Welcome back, family!
Before I start, let’s give it up for me for CONSISTENTLY posting a new blog post for the last 3 weeks!
I’m so proud of myself for keeping my word by doing the work. It’s keeping me inspired and motivating me to keep creating.
Which introduces today’s topic: create more than you take.
You know the drill: it’s story time!
These past two weeks, I’ve been bedrotting. Honestly, I was in my luteal stage in my monthly cycle, so I let myself sleep in and rest. Cool. The body needs rest. Got it.
The problem comes with what happens in the bed. Last Friday, I had 14 hours and 55 minutes of screen time. Almost 15 hours, nearly two-thirds of my day, spent scrolling on this tiny time-wasting box.
TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook – not in that order, not spread evenly. Rinse and repeat for hours. Times that by days. Times that by the last two weeks. The harm is exponential.
Not only have I fried my attention span, but I’ve crippled my self-esteem through comparison. I’m drugging my brain with artificially made dopamine. I’m wasting some of my best years, shut-in, watching others post their lives for my enjoyment.
Yet, I wasn’t enjoying it. I think that much of our suffering comes from going against ourselves. A similar idea is conveyed in the Four Agreements; the first agreement is being impeccable with your word. But I would argue here to be impeccable with your actions.
Cousins, I was being the opposite. Side note: I love this opportunity to be vulnerable with y’all. To bare my ugly side and imperfections, the Virgo in me cringes, but I know better than to put glitter on shit.
Thinking back to my WOTY: consistency, I must take stock of my current habits. If I’m going to practice consistency, what does that look like?
I mean, I’m consistent right now, consistently spending money I should save or invest, consistently scrolling the clock app before I even brush my teeth, and consistently holding my pee because I don’t feel like getting out of bed. Did you catch my drift? The consistency I’m practicing doesn’t help if I put my energy towards self-sabotage.
Rather than just pointing out my shortcomings, I also want to offer solutions.
Now it’s time for your favorite part of every blog: the message.
In my teaching career, the district I worked for had a motto: “Leave a place better than you found it,” and with everything going on in the world, this mantra could not be more appropriate right now.
Not only am I pledging to create more than I take, meaning I want to put my phone down more and tap into life more, and I want to be on the other side of the phone, producing more content than I’m consuming, AND that I want to pour even more into my blog and overall brand, but more importantly, I’m leaving a place better than I found it, both online and in-person.
I want to challenge you to do the same – create more than you take and leave it better than you found it. It being this world, your relationships, your conversations, even the absence of your presence, better than you found it.
Love you to life,
Cousin Lex
P.S. – Subscribe to the blog – don’t be stank!
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