In Breaking Bad, Badger notes that even Darth Vader had responsibilities to the Death Star.

His point is that even evil people have responsibilities and perhaps even a code that they abide by to live their life.

For example, take Dexter Morgan. In Dexter, he is a serial killer. However, he only goes after criminals who haven’t gotten caught. He takes his victims by surprise, injects them with a small amount of etorphine to immobilize them and then binds them to a table, using plastic wrap. His crime scenes leave no trace, as he learned how to leave behind no evidence. Being a forensic technician has helped him with that, too. He then wakes them up with smelling salts, shows them images of their victims and then kills them. He then dismembers their bodies and dumps them into the ocean.

To Dexter, he has a responsibility. In his mind, all the criminals who got away with murder deserve a place at his table, so to speak. Because he has this insatiable need to kill, he has channeled the urge to do good in his mind.

We learn early in the series that his adoptive father, Harry, believed that Dexter had the impulse to kill as a young boy. So, he taught him a code to live by when it came to killing. Only kill the bad guys who you know for sure are bad.

Have you ever known someone who was so absorbed by pride that they wouldn’t listen to anyone around them? Pride tends to get in the way of listening to reason and accepting advice from other people. It interferes with making good judgments and decisions.

What Exactly is Pride?

Pride has many different definitions, each giving the word a different attached emotion.

The more positive and healthy definition of pride is having an appreciation or respect for yourself and expecting appreciation and respect from other people.

The more negative definition of pride is valuing yourself and your beliefs as more important than other people.

Is Pride Good or Bad?

Pride could be considered both good and bad depending on the way it presents itself.

Pride could be considered positive when it is not felt in excess. For example, you should feel proud of certain accomplishments in your life like graduating, getting a new job, purchasing your dream house, or owning a successful business. It is healthy to appreciate yourself for accomplishing these things.

However, if you excessively boast about your accomplishments to other people, talk over other people, ignore others’ insights, and show no respect for other people, pride turns negative. This type of pride can cause you to lose relationships as people don’t appreciate being treated as “less than”.

What is Wisdom?

Wisdom is the ability to use your knowledge and experiences to make well-timed and well thought out decisions.

Contrary to popular belief, anyone can possess wisdom. Wisdom is developed throughout the course of your life by having empathy for others, learning to care for yourself, accepting diverse perspectives, failure and dealing with difficult situations.

Why is Wisdom Important?

Having wisdom allows you to take on a long-term perspective when making decisions. Wisdom leads to better decision-making which invites more positive things into your life including the following:

•           Fewer reckless mistakes
•           Achieving goals more quickly
•           Fewer difficult problems
•           Better communication
•           Higher confidence

How Does Pride Interfere with Wisdom?

As mentioned in the quote, pride gets in the way of making wise decisions. In a way, pride is the opposite of wisdom.

Pride prevents us from seeing other perspectives and listening to people who may know more than we do. But these are the exact qualities that are crucial for wisdom. Pride damages our relationships with other people, but wisdom consists of good communication and good relationships.

In order to make room for wisdom, we need to become less prideful and open ourselves up to new perspectives.

How to be More Open to Wisdom 

Question Your Own Perspectives

Pride makes us excessively confident in our own beliefs to the point where we ignore others. A good way to start listening to others is to start questioning yourself. When a thought comes to mind that you feel confident in, ask yourself some questions regarding that belief and be open to learning new information.

Accept New Opportunities

Wisdom is gained through experiences. Seek out opportunities that you’ve never experienced before and strive to make the most out of those experiences.

Listen to Other People

Wisdom is also gained by taking on different perspectives. Listening to people who are different from you can allow you to see situations and circumstances from different perspectives.

Remember, if you have excess pride, it might be time to open yourself up to new experiences and perspectives to gain wisdom and the benefits that come along with it.

In The Sopranos, Tony reminds Richie Aprile (another gangster) that, “Those who want respect, give respect.”

This seems like an obvious morsel of wisdom, but people tend to forget it. The easiest way to earn respect from anyone, is to give it. Sometimes we tend to focus on the respect we believe we deserve, that we don’t honestly examine our own behaviors. Are we showing others respect, too? Are we behaving in an honorable and fair?

When you are in a conversation that has the potential to get heated, here are some ways you can show respect:

1. Actively listen. Listen with a curious heart and interest in really understanding what they are trying to say. Don’t wait to talk or be thinking about how you will respond to what they just said. Be present and take it all in. Then take a minute to digest it all before responding.

2. Affirm what the person said. Reinforce and validate their opinions and achievements. That can look like, “I can tell from everything you just said you’ve really thought about this. I always appreciate your perspective on these kinds of issues.”

3. Empathize with their perspective. You don’t have to agree with someone’s opinion to respect it. Be curious about why they believe what they believe. You might learn something new that challenges your own thinking.

