Month: August 2021

I woke up a bit later than usual. My brain would not let me listen to the “It’s the weekend, you can sleep in” story. At this point I know lying awake in bed at dawn will mean constant brain chatter—not a return to sleep.

I always put out my running gear before I go to sleep. So it was easy to get up, get dressed, and get outside. And then, I was done.

I have a set loop that I do every morning. Walk to that corner to loosen up, start running until I reach that corner, then walk the rest of the way. I am extending the run portion of the loop by 10% every week. (This is contrary to my standard approach to life of going whole hog from the git-go. Who knows! I might be learning how to get better better.)

My brain suggested that today maybe I could just walk the entire thing. Nope. I ran the section I usually run, according to plan.

What’s the moral of this story? This trivial event in a random day?

The first thing is to note how fast, with repetition and very little motivation, I built a foundational habit. I would estimate that the dawn patrol habit took three or four weeks to embed.

The second is to note how I attempt to dissuade myself with self-talk from doing what I want to do (be an early riser, runner, healthy and clear-minded), even while I am doing what I want to do. I am bemused.

The third is the meta picture I just got. This little write-up is overly wordy and clunky. See how hard it is for me to express inner, nonverbal feelings and convictions?

I am sitting on the back porch. A squirrel is on the roof of the garage, looking at me and mailing squirrel noises. It’s a cool overcast morning and the soft, flat gray light is soothing. I want to cry, partly in gratitude and partly in frustration and fear. I dread today’s self-appointed tasks.

Let’s go.

Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back. Sometimes the problem has mutated or disappeared. Often it is still there as strong as it ever was.

Donald Kingsbury

That is something that has taken me a long time to see.

Along that line, remember Chesterton’s Fence.

Marcus Aurelius tells me that my opinions are standing between me and peace of mind.

That’s framing. A particular situation (a task at work, for instance) can be seen as an obstacle or an opportunity.

How I see it—obstacle or opportunity—influences my mood, my energy in attacking the task, the types of solutions I envision.

Framing—my opinions—are disconnected from and external to the thing, situation, or person about which I have an opinion. My opinion about the weather doesn’t alter the weather one little bit. My opinion about the weather only affects my mood and my actions.

Until I can view life’s random events with equanimity, I had better be conscious of my opinions and the framing I impose on people, places, and things. And learn to discard harmful framing.

I think when I run. Usually it’s about Them or These Troubles Times and how They Are Doing It All Wrong and how I will courageously and humbly fix it.

This morning I started to try something different: visualization. What would my perfect day look like? Where would I be? What car would I be driving? Etc. The mundane (or not so mundane) details — what do they look like? What’s the view of me, from the view of a drone hovering 5 or 10 feet above me?

That’s a tall challenge.

I got as far as glimpses of me in my car, driving. What’s playing though the sound system, the upholstery, the color of the car, what the weather’s like.

But my mind kept snapping back to the shit.

“When your mind is in the ditch . . . .” Thanks Bob, for the reminder.

I’m going to keep this up. Let’s see how it goes. It’s a lot better than working myself up into a froth over Them.

When I go out in the morning for my first workout of the day, I visualize my perfect day. Which, I have to say, includes running at 5 am. It’s awesome to be out before dawn. It’s such a hopeful, vibrant time—pretty much the 180 of the feeling I get from hearing Early Morning Rain.

If you’re out in the desert with a .22LR rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammo, you have a choice. You can start blazing away at every random rock you see, or you can set up targets and start aiming.

Blazing away just makes noise. If you like loud bangs and you think noise means progress, good for you. Not me. it’s a waste of time and ammunition.

Set the target. Then pull the trigger.

This has application in my daily life. My calendar shows blocks of time, what I’m going to work on, and what I intend to achieve in those blocks of time.

I might miss my target. But I have a target. I won’t waste that two hour block of time. I will get something accomplished. And it won’t be by luck.

If I focus all of my attention on one thing, I get massive results. I’m seeing that unfold in real time.

Do one thing. Avoid chasing the shiny, avoid having too many balls in the air, doing too many things at once. Avoid being busy.

Be ruthless. Do one thing. Over and fucking over and over again.

Look for like-minded people. Use the power of conformity in a good way to strengthen your resolve — and theirs — to stay on The Path.

In your own lives, remember that committing to a “good enough” plan, and executing it with zeal and ardor, is better than swerving all over life’s roads searching endlessly for the perfect solution and abandoning yesterday’s plan. Choosing a simple path and grinding away while tuning out distractions is the way to achieve most anything.

amplifiedbeing.com

Woke up a bit earlier than usual today. Ran a bit longer than usual today.

Bangin’.

Let’s pretend. Today’s visualization is me, a family man 200 years ago. It’s 1821 and we’ve trekked west to Ohio or Indiana. Found some land. Decided to stop and build a life. Right here.

Work hard. Every day. Monotonous. Taxing. Sweaty, dirty. No end of work in sight. I clear a small patch of forest for a rough cabin and a garden to grow some food. Hah! There are 200 acres of trees and stumps and rocks yet to clear.

Be that man. Pounding away at whatever needs to be done. Day after day, winter and summer, with just determination, sweat, and simple tools. Relentless. Resilient. Resourceful.

Be that man today.

I need it.

America needs it.

Here’s another tell. If you’re negotiating with yourself, if you’re explaining something to yourself . . . you’re avoiding something you should do.

I am feeling weak when I start to fantasize about things that are beyond my control and require assistance from the supernatural to achieve.

I do that a lot. I did it this morning on the dawn patrol. When I feel powerless and aggrieved I lapse into spinning fantastic yarns in my head about things that could only happen in fiction. Harry Potter-level fiction.

It’s because I’m feeling weak and inadequate. That’s when I imagine that I am endowed with magical powers. That’s when I feel righteous and I am the only person who can Right This Wrong.

Funny. As soon as I had that realization this morning and realized this was all made-up fantasy (as compared to real fantasy I guess!) my brain cleared and the rest of the walk was peaceful.

Let’s go back to square one, and remember Bob’s advice: stop talking to yourself and start talking to God.

I am the same inadequate, powerless person I am mid-fantasy. I always will be. And the fantasy I create in my mind always makes me feel worse. Why is that? Why do I feel unhappy in my imagined triumphs accomplished effortlessly by wielding unimaginable personal power?

At least have some inner peace, eh? Drop the fantasy. Maybe that inner peace will be a resource that I will be grateful to have cultivated at some future date.

Ask not to whom the ambulance speeds. It speeds to thee.