were present: people who were aggressive and would fight to the death and people who were passive and preferred to negotiate and make peace. He referred to these as hawks and doves. Hawks would seek to fight and attack others to gain resources and territory. Doves would run away. When two hawks meet, they fight until they kill each other. When two doves meet, they don’t fight. When a hawk meets a dove, the dove runs away.

Intuitively, one would think hawks would eventually kill all of the doves and their genes would dominate the gene pool. Not the case. While hawks are killing each other, doves are enjoying their resources. Every time a hawk kills another hawk, a dove has one less predator. What actually happens is that many of the hawks kill each other off until there is a majority of doves. But once there is a majority of doves, it becomes more and more advantageous to be a hawk, so hawks begin to proliferate once again, killing off the doves for their territory. But once there becomes an abundance of hawks, they begin to kill each other off and it becomes more advantageous to be a dove once again, returning to a balance of hawks and doves.

Without boring you with the mathematics and proof (if you really care, check out Chapter 5 in The Selfish Gene), the population stabilized at a ratio of seven hawks for every five doves, with minor oscillations in each direction.

This was an arbitrary experiment, but what it meant is that being a “hawk” is no better than being a “dove” from the perspective of natural selection. Natural selection chooses a certain ratio of hawks to doves within that particular population. Neither phenotype ever wins out completely; the most efficient means of reproduction is having both present in a certain proportion.

I’m no expert in the field, but it’s not hard to see the applications of this in other areas. The argument that promiscuity is natural, that it’s human nature, whereas monogamy is a social construct and meant for “betas” who are subjugated by the culture around them, one could easily see how having a proper ratio of commitment-minded individuals and promiscuous individuals could create an evolutionary stable strategy. Too may promiscuous people and kids grow up without parents and the nurturing you need. Too many commitment-oriented people and promiscuous individuals have less and less competition. Surely, this evolutionary stable strategy would oscillate and change depending on the economic environment as well. Promiscuity makes sense as a strategy in an environment with low resources, commitment makes more evolutionary sense in an environment with high resources.

This is all guesswork on my part, so don’t take it as gospel. But the point is, as with this entire article, is that nobody knows for sure. Things are complicated.

Distributions Across Populations

Distributions across populations aren’t necessarily limited to one or two phenotypes either. People may not JUST be promiscuous or JUST be commitment-minded. They may be commitment-minded 90% of the time and promiscuous 10% of the time. Or promiscuous in certain situations, but committed in others.

The same goes for women being attracted to more dominant and powerful men. To what degree are they more attracted? Surely, there’s a massive amount of biological variance WITHIN a population of women. Even though the average woman may be attracted to more dominant men, it doesn’t mean that all women are.

Stereotypes usually have a grain of truth to them, that’s why they’re stereotypes. The problem emerges when stereotypes are indiscriminately applied to entire populations. Even worse, is when people discriminate against whole populations in the name of science or biology without understanding the intricacies of genotypes, phenotypes, evolutionary stable strategies, or population distributions.

I find it most useful to consider stereotypes in bell curves. The top of the bell curve (average) may prefer more dominant men, but there’s still a significant segment of the population who don’t. This distribution of phenotype within the population could also shift based on culture or economics.

One could even apply these bell curves to assortment theory (the theory that dating preferences within a population will naturally screen for one another). The majority of women may prefer a man who is taller and the majority of men prefer a woman who is shorter, but there will be a small overlap in which the ends of each bell curve cover one another. Their preferences aren’t right or wrong, natural or unnatural, they’re merely a minority phenotype, and are more likely to find each other and reproduce with one another.

Thinking of things in this manner dispels a lot of beliefs and assumptions that we make about dating, sex, attraction, and gender. Whether it’s a guy who is upset about how tall he is, or a feminist who believes all men cheat, or a blogger who insinuates that all women are simply looking for the next alpha male to come around. Most of these assumptions and stereotypes are veritably false.

