High/Low Blog

Company High/Low - 4/19/21

High/Low app — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 04:58:06 GMT

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“I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.” – Dudley Field Malone

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Most of the time, we like to be around people who agree with us. We love to feel right, and being around people who think we are presents a perfect opportunity for justifying this feeling. We find it easier to bond with others who think similarly to us, because it minimizes the potential for conflict.

The problem is, it also limits the potential for growth. Sometimes, we don't realize we're wrong until our ideas are challenged. Being exposed to different thought processes and beliefs can reveal flaws in our own thinking - and while it can be an unpleasant feeling to be wrong, once we recognize that we're wrong we can start looking for the truth.

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On the other hand, if you're right about something, how can you ever really tell until your idea has been tested against the wrong ones?

The point is not that we need to become more convinced of our correctness - we're often far too sure of this as it is. The point is that, in order to pursue truth, you must know where your beliefs hold up, and where they do not, and be willing to admit that to yourself. After that it's only a matter of following and acting on those beliefs.

Company High/Low - 4/5/21

High/Low app — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 02:53:32 GMT

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“The grass is greener where you water it.” — Neil Barringham

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This quote from Neil Barringham illustrates a number of key principles.

For one thing, the grass doesn't grow green by itself: it has to be watered, otherwise it turns brown rather than green. Most things of value in life are going to have to be worked for at some point or another. This is not only true of the things we hope to achieve or attain in the future, but also of what we have now. If you didn't work for those things, someone else did.

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In order to water the grass, though, you have to start by knowing where to distribute that water. If you water in the wrong places, you'll end up growing weeds instead of grass, and that just means more work pulling the weeds later on.

We need to be intentional about what we water and what we feed; otherwise we'll always be complaining about the weeds coming up instead of working to grow grass.

Company High/Low - 3/29/21

High/Low app — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 03:37:37 GMT

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“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

High

One of the peculiar things about how life on earth works is that we can only live one day at a time. We can't skip ahead and live tomorrow before today, and we can't go back and change the way we lived yesterday.

Nevertheless, we often spend so much time worrying about the future and the past that we become paralyzed, or at the very least stop being intentional about the present (which, we may recall, cannot be done over again once it's past).

The only part of our lives that is actionable is what we have right here, right now, so the best way - the only way - to take control of your life is to be intentional about what you do in the present.

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Not only is doing your best today the best preparation for tomorrow, it's also the best preparation for yesterday. Because of the constantly-moving nature of time, all you really have to worry about is what to do right now.

Company High/Low - 3/16/21

High/Low app — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 23:55:01 GMT

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"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open." - John Barrymore

High

Sometimes, the things that bring us the most joy come from places we don't expect. As it turns out, we're often really bad at knowing what we want. We work our entire lives chasing something, and then when we get it we may find that it doesn't make us nearly as happy as we thought it would.

But, along the way, sometimes we come across other things that bring us joy - detours - which may even make us wish it were our main path and not a step off the road. Often, when we've come to our destination, we have to look back to see the things that really matter to us - and sometimes, you'll realize the best things come from the places that you thought you were finished with.

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What are some doors you "didn't know you left open" that have unexpectedly brought you joy?

Company High/Low - 3/9/21

High/Low app — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 04:23:20 GMT

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“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller

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One of the hard things we may encounter in life is a situation where we have to let go of one good thing in order to go to the next. It's a scary thing to loose our grip on what's familiar, and to step into the uncertainty of what's new.

But life is a dynamic, ever-changing process. Sometimes the next good thing looks like a hard, difficult, scary, or painful thing - but it always comes with opportunity as well. Sometimes we need to be willing to step into the unknown of an adventure - like Bilbo Baggins leaving the comfort of home to go running around with dwarves. It's not always pretty, but in the end it can have a lasting impact on your life that you couldn't have had from anything else.

