The Holstee Manifesto, line by line
For me, this manifesto can be read over and over and over again, so this time I decided to go through it line by line and share with whoever feels like reading.
THIS IS YOUR LIFE.
So, why do we act so many times like it’s not ours? We stop living our way because we worry about opinions and compare with others, because maybe we don’t see ourselves as the most capable persons to drive our lives… and then we end end up living according to someone else’s rules, opinions, fears and limits.
If it’s your life, create rules that are authentic to yourself and your individual core values, and most of all… be true to yourself. No one knows you better than you can. Be true to yourself and the rest will follow.
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, AND DO IT OFTEN.
As heard around: There’s no point in living if you can’t feel alive.
There are things that light up our inner happiness. I don’t mean distractions for when you feel blue but the kind of things that you still want to do when you’re happy. What about hiking, reading, writing, traveling, being with your friends, or even having a silent moment to spend with yourself?
Are you really aware of those things that light up your life and make your heart beat like nothing else can? If you still haven’t found this kind of thing, think of something that you want to do when you’re having a good day and that can be done for free.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE SOMETHING, CHANGE IT.
Just because things are one way it doesn’t mean they will forever. Actually… it’s up to you. Specially when it’s something about you and the way your life happens. You may think that there are things over which you have little or no power so can’t change them, but then you can do something even better: Change the way you feel about those.
Remember that when YOU change, EVERYTHING changes.
There are few things as empowering and constructive to self-confidence as changing and transforming your life for better.
Are you afraid of changes? Maybe think of it as if you had no option but to change and then not only will you find new ideas on how to start such transformations, but you might also have a new perspective that it’s not as scary as we sometimes think it can be. Just try it and start with little things but on a steady basis.
And you know what? When you create changes yourself it’s pretty much like designing and generating the wave you’d like to surf instead of just being dragged by one.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE YOUR JOB, QUIT.
So, we spend a lot of time of our lives working, right? Then I just have one question: If this was your last month alive, would you like to spend it trapped in a place you don’t like or even hate?
Of course we won’t always feel great about everything in our lives. It’s true that sometimes we decide to trade some of our freedom for money or other benefits that let us come closer to our dreams and wellness, but that certainly doesn’t mean we have to suffer all the way towards what we wish for. Sometimes when we do, by the time we are close to our goals, we have suffered so much that the goals don’t look so interesting anymore and it’s truly heartbreaking. But then if this happens go back to IF YOU DON’T LIKE SOMETHING, CHANGE IT. Yes, even goals and dreams.
Are you worried about money or benefits? Then also go back to IF YOU DON’T LIKE SOMETHING, CHANGE IT; and figure out if you can change something about your lifestyle of even about how you feel in relationship to money and benefits. It’s all up to you, remember THIS IS YOUR LIFE. ;)
And don’t panic about money… Sometimes being at the edge of being worried is part of the experience you need to figure out that crazy idea that can take you to the next best thing. Trust your instinct, you’ll be just fine. It’s part of the adventure.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME, STOP WATCHING TV (AND SCROLLING ON SOCIAL MEDIA).
Stop wasting your time. It’s insane how used we are to throw away our time (as well as energy and money) like it’s an infinite resource. Time is actually the only resource that cannot be renewed, once wasted it’s gone.
This certainly doesn’t mean you have to be productive 24/7 as when working or studying or being some sort of whatever genius. It means that you can be largely benefited by having a more conscious decision on where to invest your personal resources (time, energy and even money).
Are you not aware of how much time you’re spending on nonsense? Try to cut that stuff out of your life just for one day and realize how much extra time you had. Maybe even just like an awareness experiment.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE, STOP; THEY WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU WHEN YOU START DOING THINGS YOU LOVE.
Now this can be a tough one, yet it makes sense even you put romantic love a little bit aside. It is as simple as this: People like to be around people who seem to be happier in their lives.
Of course there are persons who like to be around sufferers so they can talk about how shitty life is, and even in that scenario people who are happy by suffering are attractive to others who like the same. They just kind of make sense to each other and connect. ;)
Back to things you love, when you actually enjoy yourself it’s noticeable because you smile (in whatever way you express yourself being smiley), you are more prone to be enthusiastic, you have more energy, your conversations are passionate about these things you love and people can even become inspired or interested just by the way you speak about your topics even if they are too intellectual, too basic, or too-whatever… Connections like this tend to be more genuine and of course, deeper. Works to make friends as much as for romantic purposes.
The main point here is: Enjoy your-fckn-self, for real. You might be so busy having a great time instead of showing hunger for love and affection.
STOP OVER ANALYZING, LIFE IS SIMPLE.
