*Typing*

I am fortunate to have fallen in love a couple of times in my life. While every love is different, what has remained the same––at least for me––is the way in which the love hits me. It feels not unlike stepping into a galloping river and then being completely swept away. I believe most good things are this way: friendships, experiences, opportunities and creative pursuits. They require a degree of work and thoughtfulness but they should feel as though there is an invisible wind at your back. We have a tendency to romanticize pain and suffering, believing that for something to be valuable it must embody these qualities. But, what if this isn't true? What if good things felt good and bad things, bad. What if the way in which something makes you feel is indicative of whether or not it is a thing worth pursuing? I digress.

It's impossible to compete with someone without also comparing yourself to them. Competition is comparison. It's a comparison of who is better. If it's true originality you're after, you should never compete. You should seek to create work that's so wildly abnormal, it exists beyond comparison and stands alone from the competition. It might take a lifetime to create work of this nature. However, even in the moments you fail, by attempting to create outside the confines of competition and comparison, you will create work that feels fresh, new and ambitious. Good luck.

I was writing from this coffee shop in Santa Monica yesterday afternoon. Pinned to the walls were all sorts of posters saying different things. Be it the 3 p.m. caffeine crash or an inexplicable wave of melancholy, I wasn't feeling so hot. I could feel my pen begin to choke as if it was running out of gas and so I looked up to give the words room to breathe. I locked eyes with a poster that read, "It's not about feeling good all the time, it's about getting good at feeling." I took a moment to feel what I was feeling. Then, I got back to writing.

Uncertainty and anxiety are not one in the same. Uncertainty is feeling uncertain. Anxiety is feeling discomfort about feeling uncertain. Everyone experiences uncertainty. But, not everyone experiences anxiety.

Those who experience less anxiety than others aren't necessarily more certain. They're just more comfortable with being uncertain. It's counterintuitive but you don't alleviate your anxiety by developing greater certainty. You alleviate anxiety by recognizing you will never have the certainty you crave.

Carl Jung believed most coincidences weren't coincidences at all but instead synchronicities.

The Swiss Psychologist coined the term synchronicity to describe the phenomenal moments in life when two unrelated experiences become intertwined in a surprising way. While most scientists believe synchronicities to be nothing more than coincidences caused from confirmation bias, Jung felt differently.

Jung felt that most "coincidences" were directly related to the observer's mind and could provide powerful insight and direction.

I side with Jung.

I don't believe in superstition. I don't think twice about a black cat crossing the road or a murder of crows piled on the rooftop of my home. However, I do believe in synchronicity. I am constantly looking for positive synchronicities in my life to fuel my creativity, brighten my day and feel better about decisions I am making with my heart rather than my mind.

I will never walk past a heads-up penny. I will squint to see meaningful shapes in the clouds. I will smile every time I think of someone and, at that very same moment, they decide to call. I will read books and watch movies and listen to albums that people keep bringing up to me at random. I will feel luckier than a leprechaun in a patch of four-leaf clovers when I see my lucky number on a mailbox or a mile marker or etched somewhere in a bathroom stall.

I believe in synchronicity because looking for synchronicity makes my life better, happier and lighter. I believe in synchronicity because there is something beautiful about spending your life looking for positive coincidences that might not be coincidences at all.