Gentle Reminders: What the FBI and Inception taught me about awareness

Humans are forgetful.

That's why you need the right reminders.

It's why you keep...

• A picture of your family at your desk.

• The shirt from your very first concert.

• A challenge coin given to members of the FBI’s Intelligence Support Activity Unit (ISA)

What? Is that last one weird? Not everyone has one of those just lying around?

Nope, and that's why it's so special to me.

I won the coin at an auction a few years ago, and after some research I realized just how cool it is.

The ISA is a special ops unit that collects information that helps fight terrorism. The unit's reconnaissance helped in a few notable missions: killing Pablo Escobar, the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the mission that led to Osama Bin Laden's death.

"Veritas Omnia Vincula Vincit" the front of the coin reads.

"Truth Overcomes All Bonds" in Latin.

It's a beautiful reminder I keep at my side when I'm writing or making a big decision.

I like to joke and say that I’m a recovering people pleaser. My common tendency is to want to dress my words up nicely so that they don’t offend anyone. But that’s not what being a good writer is about.

No, that's not what being a good person is about.

"Send Me" reads the claymore the eagle holds on the coin.

Whoever this coin was given to was willing to risk his life for the greater good, no matter the stakes.

Knowing that, how can I live with being dishonest?

That's the kind of thing the right reminder can do for you.

You can get a tattoo, a bracelet, or even a screensaver on your phone with your favorite saying or a picture of your “why”.

Awareness is the lowest-hanging fruit for most people’s happiness, but it’s hard to cultivate it in a vacuum. That’s where these reminders can come in.

The best example is the film Inception. In the film, the protagonists are “extractors” who infiltrate people’s dreams. But in the film’s world, the deeper you go into a dream, the more difficult it is to remember that you are in one.

To help distinguish between a dream and reality, the extractors have a totem, or a physical object that acts differently in a dream. The main protagonist, Cobb, has a spinning top that will spin for a bit and then topple over in reality. In a dream, it will spin forever.

A good extractor never goes anywhere without his totem, and an aware individual never goes anywhere without at least one of his gentle reminders.

Reminders serve to help you remember what’s important and why you do what you do, which helps you make the right decision.