In spiritual cultivation communities, the master’s teach that understanding and improvement comes through conflict, either with ourselves, with others, or with our environments. This year I’ve experienced all three, continuously.

At the end of 2010 and start of 2011 I had a high paying job at an internet startup. I thought it would be great, but unfortunately I wasn’t happy and the job consumed every aspect of my life. I decided that I wasn’t happy there, and chose to quit.

This decision had a lot of ramifications. A few negative, but mostly positive, such as figuring out what I really want to be doing with my life.

Also, I started dating, and on May 1 I proposed to Deborah Yun.

Deborah’s a really great person who is always striving to be better in life. She has taught me a lot, and helped fill in the gaps and missing pieces on the road to fulfilling my potential. Plus she’s cute and funny.

You can see her photography at www.deborahyun.com.

But very quickly we both found out that living the freelance life (me a website developer and her a photographer) in Los Angeles can be very difficult and tiring.

We decided to move in together for a lot of reasons, including saving money and being closer to one another.

Arghh!

We must have gone to at least 20 apartments, and applied for several. The process was exhausting, driving through LA traffic during the middle of the day, filling out applications, and dealing with a lot of other issues that came up.

The bottom line was that we couldn’t find anywhere nice to live that was also affordable; At least not at our standards. The place we thought was perfect for us was instead given to a friend of the land lady.

Meanwhile, my laptop crashed. Windows 7 decided not to work anymore after I installed the PHP Zend web development framework. For some reason the PNPClass.sys file, a Windows driver, became corrupt, and god help me there was no way to fix it. Including multiple re installations of Windows. None of them would even run. Something went wrong at the hardware level.

What this meant is that the last 4 months of work, including the Dragon Ball book related content, research, and notes, was gone! It was all gone!!

Inexplicably, the backups that I had been making of the book vanished from my USB thumb drive when I went to find them later.

Truly devastating to have your life’s work disappear.

I researched the heck out of hard drive recovery methods, and ended up using a Linux boot disc to try and access the files. But they had already been written over during the attempted re-installs.

So I used a super nerdy program called PhotoRec to recover the files one layer down, but as it happens, it only recovered the files that I didn’t need, not the ones recently written or updated.

In addition, some of the blog posts I wanted to make, such as my recap of Anime Expo 2011, were put on hold, as well as any future articles.

Everything was gone and I was just going to have to accept it.

Then, needing some type of OS, I tried to install Ubuntu Linux, which worked for a day before crashing at the startup screen again, after spending hours setting all of my programs up. The hard drive was officially dead.

The entire experience was exhausting, and almost made me buy a Mac! I came very close to doing so, but was able to get my laptop fixed by the manufacturer free of charge, since it was still under warranty. Although truth be told, the new Macbook Air does look awesome.

In any case, I had to come to terms with the reality, both internally and externally. I realized that Los Angeles was too expensive and that things weren’t working out, despite my best efforts.

Moving Right Along

Deborah and I decided to move to Fresno, California, where her mother has a nice house. That way, we can get away from the Los Angeles traffic, the expensive apartments, food, and stressful cycle of working to survive and then continue working. By doing so, we could escape the hamster wheel of modern life.

Before the move we sold almost all of our belongings on CraigsList, except for personal items. That was a very freeing, and lucrative, experience.

So far so good. Fresno is a little hot, but otherwise awesome. Living in the suburbs of a countryside type city has a lot of perks: All of the benefits without any of the drawbacks. Really nice, actually, and I’m very grateful to be here. Things are looking good.

What this means is that I’m now able to focus on the projects that are important to me, like finishing the book. Also completing freelance websites and saving up money for the wedding and other momentous occasions in life.

On a very positive note, for an even more inexplicable reason my DBZ book content came back! It showed up again on my USB stick, and I have no idea how or why! But I’m very glad it did, as I’m picking up right where I left off!

Lessons Learned

The first lesson I learned is to use a cloud backup of all my important files.

Now I use CrashPlan to automatically backup my hard drive. If anything should happen in the future, I always have it available in the cloud.

Secondly, I’m better at following through and completing the things I start. Otherwise, I simply won’t start it. I had so many important articles partially complete, that when I lost them, I felt like they could never be written again, or in the same way. Inspiration only strikes once.

Furthermore, I’m trying to minimize and simplify my life down to the essentials. Eventually I may become a digital nomad and travel the world while building websites and writing.

The whole experience of 2011 has been difficult yet beneficial. I’m finding out who I am, what I want, and how I can better benefit other people.

Overall, I’ve realized that while the book is a work in progress, so am I.

I guess this is what means to be in your 20′s.

Look forward to the release of the book at the end of the year, and more blog posts along the way.

Also, more and more people are contacting me about the “How to Train Like Goku” bonus article, so I’ll make that a priority for those who want to pre-order the DBZ book.

Thanks, everyone!

Post from: The Dao of Dragonball Blog

Work In Progress

Anger and pain narrow the mind. Compassion and tolerance broaden the mind.

Pain and anger drive one to take immediate actions. Comfort and pleasure pacify the mind to linger in non-action.

In Dragon Ball, villainous forces run amok. Different beings vie for power and control of planets.

Both the Guardian named Kami and North Kaio are passive deities, wrapped in idyllic comfort. They are supposed to protect the people within their domain, but most of the time they don’t do anything.

Placed above the living world in stations of authority, they look out with a broad view at the sentient beings below. Yet they are more dedicated to watching events unfold then changing them. They pass time with voyeurism.

