Month: May 2021

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. Now.

Repeat.

Let’s say that right now you won the lottery.

Does that mean you can stop? Are you done? Did you win?

No, no, and no.

Imagine again you just won the lottery. What happens one minute after that?

There is no done. There is only different.

Big Brains say “let’s create a system that gives people an incentive to do X”. That happens in tax law all the time. Elsewhere, too.

Big Brains don’t remember high school calculus and they haven’t read Taleb. They forget f(X), the results or side-effects of X.

Fortunately, at the individual level I can avoid the blindness driving political, top-down choices. I create X and (if I’m staying awake) I am aware of f(X) when I decide to do X.

And if I’m asleep or stupid, and if I don’t see f(X), I will be acquainted with it soon enough: because I personally pay the cost or reap the reward of doing X and experiencing f(X).

Individual autonomy. Get some.

Consistency and aiming low. Let’s talk aiming low.

Aiming low is an insight from Jordan Peterson. (And others, like BJ Fogg).

Big tasks are sexy and appeal to my ego (look at what I’m doing!) but daunting and seemingly impossible. Set absurdly high standards for yourself as a noob and you will fail.

Example: the gym. I’m a noob and I cannot lift heavy stuff.

“Become a millionaire.” How do you start when you’re broke? Setting a goal of earning $50,000 per month is souls-crushing when you’re barely breaking even. Visualization and affirmations and all that? Fine stuff but when atoms start moving—or don’t—how are you going to keep at it over the long haul?

“Put $5 in a savings account.” That’s something that almost every broke person can do. Even me.

Aim low isn’t really the advice. Aim high but act low.

I want consistency in getting things done. Two “aim low” ideas came to mind while writing this:

• Writing. 500 words a day seems daunting. More to the point, I’m not doing it. How about 100 words a day? How about 50?
• Tasks. Too many things in my life languish, incomplete. Just open up Things and look at what’s there. Don’t commit to doing, just look. To that end, I now have my iPad sitting on my desk to my left, dedicated to Things. So I’m already moving!

Consistency and aiming low. Let’s talk consistency.

Consistency is the lesson I take from 75 Hard. This is the 10th day into the program for me. I am learning how to do the same thing every day. Day after day after day.

Oddly, the app helps a lot. My simple mind likes looking at the checklist and clicking things off.

I am now terrified of not completing the 75 days.

I do not want the negative reinforcement of being a quitter. I crave the positive reinforcement of being a finisher.

To that end, it’s time to invoke my Inner Goggins. Remember all of the tough things I’ve done in the past? Long, hard trails. Long runs. I pride myself on finishing. I might not be fast but I finish.

Those are just mountain memories. There are other things I’ve finished by sheer determination. Kids and paying for education, for instance.

Grind. There is glory in grinding it out. (Glory for self). Funny that I remember these things and it shines a light on how negative and false the self-accusation “you’re a quitter” is. I forget the wins. I forget the self-discipline, the doggedness.

I am grinding out 75 Hard.

There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline.

Uncredited quote on the Goggins Video YouTube channel, May 8, 2021.

Unpopular. Inspiring.

Why does Ode to Joy make me weep?

I feel as if life could not possibly be better for having listened to it this morning.

T told me, long ago, that life is hand-to-hand combat with self.

True.

My desire is to have less stuff. But I have more. Clutter everywhere. My desire is to be less harried. But I add more tasks to my to-do list.

Tiny steps forward. Incremental actions over time, focused like a stonemason’s chisel.

Trivial one: home. I am sitting around waiting for things to clean themselves up, throw themselves in the trash.

I don’t know the context of the admonition, but it is time to take Jordan Peterson’s admonition to heart. “Clean up your room.”

More profound: work. Too many things to do, impossible to do them in any reasonable time. Who is saying “yes” to new tasks when there is old stuff to finish? (Looks around, sheepishly, and sees only the dog).

How will I do this? How will I take actions consistent with my desires?

Answer: smaller and smaller objectives set for myself until the task I give myself actually gets done. Then I know that I have enough strength to deadlift that barbell. If a barbell isn’t budging, take weight off of it until you can pull it off the ground.

In other words, set a task. Observe. Does it get done? If yes, then good. If no, then set a smaller sub-task. Does it get done? If yes, then good. If no, then break down the smaller sub-task even more. Ad infinitum.

At home: I have intentions but do not follow through. The pallet that needs to be broken down for firewood. What happened? Why is it still there, two months later?

Reason: the toolbox was borrowed. Retrieve the toolbox. You know where it is: at the store. And just throw the wood in the trash, because you haven’t lit a fire for the last two winters.

Breaking it down, the only thing to do today is drive by the store on the way back from the gym.

Get the toolbox today.

How am I going to do that? By going to the gym, first. Today is gym day.

Second, on the way home, by telling them I am coming. Then when I am near the store, by calling and asking them to bring it to the back door. That way I don’t even have to get out of the car.

It is sufficient today to get the toolbox, which contains the hammer. Wielding the hammer can be done on another day.

I could even just say to them “bring the toolbox home” if that fails. But I can detour home from the gym to the store.

Yes, sometimes I have to rehearse my plans to that level in order to get things done. Sue me.

Edit: they need to repair some things at the store. I can’t get the toolbox. Time to set another tiny incremental objective.

Incremental action: the light bulbs are blown out here and there in the house. We have zillions of different shapes and types of light bulbs. Zillions, I say!

Order a six pack of generic 100 watt bulbs. That’s a start.

Do it on Amazon (even though you hate Amazon, just to get fucking shit done, and mind the fact that it’s your opinion about Amazon and it’s founder that’s the problem here—it has a negative impact of the quality of your life by making the living room darker at night).

I can’t buy incandescent bulbs. It’s fucking illegal. I want incandescent bulbs because of the predictable color of the light they throw off.

Order the fucking newfangled fucking non-incandescent fucking bulbs that seem to be too harsh and blue no matter what you buy. (This angry opinion hurt me too, and was solved by a bit of research to discover that incandescent lights throw off a 2700k color temperature, so that’s what I ordered, and if I’m wrong I will throw them away and buy something else until I get it right).

And ignore your opinion of legislators who are nanny-stating us into oblivion. Who feels the effects of those attitudes? Me. That’s who.

Order placed.

Unintended beneficent by-product of a single Amazon order: I am brought face-to-face with my own attitudes, and given the opportunity to see them. Really see them. And see how they damage my life.

I still can switch away from Amazon, and have started to do that, in fact. My experience is that Walmart is a viable competitor: equivalent or better prices, with better shipping service. I don’t have to corrode my soul in the process of moving my purchases to a different vendor.

I can see how the politicians are dim bulbs (hehe, get it?) without getting butthurt and damaging my own life around the house with AngryMan huffing and puffing. Deal with politics calmly, and vote with your feet as soon as you can get that sorted out. Or STFU and live a good life where you are.

Maybe this is what Jordan Peterson is talking about when he says “Clean up your room.”

Take a chisel. Place it with care. Start striking the chisel, deliberately and with intention. See what happens.

Why would you think that the boat that carries you across the river will take you across the land on the other side?

Chris Williamson in podcast 318, which is about meditation.