Learn Your Life Purpose by Drinking Coffee

Call Of Nature

Okay. So. Don’t trip but I totally forgot to add another step to last week’s illustrarticle, 3 Easy Steps to Total Mind Control. This step really deserves an illustrarticle all on its own because it isn’t much of a step while it’s the most important of all steps. Yes, even more important than breathing. This is like going from point A to point P.

To Pee Or Not To Pee?

P is for Purpose. Doing something on purpose is when you’re doing something that’s useful to yourself and others. If you’re don’t know your purpose, you will figure it out. It can be as natural as peeing. Pee on purpose! You’re probably already doing it. (What, right this minute? Ew.)

The most intense urge of needing to pee happened to me about a month ago, while a friend from Boston was visiting Chicago. It was after we stopped at a cafe for coffee. I must have underestimated the effect that coffee would have on me because on the train halfway to my apartment, an urge to pee began to karate chop my bladder. By the time we got off the train, I basically said to my friend, “KEEP TALKING AND WALK FAST, OR I’LL PEE EVERYWHERE.” Thankfully, we got to my apartment just in time and I ran into the bathroom. Success! After this experience, my friend and I were dry, not smelly, unembarrassed, well-exercised, and learned some new things about each other during that conversation.

I love coffee. After I drank a lot of it, in that moment my life purpose became clear: I had to pee.

The Ramification Of Urination

So if you have an urge to pee, instead of peeing all over, go to the bathroom and do so IN THE TOILET. You’ll be relieved and say to yourself, “Peeing is such sweet sorrow that I shall pee till it be morrow.” You’ll be dry, and so will your friends and neighbors. And then they will say to themselves, “I have such a good friend/neighbor who pees in the toilet, I’m inspired to become good friend/neighbor and pee in the toilet myself!”

But do yourself a favor: If you’re going to get out of bed in the middle of the night and walk to the bathroom, at least have the decency to actually feel the need to urinate. If you walk to the bathroom and don’t really want to pee, you’re just wasting your time and making your sleepy downstairs neighbor, who has to listen to your creaking floorboards, angry. Even if your sleepy downstairs neighbors are just some mice, roly-poly bugs, and centipedes. Some neighbors terrify people just by letting themselves be seen!

If you didn’t have an urge to pee, you’ll suddenly find yourself in the bathroom, pondering, “Dammit, why did I even come in here?!” And your sleepy neighbor will respond with, “Dammit, you’re inspiring me to become the opposite of a good neighbor right now!” So instead, you’ve pissed off your neighbors and pissed off yourself. A pissing has happened, but not the useful kind. Now, every time your neighbor will see you, he’ll think, “Here comes the opposite of a good neighbor, I’ll pee on him if he talks to me.”

So, walk on purpose and pee on purpose, but don’t walk where you pee on purpose. Because ew.

 

And I’m sure there’s probably other steps I could keep remembering and adding to my 3 Easy Steps to Total Mind Control illustrarticle, (i.e. Giving A Shit) but:

Art is never finished, only abandoned. – Leonardo da Vinci

So there.

Do you feel an urge share a time when a certain call of nature had become very useful to yourself and/or others? If so, feel free to relieve yourself in a tweet.

3 Easy Steps to Total Mind Control

Brainstorm

Thought (noun)
The product of mental activity; that which one thinks: a body of thought.

With stress coming from all directions in our lives, our minds can really suffer and cause a ton of preventable health problems for us. If not well-taken care of, our thoughts can get pretty rowdy or out of shape. The simplest and fastest way to get these thoughts in shape is to take your intellect for a walk.

Step 1: Take one small step

And walk it off! You could go on a long, soul-searching trek around the world, climb mountains, or beat the thoughts to shape by speed-walking with a Fitbit to prove your track record. Or not. During the course of your day, you’re bound to get from point A to point B for one reason or another. Today, “walking it off” for me meant getting out of bed this morning.

My 6 a.m. alarm hasn’t gone off yet, but it was light outside. It was almost 5 a.m. I had just woken up from a strange dream. I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, then felt my right leg slide down the side of the bed. I kept letting it slide until my toes touched the floor. That was it. The first step. A few seconds later, I was a few feet away from my bed and sitting at my desk, staring out the window.

