Everything Zen? I Don’t Think So.

Follow men’s eyes as they look to the skies, the shifting shafts of shining weave the fabric of their dreams.

–Rush, “Jacob’s Ladder”

[Note: Yes, I did think of the Bush quote after already settling on the Rush quote, which is why the title]

Last week I virtually attended the ISC2 Security Congress which was in Las Vegas NV. Three days of cybersecurity talks and other related topics which is always good for increasing the continuing professional education (CPE) credits needed to maintain my CISSP, as well as get insights to new technologies, things I wouldn’t otherwise hear about, new threats, and all sorts of other things. One that comes up now and then is the topic of burnout and fatigue, and they always try to have a few people to talk about how to manage stress. This year was no different, and one of the keynotes in fact was Dan Harris. Dan is a retired news anchor and journalist, and wrote a book called “10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works – A True Story.” While I’ve probably seen him on TV before (I know Stephanie commented that he was one of her favorite journalists when she watched TV news more often in the past), I don’t know that I knew who he was, but I was definitely intrigued as soon as he started talking.

I watched Dan’s speech and thought it sounded very interesting, and his speaking style definitely resonated with me. That night and a quick trip to the online library later, his book was sitting in my phone ready to be perused over the next few nights. After a bit of reading, I signed up to his substack as well, and have been feeling like maybe there’s something to a lot of this. Back in college I spent quite a few nights at a friend’s place and two books on their bookshelf which I read over time were “The Tao of Pooh” and “The Te of Piglet” which a little while ago I’d added to my wishlist and received for Christmas. Something about the books and the information in them struck a chord way back then, and even in my recent re-reading of the books – I wouldn’t say it made me want to embrace Taoism per se, but just felt a bit like.. I dunno, it felt familiar? Comfortable? But I never went beyond that. I just liked how the philosophy felt, but didn’t know that I wanted to dive into it completely yet. I’ve never been a religious person, so the idea of embracing more than a philosophy is a bit much for me, and many of the things I tried to look at after this book wanted to dive too much into religion for my liking so I never really pursued it further.

Dan starts differently, and refreshingly doesn’t dive right into “this will change your life” – instead, it’s about where he came from, and how he got to his lowest point, the struggles to find something to fill the voids, and eventually the answers. But unlike other things I’ve read, the answer isn’t the end, because there’s always more to learn (or at least there should be!) So it continues with some of the missteps, some of the incorrect conclusions and the follow-ups.. in all it’s very personable, and I’m hoping actionable as well. And in the end I may have learned something about myself as well, like why reading “The Tao of Pooh” felt close to something that resonated, but was off just a little bit. Do I know what that means yet? Not sure – I still have more to read. But honestly I think I wanted an excuse to post the above photo.

Have I found inner peace? Not quite yet. But I’m definitely enjoying the story, and going to try applying some of the practices therein. Considering my stress level just started increasing with work again for various reasons that make me want to find a way to retire before age 50, I’d better find something or else I’m going to start self-medicating and not have the benefit of a panic attack on national TV to snap me back to reality.

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