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As a warning, though, there's also a famous tale of a dog who forsook the bone he had in order to leap towards the one he saw reflecting in the water. Deciding when to stay and when to leap takes prudence, wisdom, and discernment - often learned by trial and error.

Company High/Low - 3/1/21

High/Low app — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 03:44:28 GMT

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“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.” ― Madeleine L'Engle

High

One of the biggest things that keeps us from starting the projects we'd like to (especially creative ones) is the lack of inspiration. We often feel like we need an "inspired" starting point to magically appear in our heads before we can start working.

The issue with that is inspiration doesn't usually work that way. It often presents itself as a solution to a problem - and if we haven't started working on the problem and investing in it, the inspiration won't come.

Most of the time, we have to start working before we get the inspiration - and it's a lot harder to stay driven and motivated when you're not sure if anything is going to come of your labor. This is one reason why the hardest part of a task is getting started. You always have to push harder to get something moving than when it's already in motion (in physics, that's the difference between static and kinetic friction).

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Maybe you're not waiting on inspiration so much as inspiration is waiting on you. What's a project or goal you want to accomplish? Perhaps it's time to start working on it!

Connect with our community on the High/Low app!

Company High/Low - 2/22/21

High/Low app — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 05:31:02 GMT

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“We Generate Fears While We Sit. We Overcome Them By Action.” – Dr. Henry Link

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The imagination is a powerful thing - it can create in our minds scenes of unprecedented joy and excitement, yet also often produces some of the scariest situations we've never seen.

We're all afraid of something(s). The unfortunate thing is, when we're afraid of something, we begin to entertain the idea that it could wreck our dreams - and if it happens in our heads, who's to say it wouldn't happen if we tried to follow those dreams in real life?

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The (very fortunate) truth is, there's often a big difference between what we see in our heads and what happens in reality. What you fear could be very real, but often when we face it, we realize that we're stronger than we thought we were - and maybe those fears weren't as big and terrible as they originally seemed.

What are some fears that you need to overcome by action (or, perhaps, inaction)?

Company High/Low - 2/15/21

High/Low app — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 04:53:54 GMT

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“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” - J.K. Rowling

High

Last week, we discussed pride and how it can be damaging to our own lives and the lives of those around us.

But this quote highlights another aspect of how pride can manifest itself in our lives - this time through the way we treat others.

The more we give in to pride, the more the idea of position begins to manifest itself. Pride is not a necessary factor to establish a hierarchy of people - after all, someone with a PhD in mathematics is generally more qualified to talk about that subject than someone who's just learned Algebra. Pride doesn't create your position, it simply makes you worried that you might lose it.

As this worry creeps in, we begin to care more about keeping our position than we do about being kind to the people around us. The people with positions "below" us become potential threats that need to be shoved down, and the people above us become obstacles.

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As we mentioned last week, this automatically cuts us off from healthy relationships with others because we're so worried about ourselves. A person who cares more about a position than a person isn't qualified for either one - but someone who puts others first has the potential to become a leader.

Company High/Low - 2/8/21

High/Low app — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 04:15:47 GMT

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“As long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you” - C.S. Lewis

High

Pride is one of the most, if not the most, damaging things which, unfortunately, we let into our lives quite often. It is the epitome of selfishness - the belief and the desire not to be great, but simply to be better than everyone else.

It's an isolating state of mind because it automatically pushes everyone else out. Not only does it inhibit community, it undermines growth by causing us to believe we've arrived.

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We weren't made to be better than everyone else - not that we shouldn't work hard to be the best we can, but that it was never supposed to be about how we compared to everyone else.

It turns out, life is more satisfying when we're not constantly consumed by the fear of losing our positions - and when we finally resolve to stop looking down on everyone else, we can start looking up at what's above us and what lies ahead of us - and that's when creativity, innovation, and growth can happen.

Company High/Low - 2/1/20

High/Low app — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 05:12:48 GMT

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“The time is always right to do what is right.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

High

Today is the first day of February, also known as Black History Month.