Tolerance and Acceptance

We don’t know much about sex. We still don’t even really know why we have sex (as opposed to reproducing asexually). We don’t know why we have two sexes as opposed to three or 27. We don’t know why we have sex in the ways which we do. We don’t know why we have sex more frequently than most species, for pleasure as opposed to most species or why we have sex that doesn’t make babies (oral, anal). We don’t know why female sexuality differs from male sexuality and we aren’t even quite sure what all of those differences are. We don’t know why we have fetishes or sexual dysfunctions. We don’t know why homosexuality exists. We don’t know what definitively creates sexual attraction or why.

We have theories for all of these things — many of them with quite a bit of evidence — but we still have no consensus. We have ideas which are more likely than others and we have ideas which seem more true to us.

I suppose the point of this article is to understand that the ideas which feel more true for you are just that, ideas that feel more true to you. People are different, wildly different. From culture to culture, gender to gender, person to person, everyone exhibits different preferences and desires. Sure, there’s a lot of overlap in many places, including within each gender, but nothing is monolithic, nothing is preordained, and nothing is biologically mandatory.

For this reason, I see a lot of the bickering over gender roles, hypergamy, polyamory and monogamy, fidelity and promiscuity as not-so-sophisticated forms of politics, often promulgated by unknowing actors and actresses, so certain in how right they are. Men are chauvinistic and only care about sex. Women are manipulative and hypergamous. Monogamy is a social-construct and unnatural. Polygamy is immoral and inhuman. It’s all bullshit if you ask me.

What we all need is a little more “not knowing” in our lives. A little more uncertainty. And a little more respect for one another’s differences. You like to be bound in leather and flogged by men in leotards? Cool. You want to fuck every woman you see and never commit to a single one? That’s fine, assuming it’s consensual. You want to wait until marriage until you have sex? Not for me, but OK. More power to you.

And before we wrap up, allow me to switch from amateur biologist over to amateur psychologist for a moment. Perhaps those of us who are most afraid and hateful of the sexualities of others are most afraid of the sexualities within ourselves. Perhaps what we project and hate so much in the populations we accuse — whether they be men, women, homosexuals, “betas” or whatever — is a product of what’s uncomfortable within ourselves.

When people say something “isn’t natural,” what they mean is it’s not natural for them.

And that’s a phenotype most of us have, it’s another evolutionary stable strategy — always tense, always in conflict, but miraculously in balance, rolling forward from generation to generation, person to person. You’re part of something larger than you or I or anyone will ever understand, and that’s a true statement, not a religious one. Enjoy it. And enjoy each other.

Are You Frustrated By Women?

Get your dating life handled. Become an attractive man once and for all, without faking it or pretending to be someone you’re not. Models: Attract Women Through Honesty has been referred to as the best book in the field by many, and has received five-star reviews from all over the world.

In late 2006, I realized I needed a therapist. Maybe it was because I was prone to dramatic outbursts over inconsequential comments and criticisms from women around me. Maybe it was because I was going out and drinking six nights a week. Maybe it was because any time a girl told me she cared about me I freaked out and shut her out of my life. Maybe it was because I realized that I was so desperate for validation that I would become upset if people at a party weren’t always paying attention to me. Maybe it was because sober sexual encounters made me so nervous that I could hardly perform.

I don’t recall the exact breaking point, but I suppose one day I woke up and realized that I was an emotional wreck and I should probably do something to fix it.

Both of my parents attended therapy for much of my adolescence to deal with their divorce. Ironically, most of my therapy sessions dealt with the same topic. But my father always swore by its benefits, so I was fortunate in that I grew up without the negative stigma most people attach to therapy. When I realized I needed it, I had little hesitation.

Six months later, my relationships improved a great deal. I was exercising greater self-control in my social life. I had actually calmed down and dated the same woman for three months. One day I walked into my therapist’s office and told him, “For the first time in six months, I’m not sure what I want to talk about this week.” He said that was a good sign. That was my last session. To this day, therapy is one of the most important developmental tools I’ve had in my life. It helped me a great deal. And the years in which I was a dating coach, I recommended it often.

What Is Psychotherapy?

Everyone has heard of therapy in some form or another, but a lot of people don’t have a clear idea of what it is or what they’re getting into. One stereotype is that you lay on a couch and cry like a child. Another is that it’s just some guy who prescribes you pills. Another is it’s some guy who shows you ink-blots and asks you what you see. As with many things, these are caricatures created by pop culture for entertainment purposes. Most therapy is far more dull and far more personal than this.

