Marcus Lopés

LGTBQIA2S+ Author, Blogger, Runner

live your best life

On Purpose

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what do you want to do

What do you want to do? It was a question that was asked a lot when I was growing, and a lot more so as I neared the end of high school. What would I do next? There were a lot of things that interested me—music, politics, cooking, policing (notice that writing didn’t make the list then)—yet I really had no clue what I wanted to do. But like my older sister, I’d follow ‘the plan’ and go to university because our parents never had that opportunity. So, for five years I went and wandered aimlessly through academia. [Read more…] about On Purpose

Cutting Out the Noise

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cutting out the noise

It’s been a minute since I watched a newscast or scrolled through the headlines on news sites. That’s been intentional on my part because I used to spend an inordinate amount of time checking headlines in an obsessive way. That ‘obsession’ intruded when I wrote or read, when I was baking or cooking, or when I was in transit to and from work. It had me constantly—despite my intention or will—reaching for my phone. To get back to what mattered, and stay focused, cutting out the noise was the only option. [Read more…] about Cutting Out the Noise

The Call to Courage

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courage

In a social media post last week, I talked briefly about Ryan Holiday’s book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favours the Brave. At the time, I was on my second read-through of the book after having read it roughly a year earlier. I set it aside to read again as I was trying to bring order to my writing space. 

Let Us Not Wait 

This time around, the book’s epigraph, a quote from the Greek philosopher Xenophon, really caught my attention:  [Read more…] about The Call to Courage

Make a Choice

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make a choice

As the end of 2023 approaches, we’re going to hear a lot of talk about how the year went. There will be reflections on the people who died and the impact they had on the world. We will relive the highlights of sports and world events. At a personal level, a lot of us will look back and determine if we succeeded at what we set out to do. For some, that will be a positive experience. For others…not so much. But no matter how the year went, one thing is clear: we all had a choice. [Read more…] about Make a Choice

Focus Deeply

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focus deeply

When I quit my former job at the end of June, I really had no clue as to what I’d do next. But as I mentioned before, I ‘crashed’ due to the level of exhaustion that I experienced. The seven weeks I spent at home were both magical and frustrating. Magical because my schedule was open to whatever I wanted to do, which was mostly writing, running, and baking. It also became a period of extreme frustration because I’d lost my ability to focus deeply. [Read more…] about Focus Deeply