This last year gave rise to an increased awareness of the injustices that have been shown to people of color both in the past and the present. These problems have existed in America for hundreds of years now, and the unfortunate fact is that we still haven't come to a full resolution.

With a history that goes this far back, it can be easy to lose hope, especially for those who are still struggling under the weight of oppression and injustice.

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But as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, it's always the right time to do the right thing. The best thing we can do is keep working to move forward, each of us doing our personal part by choosing to treat others the way we want to be treated, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or what they've done. This isn't an easy task, but it's an essential part of building a society of inclusion and equality - so out of love for others, let's work together to treat each other better.

Company High/Low - 1/25/21

High/Low app — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 06:18:14 GMT

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“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” - William Shakespeare

High

There are a number of ways in which we could interpret this quote from Shakespeare. For example, one might say he's warning against pride, and they'd be right. However, I think there is another interesting idea incorporated in this quote - the fact that, no matter how much we think we know, there will always be more to learn.

The problem with the fool's approach, using Shakespeare's words, is that he thought he had arrived. When we give in to the belief that we are where we are and we won't be going anywhere - well, that's exactly what happens. We cut off from ourselves the option of growth.

But when we choose to look ahead of ourselves, we will find that there is always more room for growth. In fact, no matter how much you learn for as long as you live, there will always be more - that's just the way the world was created, not to cause you to feel crushed but to enable you to keep growing stronger.

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It's important that we apply this to moments of low self-esteem as well. It doesn't matter where you're "arriving," it's still damaging. It's true that there need to be times of rest, but when you're resting it's important not to forget the path in front of us.

Company High/Low - 1/18/21

High/Low app — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 04:48:19 GMT

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

High

Today is a national holiday on which we honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s great contributions to our society. He was not afraid to call out the glaring issues in our society, and to point out the fact that we all have a part to play in it.

He didn't stay silent about injustice, but he wanted to teach us how to fight it in a way that is more powerful than violence and hatred.

The natural response to hate is more hate. When people hate each other, the resentment builds up between them and leads to destruction.

Love has the opposite effect: love brings people together where hate pushes them apart - and we are always better equipped to bring about change when we're together.

Our culture recognizes this fact, but often fails to carry it out. We make movies about heroes that can't defeat the villain until they come together, but instead we're calling the other heroes the villains.

Just because another person disagrees with us doesn't mean they're a villain - there are many heroes out there who will never reach their full potential because we shut them down when they challenge us.

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What are some ways we can approach problems with love instead of hate?

Company High/Low - 1/11/21

High/Low app — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 05:26:16 GMT

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"You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated." -Maya Angelou

High

This quote from Maya Angelou highlights a principle that we've talked about many times before in the High/Low weekly - the difference between your identity and your experiences. We've talked about it in the context of success and failure, for example: when we let our successes or failures (i.e., our experiences) define who we are (i.e., our identity), we get into trouble.

This quote gives us an opportunity to revisit that topic in another context. Maya Angelou says that, though we will face defeats in life, we should never become defeated. Now let me pose a question to you: is it possible to be facing defeats all around, yet still be victorious?

As humans, we have a nasty habit of labelling people based on what we see on the outside of their life. We might say someone has a perfect life because of what we see from them on social media. We might say our neighbor is rich because of the house they live in or the car they drive. We might say someone is defeated because someone else seems to have the upper hand.

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Often, however, there is more to the situation than is immediately obvious from the outside. The truth is, when we judge people by looking at the outside, we will almost always get the wrong answer. And sometimes, no matter how hard we try, there will be important things that we just can't see. It takes faith to be able to believe for good when all we see is evil - to believe for victory when we see only defeat, to rejoice when we see reason only for mourning.

Next time you're feeling defeated, remember that there may be more at hand than what you can see on the outside.

Company High/Low - 1/4/21

High/Low app — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 05:58:25 GMT

High

This is the first Monday of 2021! We hope we find you well.