4. Be respectful when disagreeing. Don’t resort to insults just because you don’t agree with them. They have a right to believe whatever they want to believe, just like you do. You can say something like, “We are both obviously passionate about this topic and you have some great points. I just see things differently.”

5. Apologize if needed. I know some people who refuse to apologize, for even minor things. Apologizing if you were wrong and owning up to your mistakes goes a long way in people’s eyes. Don’t make excuses for it or try to change their opinion on what happened. Offer a genuine apology and suggest a plan on how you can avoid the same situation in the future.         

What do you think of when you hear the word “lion”? It usually brings to mind a picture of a ferocious, strong, beautiful, and untamed animal that stands as the ruler of the animal kingdom. If a small dog barked, do you think that the lion would be phased? In the same way, do you think a strong person would let other people distract them from reaching their goals?

Likely not. A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of a sheep and he certainly doesn’t turn around when a small dog barks. To him, it is a distraction that only serves to get in the way of his success.

What Distracts Us from Our Goals?

Things That Are Out of Our Control

When we are working towards our goals, typically things come up that we have no control over.

For example, maybe you have a goal to go for a run every day. One day, there is a thunderstorm during the time you set aside for running, so you miss your run that day. You think to yourself, “I’ll never be able to reach my goal of running every day,” and then your mindset holds you back from running for the next week.

Worrying about things that we can’t control keeps us from continuing to go after our goals or start working towards our goals in the first place.

People Who Don’t Want Us to Succeed

We all encounter people in our lives who don’t want us to succeed. They criticize our every move and constantly watch for any moments we slip up. The truth is that these people are jealous and can’t stand to see someone else achieve great things. Despite knowing this, it can be distracting to have someone always doubting us.

Trying to Be Perfect

We often let perfectionism distract us from our goals. Trying to make everything “perfect” stops us from going toward our goals.

Our Phones

Phones have become one of our biggest distractions. We get countless notifications every day that pull us away from what we are doing and make us lose precious time and concentration.

How to Remain Focused?

Focus on What You Can Control

We like to be in control of everything that happens, but there will always be things that we have no control over. When things come up that you can’t control, focus on what you can control. Use the things you have control over to improve your situation.

For example, if a thunderstorm stops you from running outside one day, you can find a different workout to take its place or join a gym so you can run on the treadmill.

Eliminate Distractions When Possible

There are a lot of distractions that we can eliminate from our immediate surroundings. Getting rid of distractions helps us focus on the work at hand.

For example, if your phone is a major distraction for you, put it in another room while you are working towards your goals.

Just Go for It

When you are working towards your goals, it is important to be like a lion. Go for your goals without letting anything get in your way. You don’t need to worry about that person who wants you to fail or your product not being perfect the first time around. Just go for it, and the rest will fall into place.

Remember, no matter what your goals or aspirations are, be like a lion and ignore the small distractions. Those distractions won’t matter in the end but achieving your goals will feel incredible.

I remember when I saw the first episode of The X-Files in 1993. I was so excited about this series! The show deals with agents assigned to a special investigative branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (played by Gillian Anderson) travel to sites where unexplained and paranormal things occur. Mulder is believes that the government is covering up these events and Scully was brought in as a scientist to temper Mulder’s theories.  

I was exposed to all sorts of geek culture, sci-fi and conspiracy theories growing up. I’ve become forever curious about the things we think we understand in our world. For this reason, a show about government coverups was interesting to me, especially after a television interview I had seen a few years earlier.  

In 1989, Bob Lazar had been featured on KLAS talking to George Knapp about work he was doing at Area 51. He was in disguise and went by the name “Dennis”. As crazy as his story was at the time, I was fascinated by his story. It was very x-filey. And ironically, years later, a lot of what Lazar spoke about then was found to be true. Lazar’s information is also consistent with information released by the Pentagon in the last few years when they admitted to studying UFOs.

If you are ever interested in Bob Lazar and his story, I highly recommend checking out Joe Rogan’s interview with him and Jeremy Corbell. Rogan is an excellent interviewer, and the episode was captivating.

But back to The X-Files. The famous tagline of the show is, “the truth is out there.” It is said throughout the series by multiple characters and is even in the intro to the show.

And fun fact about the show, Vince Gillian wrote and produced many of the episodes in this series. If his name sounds familiar, it should! He brought us Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Everything has a truth, even if we can’t comprehend it. There are things we have discovered recently that defy our complete understanding of physics. We don’t know everything, and we are limited by what we think we know. We should strive to be curious about the world around us. We should seek truth, even when it doesn’t lead where we want it to.

In Game of Thrones, Arya is upset that the people of Winterfell were insulting their brother Jon and Sansa listened to their complaints. Sansa replies that part of her responsibility as the Lady of Winterfell is to listen to what they have to say. She says that if she didn’t listen and offended the men, Jon would lose his army. In Arya’s fierce loyalty, she replies with, “Not if they lose their heads first.”

