Author: Reality Laughs

You’ve been choosing this life you have all along.

If my life is unacceptable to me, it’s my own damn fault.

If my choices have created a life that is unacceptable to me, what does that say about my choices? It says that I made my choices to be acceptable to others, at my own expense.

What does this mean for today?

What choices do I make today?

I choose, today, to build my heart’s desire. One step at a time. Either it will work or it won’t—but I want to give it the opportunity to blossom and bear fruit.

Then let everything else fill in around that.

Hit all targets yesterday.

Thinking about why I make things as hard as possible. (Do I?)

Newsletter. I could make them shorter. Easier to read and assimilate a thought and easier to write.

Webcasts. I could make them shorter. Easier to find time to watch them and faster to make.

Run. Longer. Ever harder. Go go go. Why am I committing to a half-marathon?

Why not think about the alternative? Try with this week’s newsletter. Shorter: 1,000 words instead of 2,000 or more.

It’s like those Jim Clair emails before I gave up. Get to the point, Jim. Same for mine?

And keep the snark out. Snark is lazy.

Sleep time. Missed it by 3 minutes. Got plenty of rest though, due to a Saturday afternoon nap. I’m up early and it is a run day. And there is work to do.

At this point the five minutes of writing a day feels rote. Maybe that’s part of the exercise: to keep emptying the bucket when you think the bucket is empty. So I continue to write immediately when waking up, mostly vapid. Keep on it, even when it produces nothing of value (like today). The value is in the thumbs hitting the keys on this phone.

I have no further words to express any feelings because the feelings are dulled by the prospect of work all day, on top of a 10k.

Starting the day with water rather than coffee seems to make the wake-up process smoother.

At the suggestion of a friend, I am making two lists: a Fairy Godmother list and a Stop Doing This list. Let’s see what happens.

The Fairy Godmother list is something you wish, however farfetched. Do you want to be king? On the list. Time is irrelevant. Effort is irrelevant. Talent and physical attributes are irrelevant. Do you want to be a nuclear physicist? Done.

He has a way of asking questions—he demonstrated and I don’t remember how he did it—that quickly zero in on what you really want beneath the fantasy of being the king philosopher powerlifting nuclear physicist who is lighter than air and can fly.

The other list, I forget his name for it, is a Do Not Do list. A list of things you never want to do again in your life. This could be fanciful stuff, as above. But most likely these are real things in your life.

So, the extreme poles of dreams of a perfect life. Beneath the dreams is a reality. Find it. within those fancies and impossible whimsies are concrete actions. Do them.

Testing continues for the easiest way to do this. I’m trying simple lists in Reminders on my phone. I want something as low friction as possible.

Let’s see what the lists reveal. Obviously, simple pie-in-the-sky dreams and whiny complaints do nothing. It’s what lies beneath the surface of the positive and negative fantasies that matters, and is actionable. And, when addressed, will make the difference.

Up early even though I went to bed late.

Today is a running day.

My brain is fried from insufficient sleep.

Ghost as an email platform is vastly better than Mailchimp.

Today is a day to be methodical and not have any strong opinions. I’m likely to be a tad irritated with everyone and everything today.

So the day will be:

• Call. Should I renegotiate my arrangement? Refocus the consulting?
• Lunch. What are they doing about processes and checklists?

Make the afternoon about excellence in project management. Or should I say process management?

I will give up 100 points again today. Didn’t hit my sleep target because I was working until 10:30 pm.

Sleep matters. I’m starting to see this and feel it. Early to bed is essential; I feel groggy now.

The other sleep problem (aside from going to bed late) is entirely preventable: don’t have phones in the room because they make noises in the middle of the night. This is now a three time problem within a week. And it doesn’t help that I have multiple devices. Keep the backpack out of the bedroom and charge devices somewhere else.

I feel as though I am treading water at work. Things don’t get better, and no one around me seems to care. What to do? It’s unsustainable.

First things first. Spam calls are bad always and especially at 4:30 am. The iPad was in the bedroom and FaceTime called. Ouch.

New day. Better rhythm. It will be a full points day. And it’s a running day. Increase the distance by 1/2 a mile. My objective is to get the short days to 10k, then start lengthening the long day to a full half-marathon distance.

Today: MIW consists of polishing the slide deck. Make customers.

Today: ship client work.

Today: remember to breathe. Stressed. It feels like treadmill time, so slow down and look at the clouds. All of the previous major dilemmas of life passed and here I am. Why take these minor dilemmas seriously? Remember that.

Went to bed too late (past the self-designated 10 pm bedtime because I went to a baseball game) so I’m giving up some points today. Otherwise, all will be well.

I’m finished with baseball. I rarely go, and it will be rarer than ever now. Or maybe I will try a minor league game to see if the feeling is still there.

Reason: the audio-visual overwhelm at the game. It’s too loud, too much with the flashing lights and loud colors. The scoreboard is busy—and garish. Perhaps the glacial character of the game was too much in one direction. But last night’s experience is too much the other. The glacial pace was supplemented by in-your-face noise, flashing lights, between-the-innings distractions.

Of course, I haven’t given a damn about professional sports for decades. I don’t want to be the blob on the couch passively watching—I want to be doing.

I am frequently a blob on the couch. That’s by choice. But don’t plop me down and direct a firehose of noise and flashing lights at me.

Turbulent sleep last night, but plenty of it. Up and at ‘em early.

So what does the day hold? MIW and W. The day is planned. Some stretching. No refined sugar foods in my diet: soda, etc. It’s a day and I am ready for it.

Yesterday’s run. These are starting to be a distance that challenges. Before, I would come home and do whatever I wanted. Now, I’m tired and lack the brainpower to do much.

Also it is clear that I must actually run a half-marathon distance at altitude (or maybe 16 miles here) to be competent and confident that I can complete the half-marathon later this year.

Today is Day 1 of the Ultraworking Pentathlon XXII. I will use this as the starting point for the next 15 days of writing.

Sleep. Set to “be in bed by 10 pm” which is usually easy but lately I have strayed to the “sit around until midnight” routine, and paid the price. Wake time is 7:30 am and I don’t know the last time I slept that late. Aspiration: to sleep like a teenager. 😀

Most Important Work. Two videos. Slides done, ready for the live presentations.

Diet. Cut out the added sugar stuff that has crept back into my life. I’m looking at you, root beer. But I’m also looking at the snack cupboard at work. Stick to the raw almonds if you need a snack.

Exercise. Stick to the current running schedule and add tiny (5 minutes a day) stretching sessions for nonrunning days. Tiny Habits. Good book. Good ideas.

Planning. Three things on the “Today” section of the app. Ideally done the night before, but not mandatory. Reviewed first thing in the morning or written then if necessary.

Day 1 is here. Slept properly.

Did not do the planning last night because I forgot and I think one of the reasons I forgot is because I’m using the To Do app from Microsoft which is on my work tech (phone, iPad, laptop) which I more or less mothball after the workday.

Lesson learned. Use Reminders on my phone and share between the work phone and the personal phone.

Tech switch to remove friction and make the habit easier to follow.

It’s a running day. Target 10k.

Diet is easy.

Most Important Work after breakfast and before the run.