The idea behind psychotherapy is that most of our decision-making comes from unconscious aspects of our mind. As long as these parts of our mind are unconscious, we’re unable to exercise control over them. The primary purpose of therapy is to help us become aware of these sections of our unconscious, accept them and then begin exerting control over them.

For instance, a man who gets uncontrollably angry when his girlfriend doesn’t call him back, there’s something buried within his unconscious which is causing him to react in such an irrational manner. By attending therapy, he can start digging into his past, his emotional development, his traumas, his life problems, his childhood, and find the trigger. Maybe his mother made a habit of leaving him behind when he was most vulnerable. Perhaps his first girlfriend cheated on him repeatedly and was rarely available. Whatever. Once uncovered, the man can process the anger and the hurt in a safe environment. This will then allow him to become more aware of the anger and therefore not feel so powerless to these outbursts when they happen. Eventually, he should be able to exert enough control over the emotion to modify his behavior.

Another popular form of therapy is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is useful for changing specific habits or thought-patterns, particularly anxiety and depression. CBT focuses more on observing your thoughts and how they lead to behaviors rather than unconscious emotions. Both forms of therapy have their own strengths and weaknesses. Both are quite effective depending on the issue. This site’s own Approach Women Program is based on CBT in helping men get over their anxiety meeting and talking to women.

Problems with Therapy

There are a lot of criticisms of therapy, and although most of them are made by people who have never actually attended therapy, some of them are legitimate. If you are considering therapy or are already in therapy, here are some things to watch out for:

• Professional Pill Prescribers – People often mistake psychologists/therapists for psychiatrists. Psychiatrists prescribe medications and specialize in mental illnesses. Psychologists (generally) do not. Unfortunately, the reputation has developed that ALL therapy consists of, whether by a psychologist or psychiatrist, is a queue to get easy drugs. Unfortunately this is true for some practitioners.

  Unless you believe you suffer from a mental illness, I would recommend a therapist/psychologist and only pursue medication if therapy seems ineffective over an extended period of time. Many people go straight to a psychiatrist who then hands them anti-depressants or some other pill like it’s candy.

• Be Pro-Active. Take Responsibility for Your Progress – Many people attend therapy with the expectation that they go sit in a comfy chair and the therapist will magically fix them. Sometimes they even get frustrated when “nothing happens” in their therapy questions, when in actuality they’re hardly participating in them.

  Therapy is a participatory activity. In fact, I would argue that if therapy is going well, it’s because you are doing 80% of the work. You should approach it with the attitude that you are there to work on yourself and the therapist is there to facilitate you and give you a push in the right direction. See them as a personal trainer for your mind and emotions. You’re still doing all of the heavy-lifting, but they’re there to spot you, encourage you and direct you. If you aren’t willing to do the work, then they can’t do anything to help you.

• Switch It Up – Therapy is still subject to the Law of Self Help: you can judge the usefulness of any self help tool by how many people are leaving it. If people are leaving it, it works. If people are staying, then it’s not working. Many people leave therapy with success stories (myself included), but many people stay for years and years with little to show for it.

  Many people fall into comfortable patterns with their therapists. In the beginning, they may uncover some major issues and make some big changes, but eventually, the therapist won’t be able to offer and new perspective, the patient will come in every week or month for years on end, they will discuss the same topics, and they will enter into a loop of: patient shares problems, therapists validates problems, patient feels better about problems and leaves, comes back later with similar or same problems.

  Don’t fall into the trap of paying someone to validate your issues. It’s tempting and it’s easy to do, both for you and for your therapist. But don’t do it. Therapy should feel a little uncomfortable. It should challenge you. It should make you think about your life from new perspectives. It shouldn’t feel good all the time. If it ever becomes repetitive, then it may be time to get out and find a new therapist or try something else.

• Treat Hiring a Therapist Like Hiring an Employee – Another problem people have is that they are not selective with the therapist they hire. You should treat as if you’re interviewing people for a job opening in your life. Most therapists offer free consultation sessions where you can meet them, get to know them and describe your problems to them. There will be some therapists whom you naturally click with and others who you don’t. Some therapists will be able to relate to your problems personally, others won’t.