Sansa tells her sister that they were able to take back Winterfell by working together. She tells Arya, “I’m sure cutting off heads is very satisfying, but that’s not the way you get people to work together.”

When faced with difficult choices and high emotion, it is important to have the ability to take a step back and look at things objectively. If you just react emotionally, you might cut of your nose to spite your face.

Our thoughts are nothing less than powerful, and they shape our everyday lives in ways that science has yet to comprehend fully. They can help manifest the life you’ve always dreamed of, but they can also be your worst enemy if you don’t know how to use their power accordingly. Thoughts can trap us into dark places if we give them the ability to do so.

Would it surprise you to know that the human mind processes thousands of thoughts every day? To keep our minds from becoming overwhelmed and overloaded, we have a filter located in our reticular activating system (RAS). What is our reticular activating system, you ask?

The Reticular Activating System (RAS)

The reticular activating system (RAS) is a collection of nerves located in the brainstem. Its primary purpose is to help control behavioral arousal, motivation, and consciousness and control your reactions to certain stimuli. The RAS is the guard dog that sits between your brain and your five senses. Think of it like a filtration system that determines the relevant information you need to receive and act accordingly.

So, how do you use this to your advantage? Since the RAS doesn’t recognize good vs. evil, you have to change your neural pathways. For example, if you hate to clean your house, the RAS will ensure that it filters out everything associated with tidying up. Try saying, “I love cleaning.” In other words, by changing your thought process, you’ll change your habits.

The Law of Attraction

The law of attraction is a philosophy that proposes like attracts like. For example, if you often have negative thoughts, you’ll attract negative outcomes. The law of attraction holds that thoughts are a form of energy, and that positive energy attracts success in all areas of life.

While some struggle with believing in the law of attraction, others swear by it. They claim by changing their thinking they are able to improve their spiritual, mental, and physical health and overall well-being. Here are some ways you can start harnessing the power of the law of attraction in your life:

• Be aware of negative thoughts
• Express gratitude
• Visualize your goals in great detail
• Search for positive outcomes in negative situations
• Practice using positive affirmations

It’s important to note that changes won’t happen overnight. However, adhering to the law of attraction can help you live a more positive and healthy life.

Remember, our thoughts can be complex. It takes time to make positive changes. But, if you do the work and strive to be better, you can’t go wrong. If your thoughts are powerful enough to wreck your world and bring you face to face with darkness, they are undoubtedly powerful enough to lead you into the light. 

As Albus Dumbledore said, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” However, there are moments in life you must tap into your fantasies to make it through tough times.

Unfortunately, our society often stigmatizes daydreaming and fantasizing as a lack of motivation or seriousness. However, that’s not always true. Fantasizing is a natural part of being human and it plays a significant role in building interpersonal relationships and manifesting future goals and dreams.

While Dumbledore’s words are wise, the truth is, sometimes we need fantasy to survive reality. If you find yourself going through a rough patch, some fantasy might be just the thing that gets you back on track. Here are some ways to keep everything balanced in a time of need.

What Is Fantasy?

Fantasy is an art form. But, for definition’s sake, it’s the practice of thinking about things that are either impossible or improbable. Fantasies can take us to the beach on a cold winter day or to living in a mansion of epic portions. They take us away from the present moment, let us experience what it’s like to live without judgment, and are sometimes necessary to relieve the pressure of our stressful lives.

When To Fantasize

Finding the time to slip out of reality is a rarity in the busy day-to-day grind. However, setting aside some time to relax and de-stress is integral to self-care. You might find it easier to devote time to fantasies before you go to bed. What better time is there to drift into another world where cares are non-existent? When I do this, sometimes my fantasies infiltrate my dreams.     

Don’t Overdo It

As important as it is to devote some time to leaving reality for a brief moment, you mustn’t constantly be there. Though tempting, it can be the opposite of self-care if you’re always daydreaming.

For example, if you missed an appointment because you were busy in your daydream, you should probably scale back and stick to your devoted time slot. However, remember that too much of a good thing can be harmful, so there’s always a balance to keep you in check.

Fantasize, Then Let It Go

For this to work in your favor, you must learn how to leave the fantasies out of your reality effectively. Not to say that the things you dream of can’t become a part of your life, but if you’re using this technique to get through a tough time, it’s wise to keep it separate. So, once you’ve accomplished your fantasy and have the desired outcome, let it go and appreciate it for what it was.

Stay Present

Staying present is incredibly important in everyday life and helps keep your mind from negative thoughts. It can stave off anxiety and depression and help you relax. Even though the whole point of fantasizing is to escape, it’s crucial to spend time staying present, too. So, when you aren’t indulging in your fantasy or daydream, be mindful and stay present.

Sometimes life can be tumultuous, and a little fantasy can help relieve some unwanted stress. The trick is not to overuse this coping mechanism by doing this every time pressing and complex issues surface. So, set some time aside to indulge, take some deep breaths, and let your mind wander to unexplored places.