Joel - Write Awareness

Teaching you how to take your life back from technology using ancient wisdom, practical psychology, and spiritual disciplines. Rehumanize yourself in the AI age

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

Today I sent out the first email in my Substack newsletter!

Its purpose is to study past Christian writers and share their wisdom with a new audience.

If that sounds like something you want to read, feel free to subscribe at the link below or in my bio!

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@Pat_Stedman 100 years ago it was fashionable for women to become 'flappers'. Then we had the Great Depression, then WWII.

History doesn't repeat but it rhymes.

[🕊️ @lichthauch]

I wanted a thousand things in my life, and most of them i didn't get. and i looked at myself the way this post is asking me to, and thought i wasn't smart enough. but years passed, and i started seeing what each of those things would have done to me if i had gotten them, and every single one would have destroyed me - some fast and some slow. everything i didn't get turned out to be the smartest thing that happened to me, but it was not my smartness. it was something else deciding on my behalf, because i was not smart enough to decide for myself. sometimes not getting what you want is the only proof that something out there loves you more than you were ever capable of loving yourself

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@creation247 Live in the real world, not a simulated one.

I've enjoyed gaming in the past, but they don't hook me like they used to.

The most popular games manipulate your dopamine system to trick you into thinking you're having fun.

You should get dopamine from actual accomplishments.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@sola_chad This world is so evil. I've seen what they celebrate. I don't want their applause. If I have recognition and approval from the world, I am doing something wrong.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@Cernovich Who would want to be in this world forever? Look at the 90-year-olds in Congress, what's the point of trying to run the country when you're at death's door?

People trying to live forever sometimes know what they have in store and don't want it. I don't blame them.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@texasrunnerDFW @CryptoMikli One of them became the fastest over-50 marathoner in the world. Ken Rideout's book was great.

[The Timeless Traveler @TimelessTrvlr]

@writeawareness The hardest lesson is that comfort and happiness are not the same thing.

A comfortable life can still leave a man empty, while suffering can become the very thing God uses to make him whole.

[The Timeless Traveler @TimelessTrvlr]

There was a 40 year period in history when samurai, pirates, and cowboys all technically existed at the same time.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@TimelessTrvlr Indeed.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." - James 1:2-4

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

I chased everything the world promised would lead to happiness.

Wealth, success, pleasure. The more I pursued it, the less I had.

Then I opened The Confessions of Saint Augustine, and one quote shattered my view of happiness:

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@njissawrites Yeah, it's a brilliant and insightful book!

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

This paralyzed man wrote a classic by blinking his left eye.

What’s your excuse?

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@creation247 Been reading Nichomachean Ethics lately. Aristotle's systematic, logical way of thinking is astounding. I'm learning a lot so far.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@njissawrites Facts are interesting, but stories reach into your mind and rewire your subconscious.

They are an opportunity to see the world from another point of view.

Tolstoy had some great short stories, like 'The Three Questions'. I won't spoil it, just read it!

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@bradimirputin That book sounds like exactly what I need, I'll have to check it out! Working on my positioning and strategy lately.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

@fredponders Simple to learn, hard to master.

Learning to follow God is a lifelong journey. It never ends until we do.

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

The answers you seek are found in books that have stood the test of time.

Not in the latest bestsellers, but in wisdom that has endured for eons.

Read more about The Confessions of St. Augustine and other classic works of spiritual literature here:
https://t.co/6O1rSdk7Fu

[Joel - Write Awareness @writeawareness]

The path towards misery is easy and comfortable. The path towards happiness is difficult and treacherous.

I would never have chosen the difficulties I’ve faced, and I’d have done anything to avoid them.

But they’re precisely what was needed to mold me into a man God can use.