Step 2: Stare at stuff

I don’t recommend blankly staring at people because it’s rude. But staring at objects is fun. Most inanimate objects won’t feel threatened, self-conscious, or intimidated. Stare at stuff like the sky, sand, sidewalks, walls, trees, flowers, buildings, art, coffee cups, or staplers. You could even take it up a notch and try staring at birds, squirrels, or puppies. But don’t stare at electronic screens. If you’re staring at a puppy on your computer screen, tv, or your phone — you’re not getting the full effect of the puppy! Go look at something up close and study the amazing details of the thing. Notice details you like and the details you don’t like, and try to admire them all for what they are, anyway. Find a detail that you’re thankful for and consider why you’re thankful for it.

While getting out of bed this morning, I looked down at the floor and looked at all the details in the wood grain of the hardwood. My apartment was warm but the floor felt nice and cool under my feet. And it was as if each line of the floorboards was leading me right to the bathroom, so I could shower and get ready for the day. But apparently, on the way there, I got tired and had to take a break at my desk.

Step 3: Repeat

Step, stare, repeat. Do it again and again until it becomes second nature.

These exercises are not a marketing ploy, like those shampoo bottles that want you to lather, rinse, repeat so that you’ll run out of shampoo faster and have to buy more! The more steps we take, and the more details we pay attention to, the more we repeat this, the more at peace our thoughts will feel.

Secret Bonus Step: Go at your own pace

Others don’t know what you’re going through. So, don’t compete with others because you don’t know what others are going through, either. Everyone moves at their own pace. These steps are an endless journey with no particular destination. If you’d like, you can create some pit stops for yourself, whether it’s sitting at your desk or sun bathing on the beach. Tomorrow you might even be staring at the amazing sight that is the Colosseum. Meanwhile I might have finally arrived in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and taking a toothbrush out of my mouth while wondering how something that was just infused in my morning breath marinade still smells so minty-fresh. Architecture is beautiful, and so is toothpaste, okay?!

Oops, this should have been the first Step: Breathe

The good news is that you’re probably already doing this. The bad news is that you’re probably not doing it hard enough. Our thoughts come from our brains and when our brains doesn’t get enough oxygen, they become cranky and don’t want to work well, and give us some half-assed quality thoughtmanship. So, always inhale nice and deeply to bathe your brain in freshness, especially while you’re doing the all the other steps. Air is free but breathe it like you’re paying for it!

But, if you think about it, we kind of are paying for air by simply living our lives, which we need to make money for, which depends on us to work a job, which creates stress, which causes the buildup of thoughts in our minds, which makes us cranky, which interrupts our focus on breathing deeply. Man, life is complicated. Go back to Step 1.

Average Heroes #4: The Sound Advisers

AverageHeroesTheSoundAdvisors

Whenever I feel like I’m not sure what I’m doing or where I’m going in life, I consult my board of trusted advisers: The music artists in my mp3 player. Within this device are hundreds of creditable people who know just what to say when I need advice or just listen to a nonsense pick-me-up. Although most of these people are/were celebrities, and their lives are probably anything but average, the sounds they make connect with us strongly.

Shuffle Is Your Best Friend

Because amazing things happen at random. Get out your handy-dandy music player, press shuffle, and see what happens.

I got out my iPhone, hooked up my headphones, opened the Music App, selected ‘Songs’, scrolled all the way up above the letter ‘A’ and pressed ‘Shuffle’. Of the 2207 songs, these are the first 3 consecutive ones that played:

Beck – Peaches & Cream

The first track that comes up is Beck’s “Peaches & Cream“. Don’t tell your right hand, baby, what your left hand do. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to not talk to your hands at all. That’s just weird, man.

Sublime – Burritos

Next is Sublime’s “Burritos,” which names of a bunch of stuff he doesn’t wanna do and suddenly, you think of a bunch of stuff you don’t wanna do, either. I have my own ever-growing list of stuff I don’t wanna do. And I don’t even wanna write out that list. And I sure as hell don’t wanna eat burritos. They don’t go with my coffee. In case you missed it, here’s the hidden gem within this song: none of us ever have to do anything that we don’t wanna do!

Matt & Kim – Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare

Then Matt & Kim’s “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare,” comes on and reminds me that what has happened on the side streets of your life can really define a big part of who you truly are and showing the side streets can determine who your true friends are. You may be very disappointed when you realize which people were never truly your friends, but it gets better. After riding trains to end of lines for a while, like you’ve got nothing but time, you’ll move on. With your left foot in front of right, you’ll meet more new people along the way and make new friends. Friends who accept you as you are. People who prefer the main streets and hide the side streets, never really belonged in your life in the first place.

Just For Fun

Check out if your music player has something along the lines of “Top 25 Most Played” list and see what the #1 song is on your list. My top song is “Miss Me” by Andy Grammer.

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