# Crossroads By [MICKY](https://paragraph.com/@amindfulcreator) · 2022-07-10 --- [![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMYAEHE2GrM) My brother was a rapper before he joined the Marines out of high school. He brought me up on Bone Thugs and Crossroads has been one of my favorite songs since I can remember hearing music. So I bumped it earlier today and started thinking more about the times i’ve hit a fork in the road and wrote this blog post. In my last few posts, I’ve mostly shared short takes, thinking out loud style, related to how I think about life, the nature of setting goals, and sometimes random updates on what I’m working on in the music and startup worlds. Those are all linked in my North Star Weekly newsletter that goes out every Sunday [here](https://nstar.substack.com/). The big theme that runs through most of my content though is change. It’s evergreen. We all go through changes ourselves, in our relationships, with our communities, and as humanity. Change, both good and bad, is the ground we all stand on. **How Change Works** Humans thrive through change and historically have developed new capabilities in response to the challenges they’ve faced. That’s how humanity persists. Imagination and creativity have allowed us to create solutions to problems where prior to their existence, most of the population had never seen nor would accept. How did we get to the moon? It wasn’t possible until it was. Until someone’s imagination and creativity led them to resources and methods previously blanketed by end all beliefs. The point is we never know for sure what resources we can tap into if we accept we already know what they are. But that’s why we innovate. That’s why we dream. That’s why we question why things can’t be a certain way. And that’s why we should question ourselves too. When life goes sideways, how can we leverage change and launch ourselves rather than fall off the cliff? **How I’ve Changed** In high school I wanted to be a pro-athlete. Then when I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I pursued being an artist. Then when I couldn’t afford to chase that dream anymore, I got into the startup world to apply my specific knowledge. Basically I have a history of creating and shedding identities. But my DNA discovery shock a few years ago woke me up. One Facebook message led me down a new path. A journey of self-discovery. Yet with the new information, there were still questions I knew I’d never have answered. I felt paralyzed for a while, so I just put my head down on work, the thing that was currently defining me. But when the pandemic hit and I had more time to think about my inner world, and with a globally shared experience related to sudden change, I saw the ground we all stood on more clearly than ever. The feeling of shock an uncertainty was now felt to some degree by everyone on the planet at the same time. We all crashed and had to pick up the pieces in some way. We all had to confront the reality that our lives would never be the same. We all hit a crossroads. I saw people around me sink and people swim. I knew there was no hiding behind an image this time. **Why Changing is Hard** We get deeply attached to our sense of self. It’s hard to shed it. But this image, the way we perceive ourselves and the way we think others perceive us, is not who we really are. It’s a result of our conditioning. All the information in our minds, our opinions and beliefs, all of that is a result of our exposure to life accumulated over time. A lot of that information is helpful. It helps us develop good morals and not screw other people up if we can help it. It makes us good at specific things we think will give us financial security and social status too. So we focus mostly on that stuff. But a lot of it is just someone else’s opinions based on their own unique set of inputs they, nor we, have ever questioned deeply. The way I see it, to break away entirely from this cycle and to see things for what they are, to see ourselves, without all the layers, and as a result, to see each other, we have to let go and look inward. Most people find themselves going down this path after they crash. The pressure is strongest then to pick up the pieces, hop in the whip, and choose the right way when we hit a crossroads. If only to not have to crash again and feel the pain. But there is no right way here. And during the process of figuring out which way to go, we usually just feel lost. But being lost is also liberating depending on your vantage point. We just aren’t used to thinking this way because we subscribe to what we think we should be rather than observing what we are. So we get stuck for a bit until we accept we must try something new. Then we realize it works the same way as applying ourselves in the outer world. We get to know the subject better with time and we learn how to act whole heartedly, with integrity, and to care for others. Because we understand the process and what they’re going through. We also don’t get in our own way as much. What inspires me these days is thinking about this and helping people through their own crossroads. Specifically creators, entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to break the cycle. Forks in the road will pop up when we least expect them, sometimes through opportunity, but usually through the loss of something we hold close, like people, jobs, dreams, and our own perceived identities. But we can begin to develop