Welcome to Erebus Growing, a weekly email where I share little snippets of life to help you change and grow into your highest life.

This past week was crazy for me.

I had three interviews with three different positions and for someone who had not interviewed since late 2016, it was a lot.

I’m happy to say that I eventually settled in and enjoyed each one, but it was a challenge for sure.

The good news is that I should hear in the next couple of weeks from each one about potential next steps, if any.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep moving forward with packing things up in my apartment in preparation for moving.

My body also decided I needed to rest today as I took a long two-hour nap which never happens.

After this week, I’m going to be reducing my hours at the part-time a little because it has been a lot.

But, this week will be busy for the first few days! And away we go!

👨🏻‍💻 Meditation

Above my table hangs a large golden pothos.

On a kitchen storage unit sits two money trees, a ficus, two neon pothos, and a spider plant.

On my kitchen table sits three jars with huge snake plant growths…my most recent additions.

All have been rescued from the part-time just before they would have been written off and thrown out.

They were only surviving.

A few years ago, during an evening staff meeting with my student staff, we went around the group and had a typical “tell us about your week” opening question.

Most people will say something like “I had two tests last week and did alright on them, oh and I got to see my girlfriend” or “it was a terrible week and I had so much work it wasn’t funny.”

But this meeting, one of my brand new staff members said something that was used for months by the group and still comes up in my talk periodically.

He said that he was “surviving, not thriving.”

It was used probably every single week after for the rest of the academic year by almost every person on my staff (myself included!).

“Surviving, not thriving.”

It’s an apt measure of how we are doing in different parts of our lives.

I have been, in the past year or two, in a time of survival in parts of my life and a time of thriving in other parts.

Financially and with employment? Surviving.

Time to relax and watch shows or play games? Surviving.

Time to exercise and commit to fitness? Surviving.

Relationship building among friends and colleagues? Thriving.

Job search opportunities and interviews? Thriving.

Mental and emotional growth? Thriving.

Hope in and for the future? Thriving.

Whether it’s a time of thriving or a time of survival, every part of life can be seen as one of these.

I think that I would like to add a third: holding.

These three types of measures of your life—surviving, holding, and thriving—provide you with a way to identify how you are doing and what you are feeling.

Let’s talk about each in kind.

Surviving.

When you’re surviving, you’re doing the bare minimum you must to keep afloat.

You’re not trying to find a way to build and improve your life, you’re just trying to find your way out.

If you don’t have enough money to pay your bills, this is you just focusing on that. You’re not trying to save money, you just need to get to a zero-sum balance on your budget.

If you have a lot of work to do, this is just you putting your head down and focusing on getting it done.

It’s doing the bare minimum to keep doing what you’re doing right now.

A lot of people find themselves here all of the time because this is all they grew up knowing…it’s all they saw modeled for them.

Holding.

When you’re holding, you keep putting in a consistent effort to stay at this level.

You’ve found something that works and keeps you moving forward towards your ideal life.

You’ve built a solid foundation and you’re just staying there.

For example, if you’ve got a workout routine that works for you and keeps you healthy, you just keep doing it every day. You’re not trying to lose weight, you’re not trying to gain.

You’re work day is good. You get your stuff done and you don’t feel a need to rush.

It’s just business as usual for you and things are working.

Often, this is found hand in hand with Surviving. While you’re surviving in certain areas, in other areas you’ll be holding.

Thriving.

When you’re thriving, you know it. Other people know it. And it’s amazing.

You experience unprecedented moments of growth and delight and joy as things just seem to click.

Your life improves in very perceptible ways.

This is where you learn a new workout routine and you get to push your body like you didn’t before and your body responds!

You find a new position that forces you to grow and improve.

You start a new subject in class that challenges your mind to grow and you start seeing the connections.

This is the part of the cycle of surviving-holding-thriving that people want to spend the most time in but often don’t realize they’re in until the tail end.

Surviving-holding-thriving

The three stages come in a cycle. Like most things in life, they’re cyclical. Often, the cyclical nature exists between surviving and holding or holding and thriving.

I can point it out in my financial situation right now.

With the addition of holding as a stage, I have to amend my earlier statement.

Financially and with employment, I’m holding, not surviving.

I have the part-time which gives me just enough money to stay consistent. I’m making slight gains with my financial situation—$10 here, $20 there—but it’s not sliding backward.

Before the part-time, I was absolutely in the surviving state.

But in October of this year, I’ll be fully paying off a personal loan and my water rower will be paid off as well. Together, that will free up almost $500 a month.

That is a huge change, financially.

Paired with the job search that hopefully will result in a position at a higher salary or additional benefits such as provided housing, that is going to move me into a thriving state that I’m very excited about.

A helpful exercise is to look at each area of your life with these states in mind.

It helps you to understand where you are in life.

As for my plants? They’re no longer just surviving in a huge store, fighting with others to be purchased. They’ve been given a home, and personal attention, and they’re thriving.

📚 Inspiration and Resources
Every week we all consume content and I share my favorites here.

Learning.
One of my favorite daily activities is to play some of the games from the New York Times. Pretty much daily, I play the Crossword Mini, Wordle, Connections, and the easy level of Sudoku. It’s a daily exercise that I use to keep my mind active. And I enjoy it! I’m still trying to get a sub-3-minute easy level of Sudoku. Most of the time, I finish between 3:30 and 4:30 minutes. (My Medium is around 20 minutes and my Hard is around 50 minutes.) Give them a play here.

📓 Journaling Prompt
Journaling is one of the most important things to do when exploring our own lives. A new prompt for you to use this week is below.

Where are you surviving in your life? Where are you holding? Where are you thriving?

Until next time, I wish you enough and send you off with love and a sense of urgency in your life.