  When I sought out a therapist, I purposely found a younger male who used to party a lot and was a musician. I felt like he could relate to me and where I was in my life. Things went really well. Recently, when Tucker Max described his therapist, he noted that he intentionally found an elderly woman because he felt most comfortable talking to women and wanted a woman who wouldn’t put up with his bullshit — a motherly figure. Take a moment to consider what type of therapist could best relate to your issues and help you and seek them out. Hiring a therapist is a large commitment, so take it seriously.

Do You Need Therapy?

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve referred a lot of men to therapy over the years. Most have ignored it. Some have gone. A few have come back and thanked me for recommending it to them. It’s hard to say for sure who needs and who doesn’t. Therapy is one of those tricky things, like most self development tools, because it’s rarely ever a bad thing to do. One could argue that everyone needs therapy in some form or another or for some period of time. But I would only recommend it if you feel you aren’t able to handle your emotional issues on your own and have tried for a while.

Here are some signs you may want to consider therapy:

• You have emotional or sexual impulses you don’t have control over: angry outbursts, fear of intimacy, sexual anxiety, bouts of depression, etc.
• You come from a difficult childhood, had absent parents or a poor relationship with your parents.
• You’ve suffered some major traumas in your life (death of loved ones, abuse, major health problems, etc.).
• You have compulsive behaviors which interfere with other areas of your life: i.e., partying, chasing women, drugs/alcohol, etc.
• Most of the relationships in your life are dysfunctional and/or unhealthy (always fighting, lots of blame/guilt, etc.). This includes friendships, significant others, family members.
• You are overly pre-occupied with one aspect of your life. Common examples include: obsession with being “cool” or popular, obsession with impressing others, obsession with your sexuality, constant need for approval and to impress others, even obsessing about improving yourself (feeling like you’re never good enough), etc.

If you have any specific questions about your situation or issues, feel free to post them in the comments below. Obviously, I’m not a therapist, but I deal with men’s emotional problems day-in and day-out, so I may be able to steer you in the right direction.

I’d also love to hear some readers’ experiences with therapy, both good and bad. So if you have experiences with therapy, please post them below. Hopefully this will encourage others to seek the help they need and give them a safe environment to pursue it.

“Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it necessary? Is it true? Does it improve upon the silence?”
     - Shirdi Sai Baba

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
     - Theodore Roosevelt

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery and isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
     - Charles Bukowski

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine. … It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
     ― Marianne Williamson

“Behind every wish is a fear that the wish will come true.”
     - Sigmund Freud

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
     - Lao Tzu

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
     - Gandhi

“Above all else, try something.”
     - Franklin Roosevelt

“If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.”
     - Jackson Brown

“I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
     - Michael Jordan

“One who makes no mistakes makes nothing at all.”
     - Giacomo Casanova

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
     - Winston Churchill

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people do that, but great people make you believe that you too can become great.”
     - Mark Twain

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”
     ― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Your goal is not to find love, but to remove all barriers which are preventing you from receiving it.”
     - Rumi

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
     - Goethe

“The only thing that is Capital-T True is that you get to decide how you see things.”
     - David Foster Wallace

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
     - Albert Einstein

“The highest forms of human understanding we can achieve are laughter and compassion.”
     - Richard Feynmann

“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it.”
     - Gilda Radner

“There are cracks in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
     - Leonard Cohen

On the boardwalk at Ipanema Beach, it’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in Rio de Janeiro. Skateboarders, rollerbladers, joggers, surfers, bikers, juicers, tanners, vacationers, staffers — they all pass by, skin shiny and mildly naked. Sand and salt and vanity fill the air.

There are small outdoor gyms every couple hundred meters along the beach: bars for pull ups, dips, incline push ups and stretches. A jungle gym for adults. Men stop and quietly pump up their muscles for the day, then move on. It’s a place where everyone is keenly aware of those around them. A surprisingly abnormal amount of men have six packs and bulging arms. A modest, yet in-shape, man can’t help but feel a bit intimidated and envious at the chiseled physiques roaming around. Short, stocky men with barrel chests, powerful backs and perfect arms. He may think to himself: if only he could look like that, the day would be so much better.

