Welcome to Issue 001 of Craving Realness!

I'm excited to jump into the insights that have sparked my curiosity and made me reflect on my trans journey.

I recently found 'Accepting The Universe', a Youtube channel filled with thought provoking content.

At the time of writing this, they are surprisingly only at 30.3K subscribers. The creator / author of the channel is very tapped-in to stoic philosophy, with some overlaps into Buddhism and mindfulness.

These themes have always stuck out to me during my transition and my years struggling with my identity. I think there's a commonality for those of us struggling with identity to search for some sort of meaning or philosophy of life that can give us a solid foundation.

Their first video I watched is titled "Why do you postpone yourself?"

It jumped off the page at me.

While short, this video left me with a lot to think about in my search for living an authentic life.

Read on to find the insights that stood out to me from the video and long-term actions that you can take.

You'll also find and quotes that stood out the most to me from the video along with quick steps to take action on the lessons within for your own journey. Let me know which stands out the most to you!

Insights

• Prioritize Your True Self Over Deferred Happiness: Are you putting off what truly matters to you for a future that's always just out of reach? Too often delay our own growth and happiness by prioritizing external goals like wealth or status, believing that we need those things before we can focus on what really matters to us.

  
  

  The time between accepting my trans identity to doing something about it was LONG. Be cautious of the false barriers that you may be placing in your own path.




• Reevaluate Your Perception of Time and Value: The video brings up a great analogy by Henry David Thoreau the cost of travelling by foot v. train to highlight the importance of factoring in the true cost of our pursuits (time + effort).

  
  

  The question asked, are you considering your time and efforts when making life decisions?




• Align Your Daily Actions With Your Principles: The discrepancy between our values and our daily actions leads to a feeling of unease. Fulfillment in life comes from actively working on our personal development and aligning our daily actions with our core values.

  
  

  I think about this often. I spent too many years trying to live my life in accordance with other's values. This eventually led to years of depression and feeling as though I was living a lie. Finding out what I wanted for my own life helped me start making changes for the better.

Long-Term Actions

• Create a morning and evening routine that aligns to your core values or transition goals.

• Identify one major life goal and break it down into small, actionable steps. (Looking at you, Atomic Habits)

• Find an accepting community that shares your values.

• Practice mindfulness and self-reflection to gain a better understanding of your desires and motivations in life. I like to journal and a nice hot bath is my meditation.

• Regularly check-in on your progress and adjust your course as necessary. Life has a way of steering us into new directions.

Short-Term Actions

• Make a priorities list of your core values and life goals.

• Review your day-to-day routine and identify activities that contradict your priorities.

• Replace one unnecessary activity with something that contributes to your transition or personal growth.

• Practice saying "no" to things that don't align with your values or your journey.

Quotes

• On Desires: "Throw everything away, whatever keeps you from what you really want. Untie the knot, or cut it off altogether." - Seneca

• On the Illusion of Deferred Happiness: “[We think] we first have to work very hard, possibly at a job that we don't like that much or that we like the money of but not much else of, to then eventually one day get to a point where we can enjoy ourselves, where we can finally be happy.” - Accepting The Universe

• On Our Backwards Priorities: "We have put what should come first last for many years" - Accepting The Universe

My Thoughts

The title of this video jumped out at me instantly. That tiny little quote made me feel a sense of guilt, or maybe it was shame? Just this feeling of immediately knowing that there have been huge portions of my life being held back by imaginary walls built up by me along with some very real walls built up by society.

The feeling of shame and guilt came from knowing that often, I am both the captor and prisoner when it comes to the fact that I have not lived my life true to myself.

I hold my own keys to freedom.

Fortunately, this video opens up the perspective and shares some philosophical insights that helped ease that initial burden of guilt I felt.

The concept of deferred happiness presented in this video deeply resonated with me. I have consistently made up excuses and placed obstacles in my path to avoid coming to terms with my transness.

I am using the ideas from this video to work towards living my life in alignment with my values and to notice when I start making up excuses as to why I can't.

I highly encourage you to watch if you've got 11 minutes to spare! I predict many more videos of his in later newsletters.

Have you found something intriguing or useful in today’s read? If you're looking forward to more discoveries like these, I’d love for you to stick around. Subscribing is a simple way to make sure you won’t miss out on future insights. It’s just a click away, and it means we can keep exploring together.

Thanks for reading, be on the lookout for the next issue of Craving Realness!

Resources

• YouTube Video Referenced - Why do you postpone yourself? | Here is the video that sparked off this newsletter.
• Seneca's Letters - The University of Chicago Press Versions | The video creator mentions Seneca's letters. These are a staple in the stoic community and I'm sure there are insights that could be applied to the trans experience.
• Designing Your Life - How to build a well-lived life | A personal recommendation. This book is so useful and extremely practical when it comes to designing your dream life and making it a reality.