As we mentioned in our last message, many people like to take the New Year as an opportunity to reset their lives, most commonly in the form of New Year's resolutions.

I think in some respect, we all set our own resolutions (or expectations) for the New Year, even if we don't call them by that name. It's as if it's a natural response - when something new begins, it must mean it's time for something to change.

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Now that we're four days in, you've had some time to adjust to whatever changes you decided to enact in your life. We'd love to hear about them! If you have any New Year's resolutions, or anything else you're planning for the New Year, feel free to share them with us below!

Company High/Low - 12/28/20

High/Low app — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 05:13:20 GMT

High

Hey everyone, we hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! In case you missed it, we just released a huge update to our iOS app, and we'd love for you to check it out!

This year has been a difficult one for people all over the world. It's been full of hard things. We often like to think of the new year as a new beginning - a time to reset all the things that went wrong in the last year. Unfortunately however, many of the problems of 2020 cannot be fixed by your New Year's resolutions. This year, many people lost things that can never be replaced - it could have been a job, a business, an opportunity, or even a friend or family member.

No matter what goals we set for ourselves this next year, there are things we can't get back.

But this doesn't mean there isn't any reason for hope. While we cannot reset all of our circumstances, what we can do is realign our focus - especially in a year as painful and jarring as this has been, it's easy to let our hearts drift away from what's really important. We quickly become caught up in the intensity of the circumstances surrounding us, and become so worried about what we're losing that we forget to pay attention to the things we do have.

In many ways, this year was like a stress test on our lives - the extreme pressure placed on us was enough to reveal the weak spots. This year, we saw some of the things we thought were the strongest crumbling under the pressure.

But now all that rubble is cleared away, and we can see clearly the things that were strong enough to withstand this storm. After the breaking comes the rebuilding - and we now see more than ever how important it is to establish our lives on an unmoving foundation.

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This New Year, though you may not be able to restore what was lost, what you can do is reset your focus to the things that are most important. By rebuilding on a strong foundation, you won't have to be afraid when hard things come - and the truth is, the new year will come with hard things just like this year did.

Finally, don't be afraid. Once you've rooted yourself in something powerful enough to stand its ground when a storm hits, there's no reason to be afraid - in fact, there's all the more reason to have hope.

And with that, we wish you a happy new year!

High/Low v2 Released for iOS!

High/Low app — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:16:38 GMT

Hey everyone, we hope you're all doing well this Christmas season!

It's been a crazy year, but we haven't been sitting idle at High/Low. We've been working on a huge update to our iOS app that we hope you'll enjoy!

Here's the video announcement (or read below):

https://vimeo.com/493539788

At High/Low, we’re committed to improving the spiritual and emotional health of our users by providing them with tools to help them reflect and a community to connect with. In order to better accomplish this mission, we’ve reorganized the app to make it more personal.

The design of the app has been updated to give you a clean, user-friendly experience. And of course, it all looks great in dark mode as well!

The central feature of the new High/Low is the diary - this is a safe space for you to express yourself in a number of ways, without having to worry about judgement from other people.

To create a diary entry, just press the “plus” button at the bottom. If you still love the classic High/Low format, you can choose that as a template for your entry. If you’re looking for a little more freedom, you can start from scratch with the “Diary Entry” option.

After selecting one of these options, you will be taken to the brand new Reflect editor. This editor is designed to make it easy to express yourself using a variety of content organized in blocks that can be arranged however you like.

Once you’re done editing, you can tap the “Share” button if you’d like to allow others to see your entry. With the new High/Low, you have even more control over who sees your data.

The Reflect editor is a great way to get your content out there, but sometimes, typing is just too slow. That’s why we’ve added the audio entry feature - here, you can record yourself and get your thoughts and ideas out in a natural, personal way. And of course, you’ll have all the sharing controls that you had with the diary entries.

The diary isn’t all though. For many people, meditation is an important part of their spiritual well being. That’s why we built it right into the app. Just set your time, focus, and end chime, and start meditating with a distraction-free interface.

