Achieving FCB - Focus Center Balance

These are simple words that describe a very difficult state to maintain in a fast-moving, complicated world.

We live in an Information Age. Never has information been so readily accessible at any time in the history of the world. Alas, never has misinformation, too, been so readily available for public consumption. Misinformation in service of creating a cadre of consumers, replete with negative self images, feelings of inadequacy, and a state of ennui, that leaves us seeking answers outside ourselves, trying to find happiness in material possessions, doctor-prescribed addictions, and God.

Return to Focus Center Balance (FCB)

It’s hard to stay here in this circle. We are comets hurtling through the universe, maintaining our unadulterated path until we, and ultimately our path, may become subject to the gravitational pull (GP) of other celestial bodies. Everyone exhibits some level of gravitational pull; it takes many forms and has many names, such as charm, influence and attractiveness. Some are affected by our GP, while we are sucked in and veered off course by others. Still others are black holes to us, where we are lost to ourselves and the rest of the universe.

Meninism and this site/blog seek to develop your GP in a sense. By finding your focus / center / balance, one will develop their GP and things in life such as happiness, enlightenment, satiety, money and women will come to you.

Maintaining the path is difficult and requires great discipline. Every day something or someone will exert pull on you, but it will be your cognitive decision to allow yourself to veer course.

If you have set out a goal to honor the temple that is your body by exercising and not filling it with crap, then you have no one to blame but yourself if you eat a Krispy Kreme donut in the office kitchen. As much as you may hate to admit it, the schmuck who brought in the donuts isn’t to blame. Your office buddy who told you that they were there isn’t to blame. Your other office buddy who ate two and brought you one as well, isn’t to blame. You have only yourself to blame if you stray off your path.

There will always be people who want to go out for drinks, go out to dinner and eat like shit. What are your goals? What are your plans? What is your path? How will they influence you?

Can someone be a bad influence on you?

I love how people say this about others, absolving themselves of the responsibility and guilt of having made bad decisions for themselves, allowing themselves to be sucked off course.

What you say “they were a bad influence.”

What I hear, “I wasn’t strong enough to not be influenced by someone else. I don’t know exactly who I am, or what I want. Furthermore, I am not strong enough to admit to myself that I made the wrong decision to include this person in to my life and be subject to their gravitational pull.”

Now don’t you just want to kick your own ass for projecting your weaknesses on to someone else?

You must take responsibility for your actions. Do not take up residence in others’ spheres of influence, particularly when they are negative. Do not become subject to your own whims and cravings, much less someone else’s.

How difficult is it to maintain your path?

Maintaining the path is difficult and requires great discipline. I hesitate to say that it is a struggle, but it is certainly not easy. In fact, to know what is right, do what is right, to seek truth and to live right, is the hardest thing a person can do. It requires really examining yourself and being honest with one’s self about your actions and desires.

It is a constant struggle because of the discipline of encountering multiple GP’s every minute of every day. But struggle is discomfort. Comfort is that level where we don’t encounter hardship or adversity and where no growth can come from. Comfort makes you soft and weak. Comfort is weakness.

Humans seek comfort. We seek weakness. Eating fast food is easy. Watching television is easy. Not thinking is easy.

Discipline is hard. Work is hard. Exercise is hard. Thinking is hard. Eating right is hard. Living right is hard.

Growth requires discomfort, hardship and adversity. You must tax your spiritual, psychological, intellectual and physical systems in order to fully realize your potential.

Following is easy. Leading is hard.

Addiction to consumerism, religion or drugs is weakness. Seeking and finding answers, becoming subject to some one else’s GP is easy. There are many who will exert upon you in order to extort from you.

Addiction is the ultimate escapism. You either don’t care what reality is, or you are provided one. This is the case with organized religion. It is the answer key to life, but these are not hard won answers. Swallowing it whole is a cheat. This is why so many that practice exhibit a discipline equal to the fiscal conservatism of a newly minted millionaire via the lottery or the US Government with our tax dollars. They didn’t earn it, of course they wouldn’t have a stake in it!

It is one thing to be told what to do, an entirely different thing to seek, find, acknowledge and know what is right. How can you turn your back on what is right when you have worked so hard to know it? How can you blame anyone but yourself when you do wrong? A fallen angel did not tempt you.

How do I maintain my path?

Required to maintain your path will be a state conducive to FCB.

This state will consist of adequate amounts of sleep. You cannot maintain the path if you are tired. Fatigue makes cowards of us all. If you’re hungry, you’re likely to eat whatever is front of you. If you’re tired, you’re more likely to skip a workout.

Sleep between 6-8 hours a day, every day, even on weekends. Find the time that best works for you. Bio-rhythms cycle between 3 and 4 hours. Any more than 8 will shorten your life, literally and figuratively. It is proven that the most successful people, get the less sleep on average.

Meditate

Meditate daily. This will help maintain FCB.

Focus on disciplining your mind, blocking out thoughts, sounds and other distractions. This can start at as few as 10 seconds per day, but should gradually increase. This is your mobile sanctuary. It is not escape. It is a training of the mind, that slows down the spinning that results from the myriad of information and influences one experiences each day. First thing in the morning and at the end of the day are great times for this.

Breathe through your nose and in to your belly, nice and deep. Focus on the cool air as it passes your nostrils while breathing in through your nose. Push it down in to your belly. Now exhale pushing with your diaphragm. Focus on making both inhalation and exhalation long and slow. Discipline your breath, do not be subject to it. Hold your inhalation as long as you can. Slow, easy and long. Feel your body. Feel the energy coursing through you.

These 2 very simple things will help you to achieve FCB on a daily basis. This is the proper state in which to maintain your goals and your path. By incorporating these things you will be able to fall out of the rat race and focus on that which is important…you.

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