They do not use their vast powers and supernormal abilities. Laws are in place that state how they can interact with the lesser beings. Thus, with restraint in their heart and a broad long term perspective that things will work out on their own, they do not act. They only lament the current state of affairs. The beings below are left to fend for themselves.

Goku’s life is uncomfortable. Whether under attack or in training, Goku is forced to become angry in order to ascend. Goku is a genuinely nice person, but when he is pushed to the limit he becomes filled with rage. He is a true spiritual warrior who directs short term anger in explosive waves.

There were only a couple cases in Dragon Ball when Kami became angry enough to act.

The first was when he descended to earth to fight Piccolo Daimao in the Tenkaichi Budokai martial arts tournament. Filled with rage against his spiritual lesser half, and frustrated with himself for his lack of previous actions to solve the problem, Kami sought to kill his other self.

But even while taking action it was through indirect means, as Kami possessed a pure spirited human’s body to enter the tournament.

In the end, he wasn’t strong enough to win the battle, and Goku had to finish the job.

The second was in the Dragon Ball Z movie called Dead Zone. Kami fought against Garlic Jr., a being who sought to usurp the throne of Guardian. Kami became angry, gained focus, and descended to the earth once again.

But even with his holy powers, Kami was too weak of a fighter to offer a serious challenge.

If Goku and his son Gohan weren’t around to defeat this villain, then Kami’s old age and lack of battle power would have meant the destruction of the world.

The responsibility is repeatedly left to Goku to fight, sacrifice, and endure in order to overcome increasingly greater challenges. As a result, Goku grows in power exponentially and surpasses all the gods, including his martial arts masters.

Burst Through Limits

Goku’s masters do not help him ascend. They only provide the environment and means to do so.

Goku learns by doing. Because Goku is a self-enlightening student, his teachers cannot help him enlighten through lecturing. Rather, they passively provide him with difficult external situations. The training consists of physical suffering amidst external stimuli.

His masters only take direct action after Goku passes one of their challenges and are therefore forced to set up another. Eventually they have no more to offer and he moves onward.

The few martial arts techniques they do teach are ultimately self-taught anyway. Goku’s painful martial arts training forces him to focus on the higher states of mind required to perfect each technique.

His masters are ensconced in comfort, have no focus, and do not grow. They do not cultivate themselves. For ages they stay in their positions and fulfill their roles. Yet as time cycles onward, their lives come to an end. Soon they are replaced by another, who again maintains the status quo.

Goku’s continual progress is the combined result of deadly external circumstances and an internal drive to burst through limits. Even when external scenarios do not provide a barrier to overcome, he finds one within.

This is why Goku is #1.

Post from: The Dao of Dragonball Blog

Anger and Focus in Dragon Ball

Piccolo and Gohan - Master and Disciple

You cannot force someone to change their heart.  The most effective long-term way to change others is to change oneself.

A common way to change someone is to directly inform, persuade, or force another person to align themselves with the way in which you desire them to change.  Barring any personal reasons for resistance, a willing and intelligent person will usually comply with the requirements of the request.

However, this direct method is primarily one of short-term change, because it is only the external behavior that has changed, not the underlying mindset or mechanisms that led to such a behavior.  Usually it will take 3 or more applications of such a method for it to ‘stick.’

In order for a person to truly change for the long-term they have to change their mindset, be willing to let go of their current notions or methodologies and make a conscious effort to change on their own behalf because it is what they want, for themselves and for others.

I have noticed adverse effects with the short-term method and subsequently avoid this method to change others directly, because doing so can be rather ineffective or even produce the oppositely intended result.  It may also produce a scenario where it’s always the ‘other person’s fault,’ which is an unnecessary judgment that often leads to stagnation in my improvement.

Rather, upon seeing what I perceive as a character flaw in others I will look within and alter or eliminate any trace of what I may see in others that I feel needs to be changed within my own character.  In so doing I become the living embodiment of a higher standard.  I look within, find any character flaw that may be present, change or eliminate it, and improve myself in the process.  I believe that this is truly ‘looking inward.’

Consequently, living in such a way will reflect onto others, in so doing I provide the person within my area of effect with an opportunity for self initiated change.

How?  They’ll see the change in character, behavior and the disparity between their behavior and my own.  Like a light that clears away the fog of their mind it will reveal the truth that was always there but once again lies before their eyes, and in a compassionate, honest and respectful way they will have a chance to change and improve.

A change at this point will be one of long term ramification because the person will have made a fundamental change in their own personal character.  Their mindset will have shifted, and that’s a big deal because any future thoughts that arise within a mind that has been altered will thus follow a different path.

It’s like construction on a road way, with cars running through it.  A road was going one direction and thoughts (cars) could only go from location 1 to 2, but now construction has occurred, and a new avenue has opened up.  The thoughts may still travel from 1 to 2, but now they can also go to three 3.  And perhaps in the future the thoughts will only travel from 1 to 3.

The idea is that this new destination is a better place, a more positive and uplifting place with a higher standard. The thoughts couldn’t reach this place before because there wasn’t a way for them to do so and they didn’t meet the standard for that realm… that realm of thought.

The most effective way to change a person’s heart is by showing them how you have changed your own.  An honest and openly direct short-term approach can work well too, and is certainly useful and necessary in many situations, but a long-term approach is most often the best approach, and it starts with changing oneself to live up to a higher standard.

Look within, work on improving your own character and take your realm of thought to a higher place.  From that moment on wherever you go you will make an impression on others and it will be an indirect, compassionate, as well as honest approach that will change their lives for the better.

Post from: The Dao of Dragonball Blog

How to Change Others for the Long Term