Finally, we’ve been working on a solution that will allow us to keep providing new features to you without having to employ ads that would disrupt the experience of the app.

You’ll get all the features we’ve talked about for free, but there will be some limits on them: your entries in the Reflect editor will be limited to 10 blocks in length, you’ll be limited to 2 images per entry, and your audio entries will be limited to 1 minute in length.

To remove all these limits, we’re offering High/Low Premium - a paid subscription plan that you can get for just a few dollars a month. We’ve given you the option of a 7-day free trial so you can see if these features are worth it to you.

That’s all for now! We hope you enjoy these features as much as we do, and feel free to provide feedback on what we can do to make them better!

FAQ

What does this mean for Android Users?

This huge update to the iOS app does have some temporary implications for our Android users - while we are working hard to get these features working on Android, they are not ready yet.

The content created in the Reflect editor or Audio entry on iOS is not able to be displayed on Android devices, so Android users will not see the entries shared by iOS users until the Android app has been updated.

We understand this is an unfortunate situation for our Android users, and we are working as hard as we can to get the updates to the Android app done and released as soon as possible.

Company High/Low - 12/21/20

High/Low app — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 04:37:13 GMT

High

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you've been enjoying this holiday season!

This will be the last issue of the High/Low weekly before Christmas, so we wanted to use this as an opportunity to give you a brief blessing before leaving you to your holidays:

May your Christmas season be filled with the joy of the gift we're remembering from so long ago. May it give you hope as this year which has been so difficult for all of us comes to an end, and a new season begins. May love run freely throughout your day as heaven and earth remember the one who bridged the gap between them forever. May the peace that was brought to earth be poured out again in your hearts and those of your family.

Merry Christmas!

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This isn't really a low, but stay tuned - we have a surprise waiting for our iOS users around Christmas time!

Company High/Low - 12/7/20

High/Low app — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 06:31:02 GMT

High

As we're entering into the Christmas season, we thought it would be nice to hear from our users what some of their favorite Christmas traditions are! For many people, Christmas is a time to revisit traditions of the past, and share memories with the people we love. If you have a special tradition you'd like to share, please let us know in the comments!

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Don't have any traditions in mind? Maybe this year is the time to start making new ones!

Company High/Low - 11/30/20

High/Low app — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 05:25:50 GMT

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Yesterday was the first day of advent - an important time for us at High/Low (after all, our app is entirely based on the idea of reflection 😜). This is a very special season leading up to Christmas as we anticipate this wonderful holiday.

The Christmas season is one of my personal favorites - it comes with such a great sense of anticipation, and it's a time where I slow down and stop to reflect on the things that are meaningful to me.

Every Christmas, we look back to the day long ago when Jesus Christ was born: an event so great and powerful that we're still celebrating it over 2000 years later - and rightly so. It was the manifestation of a plan that had existed for thousands of years before the event, and is still in motion thousands of years afterwards. It was a pivotal moment, and it's beautiful in its mystery, its significance, and its power.

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Advent is a time where we connect back to that event, putting ourselves in some small way back in the position of the people who had waited for hundreds of years for the Messiah - except we have the assurance that he has already come.

I think Charles Dickens sums it up well in "A Christmas Carol" - Scrooge says, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me."

While the context of this quote may be very different from what we're talking about, it's meaning is just as relevant: during advent, we remember the helplessness of our past, we recognize the power we have in the present because of the work of Jesus, and we look forward to the beauty of what He's promised us in the future.

I hope you all have a wonderful time reflecting this advent. Merry Christmas!

Company High/Low - 11/23/20

High/Low app — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 04:37:20 GMT

High

Surprise! You might have noticed there's no quote this week. We thought that since Thanksgiving is coming up so soon, we would make this weekly High/Low a group participation!

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We'd like to hear from all of you: what's one thing you're thankful for this year, and what is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?

Just make a comment on this High/Low to share your answers!