And one imagines that the shorter men with chiseled physiques may look at the taller men and think to themselves of how many tall guys there are at the beach today, and how it intimidates them and makes them envious. How can they compete?

And a pale tall man may look around and loathe the guys with perfect tans, for they obviously have better beach bodies and get more attention. And the man with the perfect tan looks at the man sitting with four cute girls and envies him, wondering how does a guy find four hot girls in bikinis to go to the beach with him like that?

And the man with the four hot girls with him is annoyed at how loud and obnoxious his sisters and their friends are and wishes he could hang out with his guy friends instead. Not far away, a man at the beach with his guy friends ignores their games and jokes and looks longingly at the girls laying out tanning topless and wonders how one would go about meeting them.

And the girl laying out tanning wishes her boyfriend were around so the men would stop staring at her. And her boyfriend, wading into the water alone for hours on end, wishes his girlfriend would stop crowding him and demanding his attention all the time. He envies the single men who are able to roam free and do what they want whenever they’d like.

And other girls at the beach lament that the cute boys are always gay. And the cute gay boy is so sick and tired of men who just want to have sex all the time and wishes he could find romance and something more. And the man stuck romancing his wife on their vacation wishes he were still the young, handsome lad he used to be, strutting across the beach, commanding attention on a whim.

The white gringos admire the dark, powerful physiques of the black Brazilians and the black Brazilians admire the blonde hair and green-blue eyes of the white gringos. And the English and American and Australian boys would kill to speak some Portuguese. And the Brazilian girls wish they could understand English better.

The skinny girls wish they had hips and the girls with hips want to be skinnier. The brunettes dye their hair blond and the blond girls wish they were darker like the brunettes. The men playing volleyball wish they could surf and the surfers wish they had the time and money to buy drinks and a nice umbrella to sit under and the men with drinks and the nice umbrellas wish they were young and healthy and playing volleyball again.

The waves crash. Footballs bounce. People splash each other and laugh. The crisp crack of a Skol can opening echoes across every post. Children play in their own little worlds. Meanwhile, the Christ statue watches over all of them from afar, arms wide and unceasing, with stoic, loving acceptance. And the people pass on by.

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Take a moment. Breathe. Focus your mind. Slow down and read each word. Become aware of yourself reading this sentence, this paragraph. You sitting there, focusing on each word, one by one. Become aware of each sound as it echoes in your mind, the one you’re hearing right now, and this one, and again and again and again. The voice in your mind reading this to you, is that you? If so, then who is doing the listening?

Ideally, the above paragraph forced you into some form of meditation. It forced you to become aware of your thoughts and mental processes, and then hopefully helped you differentiate your Self from the thoughts and sounds running through your head.

Meditation forces one to disidentify with their mind and emotions. It is perhaps the easiest to learn and most available personal developmental tool on the planet. Cripples can do it. Children can do it. Stephen Hawking can do it. Anyone with conscious awareness can practice it. You can do it on a crowded bus. You can do it in a monastery. You can do it in your bedroom. You can do it now as you read this. Experienced meditators can even do it while they sleep. It’s health benefits — mental, emotional, and physical — are innumerable and there are no side effects. You can learn to do it in as little as five minutes and once you learn you’ll never forget. Doing it as little 10 minutes a day can make you happier and healthier, and doing it as little as 30 minutes per day could change your life.

Yet almost no one does it regularly. Myself included. Why?

It’s hard to do. Really fucking hard. No seriously, take a second and close your eyes and try to think about NOTHING for 30 seconds. No seriously, try it. Just for 30 seconds. I guarantee you can’t do it.