Imagine yourself being taken on a trip that is a surprise. Now imagine yourself just being driven with no effort until you come to the surprise spot. What would your experience be like for yourself and others if you were asking things such as “Are we there yet?”, “Are you sure I’m not underdressed?”, “Wouldn’t it be better if we took another route?”, “Do you think there is an ATM at the spot?”, “Will they have WiFi?”, and so on.
It is quite simple, if you just closed your eyes and enjoyed the ride, you might feel the wind on your face, listen to the sounds, feel the movement, or just have the chance to relax and being taken. On the other hand, when you’re trying to understand everything you just loose all of the previous chances of enjoying and do the same for people around you. So don’t (or at least try).
Yes, it is necessary to make some questions in life and trying to understand things but that doesn’t mean that you have to over analyze everything because maybe it’s not even like that. Things are as simple as you decide them to be, even when they are complex. Complicated is more related to hard, complex doesn’t need to be complicated. Just go with the goddam flow!
ALL EMOTIONS ARE BEAUTIFUL.
It’s crazy how poor emotional vocabulary has become, and we reduce emotions to cool (good) or meh (not so great). Are you aware of the fact that there are more than 300 different emotions?
Emotions are all beautiful (even they’re sad ones) just for the fact that each of them can just be felt in a specific sort of situation, and as the word itself says so they are in-motion; which means that they will not last forever.
Of course, there are emotions that we enjoy more than others but to let them flow and be felt can really self-educate your emotional intelligence so that you can identify them, know how they happen and then you can work with them for better purposes.
WHEN YOU EAT, APPRECIATE EVERY LAST BITE.
Yes, food can be truly amazing… Yet I’d put this specific line as being present in moments. As in STOP OVER ANALYZING, LIFE IS SIMPLE, the thing is to enjoy all the perfect little things and flavours that life has to offer (whether it’s food or something else) and being present along the whole experience to be there for all the emotions that can emerge.
Just be there, be present and flow through the experience (which certainly does not mean that you have to put your well-being at last or not setting healthy boundaries).
In a different interpretation this could also mean to be grateful for what you do have at the time. Anyway, eating can be a never ending metaphor.
OPEN YOUR MIND, ARMS, AND HEART TO NEW THINGS AND PEOPLE, WE ARE UNITED IN OUR DIFFERENCES.
Together we are better, so when we include new people we include their whole personal universes into our lives. It’s true that not every universe can be easily integrated with others and that’s where differences appear.
When we integrate and interiorize new experiences to our lives, we become more than we were before such experiences. Now, when those experiences come from realities different or opposite to ours, we have the benefit of exploring realities that we would naturally maybe never explore or get to know. By getting insights from opposite experiences our personal coverage area just grows and we grow with it.
Of course this point is about being open to things and people but also remember THIS IS YOUR LIFE and you decide what you are open to or not, and to what extent. You are always also free to decide to not do something if it goes against your principles or your well-being.
ASK THE NEXT PERSON YOU SEE WHAT THEIR PASSION IS, AND SHARE YOUR INSPIRING DREAM WITH THEM.
Insights are awesome! Finding out what other people like, love, laugh about is finding new opportunities for you to do the same and maybe notice things that you weren’t aware of before.
You can see these pieces of information from observation but you can also ask people what their passion and dreams are. Why? Not only do you show interest in them, what can build different relationships amongst peers or new-buddies, but they can tell you about this information from their own point of view instead of what can be seen as an observer.
Also, as in IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE, STOP; THEY WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU WHEN YOU START DOING THINGS YOU LOVE; finding out what someone’s passion and dreams are you might find a new thing to explore yourself and turn this conversations into virtuous feedback loops. How would you open this conversation?
TRAVEL OFTEN; GETTING LOST WILL HELP YOU FIND YOURSELF.
When we have everything under control as in being comfortable we tend to stop paying attention to our own personal development (emotional, spiritual, skills… ). Then when we travel (materially and figuratively speaking) we get out of that usual comfort zone, we explore more, we find out how we understand life, we meet new people and their ways… In general terms, we realize that there’s more in the world other than what we already know, and THAT makes us expand in many ways.
Be aware that when you travel on your own, you are your main company and during such times you learn new things about yourself on how experiences challenge you, skills and characteristics that you might have not observed, you find out how adapting you can be, and have many other interesting insights.
Now, when you get lost (hope that it happens in a safe situation) you become present at all times since you need to be aware of everything in order to be able to find the way back home or towards the place you are wanting to go. These past lines are also a metaphor for the fact that usually when you loose your way you become self-aware on how you feel, what your hopes and dreams are, what your concerns and limits are, and you actively work to re-route and find your way.
