A Manifesto for a Better Me

Some Of You Fake It Until You Make It & Some Of Us Keep Writing It Until We Live It

Introduction

I went to Berlin and found myself dead.

I’m not talking about some sort of out-of-body astral experience they’re pressing into pills and selling on the streets of Friedrichshain. Rather, I went to Berlin and found out that I wasn’t living.

Berlin is living. It’s a place full of energy in the vibrating, bouncing, colliding, nuclear fission sense of the word. Everyone is moving. Every person is realized through saturated expressions and purposeful gestures. Every step falling on every sidewalk is part of a choreographed performance to insult the second law of thermodynamics by creating more energy with each passing beat.

Berlin lives and grows and radiates.

Seeing a city so alive makes for a great vacation, but the experience is also a reference point for the dead to calibrate their internal thermometer. And I was certainly not a Berliner.

Rather, I have been stuck in a not-quite-depressive funk of complacency and listlessness. Spending time and not living it. Making conversation and not engaging people. Doing things but not living. Maybe dead is too strong of a word, but anyone in limbo is as good as dead to the living world they left behind.

Listen. Vacations can be good even when they’re not relaxing. On the tail-end of my trip to Berlin, I began hammering out the first versions of what follows this prelude.

It’s a list!

No no no, hold on, now. This list isn’t your generalized collection of feel-good, marketing-centric values statements. I made some words tied to values, sure, but 1) these are mine and 2) I ain’t a business. Values statements are for businesses. I’m a person. While business are made of people, businesses are not people.

And so, this is my list.

I need to see these words and see them often. Practice makes perfect, they say, and I have come to know that good Kyle-habits are never interrupted. Hopefully, reading these words every day will become a moot endeavor as each bullet bores its way into the very meat and bone of my existence.

Don’t just fake it until you make it. Write it, read it, and live it.

And happy birthday to me!

Kyle Barnhart

April 28, 2015

Hey solipsist, get over yourself!

People have feelings. Treat people like you would like to be treated.
You agree with this statement: There is enough suffering in the world— completely indifferent to the concerns of humanity (nature comes to mind)— for us to spend our purposeful time making one another feel bad.
The world gets harder— not easier— when you ignore the way others feel. Maybe not in the short term, but definitely in the long term.
Make good-faith assumptions about the intentions of others. You need to trust people for people to trust you.
A person is still a person, even if you disagree with them. And you can love a person, even if you disagree with them.

Absolutely keep going.

You have few practical needs and an enormous amount of potential.
“Keep going” is not “be selfish.” You can keep going without being a drain.
It won’t always be easy to keep going, but you’ll always be glad you did.
The war is in your head. The only thing that will keep you from going is your brain.

Be present to your feelings and to your surroundings.

Your feelings are like an ogre/onion. They have layers.
Remember that some feelings are temporary. Plan accordingly.
Strong feelings aren’t any more permanent than indifference.
You can be indifferent, but not for a lack of trying.
Don’t base your feelings on conjecture or anxious constructions.

Never forget the hard work that propelled you to where you are today.

That degree? Yeah, you have one (and you should probably hang it high).
And hey, college wasn’t the last time you worked hard to achieve a milestone.
Don’t become complacent, because you have shown the world time and time again that you are not doomed to any fate for long. But you are doomed to restart at Level 1 every time you become complacent.

Never forget the sacrifices others have made to move you forward.

That includes your parents! You are the world to mom, and were the world to dad.
Some people shouldered a lot of pain for you to learn life’s lessons.
If they want anything, it isn’t an apology. They want you to stop making the same mistakes.

You have friends and you always have family. Don’t forget about them.

The will help you on this quest called life.
Don’t just dump on them, depend on them or buy favors from them. Talk to them, do them favors, and have a meaningful human relationship with them.

Know when to shut up. Sometimes you have to listen.

There’s a lot out there to hear. You’ll miss it if you don’t stop talking.
Your feelings don’t have to be externalized for them to be acknowledged.

Give gifts generously and receive them humbly.

Gifts are not debts!
Gifts aren’t a down payment for future favors.
Sometimes, gifts come cheap. Sometimes they don’t. Always assume they don’t.

Listen to others, but especially listen to yourself.

Other people have valuable opinions and many of them have thought through the problems you will face.
This includes authors, artists and thinkers!
That said, don’t just listen. Process. Listen, then process.

Don’t live for the ideal. Live for the journey.

You may veer off the straight and narrow path, but it doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth doing.
You don’t know the struggles and failures of others as well as you know your own. Don’t judge yourself based on the relative success of someone else.
Don’t judge yourself harshly when mistakes happen. That’s how fear comes to control your actions.
Not everyone lives according to the same life-checkpoint schedule.
Healthy relationship are a matter of many things, but they’re not always a matter of time.

Everyone likes you (including you) when you try new things.

You tend to be happiest when you’re discovering something new.
Familiar isn’t always best.
Even when you’re bad at something, everyone else tends to have a good time failing together.

Your interests are cool and worth sharing. They’re one of your greatest assets.

Everyone loves it when you share yourself and your perspective. It’s awesome when it’s thoughtful and grounded.
Be honest— your thoughts are also unappealing when they’re subtweets, sublikes, or consciously hating a thing because another person likes a thing.

Find the balance between judging and feeling.

You can be non-judgmental and know something is not for you.
You can know right and wrong without placing value on a person.

Don’t pass time. Do things that express a part of who you are.

You don’t have infinite time to spend on this earth, so treat it like any other non-renewable resource.
Balance is a thing.
Games can be social, but they don’t constitute a life. And games have never been a very fulfilling life for you anyways even when they are social.
Other addictions are a time-suck. You know. You know.
You do enjoy running! Exercise!
It’s not always convenient, but it is something you enjoy.

Don’t be afraid to express yourself outwardly.

Beautiful things are beautiful. Handsome things are handsome. Et cetera.
Appreciate human beauty for what it is: An appeal to the lizard-brain (presentation, group identification, sexuality). That doesn’t make it less real, but it does make it different.
You aren’t in middle school anymore. Don’t let insecurity about your body and its specifics prevent you from enjoying something you like.
The less your body conforms to norms, the fewer choices you’ll have when you try to express yourself through fashion.

Don’t keep secrets. Secrets have always been your worst enemy.

Secrets are an unsustainable shortcut.
Secrets sink relationships. They always do. Haven’t you learned?
Secrets are oftentimes a symptom of some other problem— insecurity, fear, or a thoughtless behavior.
Being an honest person means living without the fear of being “found out,” which is immensely freeing.
Being an open book is an option, but discretion has a social function. Not everyone is comfortable knowing every thing about you.