From age 5 and on, why the hell are you put into desks, told to sit, and then you must listen to whoever is put in front of you for the rest of your life.

K-12.

Then 4-6 years of college.

Maybe even more years if you go get a Ph.D.

Notice what happens/happened after that....

You pretty much go back to adult kindergarten.

Sit down, shut up, and blindly listen to the execs. Just like you blindly listened to the "teachers" for 20i-sh years. Now it becomes 20+ years of blindly following your bosses' tails so that you can earn an extra "bonus" (paper that goes into an imaginary vault somewhere lol) each year.

IT IS BULLSHIT. The system is not setup to help YOU THRIVE.

Lets say you were a good little student, then turned good little young professional...what happens?

Decades of sitting at a desk, being obedient, putting money in your 401k because that brings happiness right?!?

Ehhh.

Welp, I guarantee you, and anyone else... you would rethink life the moment you get/got sick/ill and wake up to the fact that you have literally caged yourself in for your entire life.

Ever heard of mid-life crisis?

Or even what seems to be happening more these days, the quarter life crisis?

Young people stuck at "home" after college because they took on too much debt, didn't get a high enough paying job, and desperate to figure out where the F to go with their lives.

Then the parents looking at them like "WTF..." but never seem to realize they put those kids in a system in which they were told what to do for 20+ years...how can you expect them to fly on their own then?!?

Of course they cannot see this though, because those same parents, they are miserable themselves. 25+ years, a couple divorces/diseases/strokes/or heart attacks will do that to them.

I don't mean to be harsh. But as you can tell, I am fired up today.

Why?

BECAUSE THE SOLUTION IS SO VERY OBVIOUS.

More importantly, it is simple and cheap.

In short, it starts with H.R.M.S.

Hydrate

Read

Meditate

Sweat

Our society is chronically dehydrated. Drinking sugary/caffeinated drinks all day, rather than focusing on enough H2O intake every day. If you focus on your water intake, I guarantee you will focus on other areas of your life that are helpful for your personal health. Do you focus on your water intake as much as you focus on getting that caffeine every morning? Or as much as you think about speeding up the week just to get to the weekend so you can down some alcohol? If not, ask yourself why?

Most kids hate reading (I certainly did), but not because it is something they don't enjoy, but because they are forced to read things they are not interested in. SO THEY END UP NOT DOING IT AT ALL. Lets allow kids to explore reading WHAT THEY LOVE. Then they will turn into adults that read more. And we need more adults that READ!!! Do you read as much as you watch Netflix? If not, ask yourself why?

You are constantly shown a world where body image matters. Sports, fitness, physical strength...it is everywhere. Yet, why is mental strength rarely talked about? Life is fucking hard. Our mindset is directly related to how we respond in hard times. Mental fortitude should be one of the first lessons we learn as kids. And mental fortitude begins with self-awareness...which we can instill through proper meditation. Do you meditate as much as you worry? If not, ask yourself why?

Grade schools are getting rid of their physical education programs, colleges will force you to take "mandatory" (pointless) electives, but have little to no general health and wellness offerings for you, and more and more corporations are pressuring you to "work" through lunch... and often times after hours. Were you put on this earth to sit all day? Staring at computers and phones all day? NO!!! Literally your bio-mechanics as a human are not meant to do what you are doing, yet few are speaking up against all of this. :(

Movement CURES. Sweat HEALS. There is so much science to back this up. Yet, the majority of people still do not take action on it. IT IS STATISTICALLY PROVEN THAT YOUR LIFE WILL BE HAPPIER AND HEALTHIER IF YOU MOVE YOUR BODY DAILY. Do you exercise as much as you scroll on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin wishing you had "the life" that you see others living? If not, ask yourself why?

H.R.M.S do this, live this, and share it with others. Something so simple could literally save lives, and our world. We need more people looking at the root cause of all the troubles we are seeing today. And those troubles start, and they end, WITH OURSELVES.

Improve the sum of the parts, and the whole gets better.

#thriveon

CJ

ps: today I am grateful that I struggled so intensely with my auto-immune disease in my early 20's. Sounds crazy to say that, but the reality is, it woke me the fuck up. It forced me to wake up and realize I was living life on other people's terms. The pain caused reflection, and the reflection caused me to find my own solutions. My happiness and health today, and for my entire future, they are a direct result of the suffering in my earlier years. I hope to inspire you to do the same type of reflection and find your own solutions as well.