Getting out of your comfort zone and seeing new places (also in personal or emotional ways) lets you to summarize learnings and put them to use, re-design goals from new experiences and become more creative.
Go on, get lost and let yourself experience the joy of discovery.
SOME OPPORTUNITIES ONLY COME ONCE, SEIZE THEM.
Opportunities don’t appear or disappear, they are just seized by different people. But we fools think that there will be other similar opportunities only to later find out that some of them appear just once in a lifetime.
How can we know what opportunities are worth it? This is a personal point of view: I think I can realize what opportunities are unique when they are exciting, when there are potentials that are exciting and a little scary from being a bit overwhelming or not knowing how to handle their development, when they are different from known experiences, when the idea of not going after them feels like there could be some regret. I don’t know, there is a feeling of excitement and fear when I come close to one of those opportunities and then I just know.
Still don’t know whether if you should give it a try or not? Well, maybe you can ask yourself these two-in-one questions: What is the best and the worst possible outcome from this? If the best outcome could be an interesting, uplifting experience and the worst thing is a possible sadness or effort, GO FOR IT! If the best thing that could happen is not that interesting and the worst thing that could happen is risking your life, then you might want to think twice, and even then you still have the option to put everything in a different light and explore the possibilities again.
If you cannot envision the best thing that could happen, and the worst thing that could happen is something similar to something you have already experienced maybe that specific opportunity has such potential that cannot even be imagined or can give you a new experience. Sounds cheesy, but think about it.
Learn to see potentials in experiences, people and things. That’s what turns them into opportunities that maybe others don’t see, and that… is certainly a skill you want in your life, to be a opportunity hunter.
LIFE IS ABOUT THE PEOPLE YOU MEET, AND THE THINGS YOU CREATE WITH THEM SO GO OUT AND START CREATING.
Co-creation is the name of the game. You can go around in life being a freakin’ genius but never reach your highest potential just for the fact that you might need some help to reach that potential.
Nevermind if you’re a genius or not, ideas grow with other ideas, vision becomes wider by adding other perspectives as in OPEN YOUR MIND, ARMS, AND HEART TO NEW THINGS AND PEOPLE, WE ARE UNITED IN OUR DIFFERENCES, empathy grows from knowing other persons’ experiences, and creativity becomes a lot more powerful when people come together. Joining and linking skills makes us more powerful as teams so we can achieve bigger and more complex things.
Need an example? Imagine your closet, now think if you could borrow some pieces from a friend or sibling’s closet. Your options would double or triple. Now think how this could work if you had extra problem solving tools for your challenges or just for the thrill of creating new possibilities.
There’s even something spiritual about this, if you wish to see it from that perspective. When you co-create, you actually blend a part of you with someone else and that what you have created (a moment, a joke, a feeling, a project, drawing or even a life-changing experience for both -or more- parts) remains forever, that energy lives forever and then even if you come apart for whatever reason, a piece of that person (or people) stays in you. There’s a lot of life enrichment in co-creating.
If you can ASK THE NEXT PERSON YOU SEE WHAT THEIR PASSION IS, AND SHARE YOUR INSPIRING DREAM WITH THEM and try to find out how you can co-create something. You might even innovate!
LIFE IS SHORT.
Actually everything that is enjoyable feels like the available time is short or that you could have more of it. Maybe the thing here is to make the most of your life.
So far I still haven’t met anyone with some sort of life insurance that guarantees how long they will live. What I mean here is that our lives could last 100 years but they can also last a few more hours or minutes, so we could use enjoying it more, experiencing more new things and going beyond our comfort zones, creating new worlds, loving fearlessly with our whole hearts, laughing more, listening all sorts of music, making new friends, taking wilder risks and seizing opportunities, learning more, and in general terms we could use living more, a lot more.
Tomorrow might not come, so if this were your last day on Earth make the most of it. Then if you wake up tomorrow do the same and after a few days try to see the difference of doing so. You can make everyday count and be significant if you wish, it’s not about the epicness of the things you do but about how fulfilling your experiences are even if they’re sad as in ALL EMOTIONS ARE BEAUTIFUL.
LIVE YOUR DREAM AND SHARE YOUR PASSION.
Imagine, envision, create a dream, live it and share the passion in it with others. But even if you‘re still on the path towards living your dream you still can share what you imagine and inspire others or co-create a dream or find allies to join you in some part of the path.
All of the things written along this post add up to this point. Your life, your dream, your passion... Live it.
For me, writing is a part of my dream and makes me passionate as well… So by writing this post and sharing it, I’m living my dream. What’s yours? :)
Sorry if there are some writing mistakes, I was just too excited about posting it. Will proofread, promise.
