ACTIVE AND ENGAGED

Welcome to the Active And Engaged blog, where we take you along on our mission with numerous side quests, to explore exponential positivity, non-toxic humor, guru-free mindfulness, pragmatic self-development, and digital art.

Whenever we gain experience points and unlock something cool on a side quest, we will put it on a t-shirt or mug and discuss it here. We believe humor, positivity, and inspiration are bold fashion statements, expressed not only through what you wear but also through how you curate your environment.

OUR VISION

Our vision is about individual growth on the path to fulfillment through intentional focus and proactive action in pursuing a richer life experience. Well, at least that is what it says on our product manager’s investor pitch deck. The fridge magnet version is that we are all about health, love, and success in all its meaningful forms! Let us not forget joy, ever!

Positivity, mindfulness, self-development, humor, and some digital art for good measure, seem like the most solid formula to achieve an existence where, just maybe, happiness could become our default mood. Who knows?

POSITIVITY

In our world (this very URL above) we believe that positivity in itself is an antidote to negativity and is a means of safeguarding your mental equilibrium when faced with the obstacles, trolls, and griefers in the multi-player game of life. Perception is key to morale: “is the glass half full or half empty?” Okay, sure, this phrase is like the "Amen Break" (the most sampled drum loop in music history) of “philosophy”, but it works every time. Saying “is the Wi-Fi getting faster or slower?” just doesn’t quite have the same impact, does it?

Let’s try this again… Confucius (later echoed by Henry Ford) stated, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.” A good example of this is the character Neo in the Matrix movies, where belief and perception were central plot themes. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar put it another way: “When you focus on problems, you get more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you have more opportunities.”

These ideas have evolved into the modern saying: “Where attention goes, energy flows.” If that’s true, then there are definitely some social media platforms out there that could power New York City for a year.

For those of you who like to indulge in a bit of light reading before bedtime: in psychology, confirmation bias and the reticular activating system (RAS) influence how we interpret reality. What we focus on consistently, we tend to see more of, and convince ourselves it’s true. Why? Because it aligns with our model of reality. It’s very much like the kid’s game of counting red cars on the highway during a long trip. Yep, red cars everywhere because red paint must be cheaper than other colors!

Right, so now we know a little brain Python coding, let’s use it to dial in and upgrade that internal target acquisition software to lock on to opportunities and inspiration. It might not run 100% the first time, and some debugging might be required, but at least there is no planned obsolescence or “hope sold separately.”

MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness helps us stay consciously aware that we are not Non-Playable Characters in the game of life, and that we have an influence on the outcome of the day’s quest. It’s also about being aware of the quality of our thoughts, and what we currently feel about the contents level of the glass we are looking at.

The objective is to pause and identify when and where our thoughts, actions, and reactions stem from a subconscious state that has been patterned over time, and has us running on autopilot. Verbose statement, yes, but I’m trying to squeeze a TEDx Talk into a single fortune 500 cookie note titled “This Blog Post Should’ve Been A Tweet.”

SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Self-development is the real-world way of knowing that we are leveling up and getting better with experience points. It’s not about judging ourselves but exploring our limitations and redefining what they should be. It’s about self-authoring and self-determination.

Everybody wants a glass of that freshly squeezed “Living Your Best Life” orange juice. So often we find that we are using our less dominant hand to squeeze the orange, or our dominant hand simply lacks the strength; leading us to extract very little juice from the orange that is life itself. Why not be all you can be, for yourself, and get every last drop you can?

HUMOR

Everybody has their own sense of humor, informed by a complex Venn diagram of every shade of humor. This combination of humor hot keys provides a shortcut to changing our mental state into a relaxed and less serious frame of mind. Think about it: of all the weird and wonderful things you’ve seen sold online, can you honestly say you’ve ever seen an ad for a Cortisol supplement? Exactly, there is enough stress in the world, right?!

DIGITAL ART

The underlying importance of digital art is that it gives us the opportunity to experiment with various mediums that have low barriers to entry. This creates opportunities for those who want to unlock the dormant pathways of self-expression within. Self-expression activates a new level of metacognition in choosing how we articulate our thoughts while improving our communication.

Art, in any form, becomes a means for us to experience how clearly we can visualize something in our mind’s eye and then transfer it to the world in front of us. For many, the digital screen and software might lead back to something like sketching on paper with charcoal, because we are also beings who like to connect with our world on a tactile level. Appreciation ultimately arrives unexpectedly upon realizing that you only have one opportunity per sheet of paper.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ACTIVE AND ENGAGED?

If you have ever taught a class, DJ’d at a party, or presented to a potential client, you know that an actively participating and engaged audience is the ideal outcome. But beyond those moments, this concept applies to how life itself can be experienced.

ACTIVE

A few paragraphs up on this page, we allegedly mentioned that positivity is an antidote to negativity. Now, we’ll take the liberty of saying that being active (or proactive, if you subscribe now) is the antidote to passively accepting experiences and states of being that you might deem mediocre. Yes, saying “don’t settle for less” would have been easier, but we were saving that line on the office mood board for a t-shirt in our The Karens Of Spring collection.

…AND…

And??? There is always more. There must be more. Why not ask for more? Why not expect more? Why not be more? Why not do more? “And” is the gateway to expectation and possibility.

ENGAGED

Being engaged is about getting busy and immersing yourself in the process…like a kindergartner with their hands covered in clay for the first time while making something cool. They get curious about how far they can stretch and mold that clay. It’s a preview of life’s experiential education through experimentation and discovery.

GOING FULL CIRCLE AROUND A BRAND NAME

Taking all of the above into consideration, it becomes pretty easy to justify creating a logo and numerous profiles across the web for the words “Active And Engaged”. One of life’s never ending side quests is the search for like-minded people. Sometimes it helps to wave a banner, make some digital noise in the ether, or wear a t-shirt that tells the world what you are about. Our universe is generally reciprocal by nature…so, expect some people to tell you what they’re about too (consider this your open invitation to comment below).

YOU READ THIS FAR? 😲

Thank you! Yeah, we’ll stick to selling T-shirts. But hey, there’s enough space on a T-shirt to spread the propaganda of positivity and humor, for those who might want to be a human walking billboard one day a week (twice, if they do laundry twice a week and really like the T-shirt).

Stay curious. Stay inspired. And most importantly, stay Active And Engaged.
_{Whew!!! Branded Content And SEO Stuff, Level 1/100: ACHIEVED.
❤ Google random algorithm ❤ AI beta release paywall search ❤ VPN blockchain whatever things ❤
#everything #anything #hashtag}

Welcome to our community.
Peace!
✌🕊☮