Yoga with Adriene Mishler

Adriene Mishler is a leader. A visionary. A businesswoman. A Mr. Rogers? Yes. Yes. Yes. and pretty much. She claims she is similar to Mr. Rogers in that she creates that warm and intimate feeling to her channel on YouTube.

She has had millions of people watch her yoga flow videos and has what 2006 Tommy would have considered an offensive name for her website. 2020 Tommy loves it. The name of her website is “Find What Feels Good”.

Do you think I’m overreacting about it being offensive? Making something out of nothing? All I ask is that you hear me out. Find what feels good is the opposite of what almost everyone else is saying. Chances are that someone today urged you to get out of your comfort zone. The idea is that you should find what feels painful.

Find what feels good and find what feels painful. If you’re digging the pain, I challenge you to hear it when someone is suggesting the opposite. If you can do that, I want you to ask yourself if that person is like the devil tempting Jesus in the desert, or are they a person thats on to something….good.

Personal Philosophy of Jesus

So here we go! This should be simple and straightforward. A blog post summarizing the personal philosophy that Jesus filtered all of his thoughts, words, and actions through. Everyone agrees on this, right? Well, there is a simple way of handling this.

We look at the story of Jesus getting baptized and then going out to the desert for forty days. It is a very short story, but it is jammed packed with thoughts, words, and actions.

We get Jesus interacting with a few different characters in the story. Each character plays a critical role, and reveals the identity of Jesus. The story is so short that we can take it line by line. It is also so jammed packed with philosophy that each line will require it’s own blog post.

The good news is that at the end of the series of blog posts, we will be able to fire off a summary of his philosophy even if we have limited time and space to do so.

Your homework The carefully crafted call to action is for you to read the story of the baptism and time in the desert so that you come to the next post in this series prepared.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Kids are different today. I hear every mother say. But let’s face it. Nothings changed. It’s not like it just started.

By Any Means Necessary

Malcolm X said “by any means necessary”. I take it as the answer to Sean Connery’s question to Kevin Cosner in the Untouchables. He asks “What are you prepared to do?”.

Both are referring to the willingness to use violence to accomplish your goal. That is one way to look at it. The key here is to look at the short term answer and the long term answer. In the short term, violence may be justified in many different ways to achieve many different goals.

In the long term, there are few goals that violence will help you achieve. The farther into the future you look, the harder it becomes to justify violence. Violence is persuasive over the short term. It is less persuasive over the long term.

The philosophical outlook that comes out of this? Do you really want to achieve a massively important goal that impacts a large number of people over a long period of time? Then, there are a lot of things you’re not prepared to do to achieve the goal.

The Ballot or the Bullet speech by Malcolm X is one of the most extraordinary speeches ever. I’ve only listened to the first fifteen minutes of the hour long speech because so much is packed into it. I’m taking lessons from it and will come back to it later to watch the rest of it.

I recommend that you listen to it and relate it as much as possible to the personal goals you have and the personal philosophy you use in your everyday life.

Michael Gervais

Michael Gervais inspired this blog. In this talk, he talks about writing your personal philosophy. He gets into why it is important. Most importantly, he has the students write the first draft of their personal philosophy.

Of course, I jumped on this idea. I made it my mission to write my personal philosophy. I am still working on it. The podcast has been devoted to this mission. But, alas, the final copy is not yet done. So did I give up? Of course not! This blog is a double down on the mission. I will find my philosophy one way or another.

He brings up the idea of being and becoming. He mentions “best self”. Most notably to me, he brings up some examples of people that had a clear personal philosophy. I won’t spoil it by telling you who he mentioned. Watch the video to find out.

The Only Plane In The Sky

ttps://www.npr.org/2019/09/11/759742836/the-only-plane-in-the-sky-offers-a-powerful-graphic-narrative-of-9-11

NPR – “It also tells stories that, while massive in scope in their own right, were drowned out by the enormity of the day. I had never fully appreciated how large the marine evacuation of lower Manhattan was, and how the water taxis, Coast Guard ships and private boats rivaled World War II’s Dunkirk evacuation in their sheer numbers. The same goes for the effort to land every airplane in the United States on short notice, and what it was like for passengers in non-hijacked planes to learn about the attacks midflight, or to suddenly find themselves stranded in Newfoundland.”

I picked this book up from the library the other day. I heard of it somewhere as being a good book. I stood there debating with myself about reading it. I was positive it would be worth reading. I also knew it would be hard to read. I took it off the shelf and took a look at the cover. I felt goosebumps. They started slowly and gradually consumed me. I stood there for about 15 seconds and took in the feeling. I describe it as the 9/11 feeling. It is that feeling I get when I don’t want to think about the specifics of 9/11 and then give in and reflect.

The first two chapters have been good. The trivial details of the day that people remember set the tone for the calm before the attack. The memories of the last time seeing a loved one and what was said are sentences that are simple statements. They are statements that make me put the book down and look at the cover again. The physical book seems to take on a meaning of it’s own.

Navy Seal at Yale

There is nothing I love more than the Liberal Coastal Elite. They annoy everyone just by being themselves. They also see the world in the right way. It is a lethal combination. So imagine my glee when this Navy Seal was going to write about being enraged by them. Well not so fast. He actually has some great stuff to say. This James Hatch guy is someone I’m going to be imitating. Dedicated. Endlessly curious about the world. A lifelong learner. A certified bad ass. A dog lover. Its like he is a real life James Bond. Every man wants to be him. But this guy doesn’t have to make outdated movies.

https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662

Podcast Episode: Intro to Season 2020

I talk about my approach to life. I tell you how my father taught me the skills that make me a great podcaster. I tell you about how my mother taught me to be endlessly curious about the world. I talk about how being in the “Northeast USA Irish Catholic” community shaped my views of the world. I talk about getting beyond the surface of family background and religious belief. I talk about the intensity of facing the things that are below the surface of my inner dialogues. I talk about the speeches I listened to that overwhelmed me with emotions. I talk about how I faced those emotions and admitted to myself what those emotions were telling me about what it is to be a human. Please listen with a critical ear.

Talking Heads

Once in a lifetime, we get to start a blog on the first day of the roaring 2020s. This is the start of something great.

Tom Blaney’s Philosophy

Personal Philosophy

I seek out people that communicate what makes their service meaningful and valuable to others in their community. I try to understand why they want to serve, what they are most proud of, what challenges they want to take on, and how they want to show results.

I do this by researching issues, preparing blogs showing their positions, and making the connection between how they want to serve and what their community members want.

I look at how people create their lives around their goal of service and how they deliver results efficiently and effectively.

In the future, I’d love to help the blog’s readers improve on how they communicate their offerings of services and products to their communities.