If you try, you’ll soon notice that our minds are producing a constant stream of thought-vomit, and most of us identify so strongly with it that we don’t even notice. Our mental energy is sapped by an endless stream of useless, unhelpful thought and opinion:

“I hope the Lakers win tonight. I wonder if Shannon will ever call me back. I really enjoyed our date together, but maybe I should have picked a better restaurant? Oh, that’s silly worrying about that. I wonder if that new Sushi place near Dave’s is any good? I should call him, I haven’t talked to him in a while. He can be overly-negative though sometimes. Oh, I should buy a movie to watch this weekend, that will be cool. I wonder what though. I remember when I watched that one movie with Sara, my teenage girlfriend. God, we were young and naive. First kisses are awkward. But yeah, I should call Dave, I haven’t called him in a while. I should call Dad too, he gets testy if I don’t call him. Oh, today’s Tuesday, Breaking Bad is on.”

Chances are your mind sounds like this on a daily basis, and you’re rarely aware of it. Few of us are. Meditation trains our minds to prune and hone our thoughts, to only focus on what’s useful and important, to disregard the rest, and to separate our egos and identities from the thoughts and emotions running through our heads. This may sound like little, but it adds up and the life benefits are massive.

I got into meditation as a teenager and became serious about it in college. Since graduating, I’ve since lost touch with the practice (got distracted with girls, booze and work), but it’s a goal of mine this year to reboot my meditation habit. Its benefits on my life were wonderful and I miss the clarity and consciousness I had when I practiced regularly.

If your mind is a muscle, then meditation is a way to take it to the gym. The stronger your control of your mind becomes, the more you’re able to consciously control what your mind focuses on and how it processes new information. Strengthening your mind in this way has repercussions on every aspect of your life: your emotional health and self esteem, your work performance, your discipline, your relationships, your ability to communicate well, your overall happiness, your stress levels, and your physical health as well. I attribute a lot of the success I’ve attained in other areas of my life to all of the meditation I did when I was younger. In everything I’ve pursued since that time, I’ve noticed that my mind is more focused than most and that I’ve always been able to strip away the unnecessary distractions and get right at what’s important in any endeavor.

How to Meditate

There are dozens of styles and techniques to meditation. The beautiful thing is that none of them are right or wrong, simply different. Whatever forces you to focus your mind on your awareness and let go of any thoughts or emotions that arise is a form of meditation. Whether it involves mantras, counting breaths, yoga, chanting, rituals or whatever.

But to begin, I recommend people start with a basic sitting and counting of breaths. The process is easy.

Set aside 10 or 15 minutes. Get a clock or timer and set an alarm preferably, because you are going to be tempted to get up or stop before the time is up. Go into a quiet room where there are no distractions. Toss a pillow on the floor and sit on it cross-legged. Don’t worry if you can’t cross your legs perfectly, just do it as much as possible while remaining comfortable. Plant your ass firmly on the pillow and then make sure your back is straight. Relax your diaphragm and let your belly hang out (don’t worry, no one’s looking). Look straight ahead. You can close your eyes or leave them open, it doesn’t really matter. I prefer leaving mine open, but to start out you can close them if it makes you feel more comfortable. You can put your hands on your knees or you can rest them in your lap, one on top of the other, palms facing up, as shown in the picture.

Now comes the hard part. Clear your mind. Think about nothing. Breath through your nose into your chest until your chest is full. Your belly should expand out. Then slowly exhale. One. Do the same thing again. Each breath, count the breath. When a thought or distraction arises, start the count over again at one. Thoughts and distractions WILL come up, and if you’re just starting out, they will often come up without you even noticing them until they’ve been rattling around for a few seconds.

Don’t judge yourself. Don’t get mad. Don’t get frustrated and say, “I suck at this.” Just acknowledge the thought, let it go, and reset your counting. Chances are you won’t get past two or three the first few times you meditate. It often takes people months to even get to ten.

Do this for the full 15 minutes. It’s only 15 minutes, but I guarantee it will feel closer to three hours. By the fourth minute you’ll be dying to get up and do something. Your mind will be going crazy. Chances are you’ll start to let your mind go and just start thinking about the party last weekend, or the project that you’re working on at work. That’s fine. Don’t judge. Just let go and start the count over again.

This is the most basic form of Zen meditation, which is the practice I followed for a few years. If you get through one session, congratulations. I imagine you will get up feeling much more relaxed, clear-headed, and will feel calmer throughout your day.