how we respond in these situations and grow closer with ourselves so we can get closer and closer to living a life that’s aligned with what actually makes us feel good. Not just the idea of what will. **Letting Change Happen** So what can we do in these moments? I’ll tell you what works for me. It’s up to you if you want to listen and try any of it out for yourself. We first accept we don’t know what we don’t know. About the world and ourselves. That allows us to widen our perspective so we can break out of the cycle. Not to be all dramatic, but really what we do is observe and question. We edit our inputs rather than only focusing on what we want our output to be. That’s how systems thrive. And in a world with so much information shoved in our brains every time we touch a screen or one of our senses is deployed, it’s hard to know which inputs will make or break us. It seams reality has taken on more meanings than ever these days. We don’t know what or who to believe so we subscribe to whatever crew makes us feel secure so we can stop thinking and believe something. But reality, if it could be a single thing, may just be the projection of our own thoughts and opinions. Different for each of us. For the most part, we tend to think about changing reality for everyone. Or for a specific market if you’re a founder. We wan’t to change the world. And we can, but first by changing how we see it. **Creating a Plan** So what is the first action item? Where do we start? Well for me, it began with creating a plan to lead me home. To what I am without all the packaging. The beliefs, the image, whatever singular thing I marked myself as to make it easier for others to understand me when it only made it harder to understand myself. And as I mentioned above and in a previous blog post [addition by subtraction](https://mirror.xyz/amindfulcreator.eth/LU1gAobGF5wy-x7fjKqef9Ke-909yPHaNlECGYP1JzI), I deleted the negative inputs first. The toxic relationships and the negative content and substance intake needed to be cut. I purged my social media and digital workspace. I had tough convos with people that I put off for too long. With my physical and digital worlds clear, I could start fresh. In these moments, when your back’s against the wall, you can see everything clearly. From here, what worked for me was establishing a foundation for good habits that would allow me to continue feeling clear. I started with writing and meditation. Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages and exercises throughout her book [The Artists Way](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006H19H3M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) helped me face what I’d told my self I was only compartmentalizing, which was another way for me to dress up burying it, for years. It made me step up and face my mind. The worries, the regrets, the embarrassments, the false beliefs, the joy, the memories, you name it. It was me vs. me for those first few weeks until I got out of the past and future and into the present. Then I got into meditation apps and ultimately found [The Waking Up](https://www.wakingup.com/) app from Sam Harris. It opened me up to a new understanding of mindfulness and consciousness I hadn’t quite understood before. It always seemed like a place to escape for peace for 20 mins, but I learned it’s more about taking it with you wherever you go. The 58 day intro course is a great way to introduce yourself to the subject and understand the science behind how we function. And the better we understand that, the better we can function ourselves, in our relationships, and in the world. While going through this process you’ll likely uncover interests and dreams you never knew you had. You’ll reconnect with people. You’ll feel more connected to yourself, and as a result, others, and the world. So now it’s about focusing on how to fuel this fire. One way to do this is to find guides or mentors through real life and the content you consume to sustain that feeling. See who’s doing what you want to do, or who creates content that inspires you and create a twitter list. There are a lot of people on Twitter these days making a living through services and templates helping people in their niche help themselves. I call these people guides. Byt the way you can learn [Zapier](https://zapier.com/app/dashboard) and route their tweets to a personal discord channel, a weekly email digest to yourself, or even a text message. What’s the point? Positive inputs = positive output. Just like good food and exercise results in a healthy body. The mind is the same. **Bye Bye Bye** When we learn that we can and we learn how to edit our inputs, we become flexible and crossroads become opportunities for our own growth. We don’t get stuck. Like water that bends around a rock in the river, we keep flowing. I think Bruce Lee said something like that. We become more comfortable rolling with the punches. And when we fall, we rise like a phoenix over and over again. Our journey never ends, but we can look up every once in a while to see if where we’re going will give us what we’re looking for. I hope this post was helpful. And thanks bro, and thank you Bone Thugs for making that song. I’m glad I listened to it today and wrote this. Inspiration can strike at any moment, but it’s on us to capture it in the moment and turn it into something beautiful. --- *Originally published on [MICKY](https://paragraph.com/@amindfulcreator/crossroads)*