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Monk Notes

  • Monk Notes 33 - Impulsive vs. Reflective Action

    It’s easy to get caught in a pattern of mindless and habitual doing. We think that if we want to grow we just need to start doing something. So we...

  • Monk Notes 32 - On Outsourcing Our Values

    It's easy to miss how the values and dreams of the people around us affect us.We all are seeking to understand the world. We are given a certain a...

  • Monk Notes 31 - The Longview of Generosity

    Generosity is directly connected to meaning.Culturally, we have a strange connection to generosity. We hold up generosity as a universally positiv...

  • Monk Notes 30 - When Go With the Flow Is Terrible Advice

    “Go with the flow” can sound like good advice when you are enjoying yourself on a gentle river, but it is terrible advice when you have lost your ...

  • Monk Notes 29 - Pursuing our Deeper Goals

    Intentionality is always preceded by aim. To be intentional about anything in life, one must first have clarity around what one’s end goal actuall...

  • Monk Notes 28 - The Virtues of Less

    The dominant narrative in western culture is one of pursuing more. An unfortunate side effect to this is that we often end up with more. More stuf...

  • Monk Notes 27 - The Entitlement Vs Gratitude Frame

    It would seem that gratitude would come naturally to us. We are attracted to the gratitude we see in others, and sense our own lives would be enri...

  • Monk Notes 26 - What We Prepare For, and What We Don’t

    We prepare for everything important in life. Celebrations, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, tests, performances, presentations, projects, and...

  • Monk Notes 25 - Life Is a Series of Births and Deaths

    Life is births and deaths. Hidden in every birth is the death of something old.Hidden in every death is the birth of something new. Each transitio...

  • Monk Notes 24 - The Untapped Potential Within You

    Everyone and everything in life has a hidden potential. We can see this by looking at an acorn; who could imagine that within such a small acorn h...

  • Monk Notes 23 - On Balancing Being and Doing

    There’s a fundamental tension in life between two internal postures: Control and surrender; agency and dependency; prudence and trust. Some people...

  • Monk Notes 22 - The Power of Presence

    We often feel guilt in relationships because we feel that we don’t do enough.There always seems to be more need; more that we could do to help the...

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