These sessions are easier to do and to keep up with if done with someone else, so you can keep each other accountable. Daily practices are best. Start with 10 or 15 minutes each morning when you wake up and slowly add time from there. Once you get to the point where you can keep your mind thoughtless for a full 10 breaths or so, there are other techniques or practices you can begin to add.

Benefits of Meditation

I’ve alluded to a lot of benefits of meditation throughout the article. Of all spiritual practices, meditation probably has the largest body of scientific research backing up its utility and power. Numerous studies using MRI’s and EEG’s have shown a regular meditation practice can rewire the neural patterns in the brain and even increase grey matter. Below are some practical benefits psychologists and doctors have found to regular meditation:

• Increases Self-Awareness. Psychologists have noted that patients who practice meditation develop greater awareness of their actions and emotions. Some therapists prescribe meditation to their patients to assist them in their practice.
   
• Increases Focus and Discipline. Practitioners of meditation are able to retain focus on specific tasks and are less likely to deviate from those tasks. Meditation increases the one’s ability in what psychologists call “self-regulation.”
   
• Reduces Stress and Anxiety. Mindfulness techniques have been shown to reduce anxiety and stress and have long been prescribed to patients who suffer anxiety disorders and panic attacks as a way to calm their nerves.
   
• Makes you Physically Healthier. People who meditate on average sleep better, have lower heart rates, have lower blood pressure, and get sick less often.
   
• Increases Emotional Stability. For people who are prone to outbursts of anger or sadness, meditation helps people regulate and control their emotions.
   
• Increases Memory and Helps You Think More Clearly. Meditating trains you to remove all of the unnecessary garbage from your thought-patterns. This then frees up your mind to retain what is useful and important more efficiently.
   
• Gets You In Touch With Your Intuition. Often referred to as your “gut reaction,” your “instinct,” or your “intuition,” meditating gets you in touch with your unconscious decision-making processes. Daniel Kahneman refers to it as your “first brain.” Malcolm Gladwell refers to it as “blink.” Whatever it is, that instant, gut reaction that you have about some things, and it’s often right? Meditation will increase that.
   
• Increases Your Ability to Empathize with Others. Brain scans show that meditation activates the positive, happy, empathetic aspects of the brain. People who practice meditation regularly report an ability to empathize and care about the emotions of others and bond with them more easily.
   
• Lowers a Need for External Validation. Meditating trains yourself to become more aware of what thoughts and emotions dictate your behavior, primarily where you’re trying to receive your love and validation that may not be working. It forces you to become more aware of your needy behaviors and put an end to them.

Meditation is by no means a cure-all for your problems. But I believe that it’s a powerful first step. Meditation’s purpose is to give you perspective and clarity on your internal issues. It doesn’t fix them for you. One of the most upsetting parts of my involvement in Zen years ago was how many long-time practitioners I met who convinced themselves that meditation fixed all of their psychological and emotional problems, when it didn’t. It helped them experience and become aware of those problems, but you still have to go out into the world and commit the actions to overcome them. Sitting in a room staring at a wall all day is unlikely to do that.

Meditation and Spirituality

There is a spiritual aspect to a meditative practice, for those of you into that kind of thing. I usually avoid spirituality on this blog on purpose. I believe spirituality is something that’s experienced and lived, not discussed or taught. In my opinion, spirituality, by its definition, cannot be discussed. Just the resulting experiences of a spirituality can be described. Spirituality itself is transrational. It’s like counting to infinity. Words can capture part of it but never fill it up.

One such way to experience that spirituality is through meditation. I’m no good at describing the experience with words. But if you’ve ever had a moment in your life where your sense of self, your sense of identity completely dissolved, and there was no longer differentiation between you, the sky, the water, the people around you, everything. If you ever stared at the stars so long you started laughing at how beautiful the fact that we even exist is. If you’ve ever suddenly realized that your fears and worries were illusions created by your ego and mind, and that good and bad were simply separate expressions of the same grand unity of This, and that you never had to be afraid, ever, because you — your fears, your flaws, your failings, everything about you — was just another perfect expression of the same reality. Then yeah, meditation can help you get back that.

Feel free to share your experiences with meditation in the comments below.