Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday worked. Planned, stuck with the plan.

Lesson learned: days with lots of interruptions and task switching are unproductive days. Well, except that they produce a bunch of tiny results. Phone call accomplished, etc.

Lesson learned: the afternoon is a dead zone for me intellectually and for energy. I’ll have to figure out how to ride the waves. The standard “eat lunch and come back” produces unacceptable results. I might as well leave at noon. Idea: a longer break in the middle of the day, with a run or a gym visit in there.

Let’s plan today.

• Preconfigured call with team member.
• Target task.
• Preconfigured call with customer.
• Target task.
• Lunch. (I’m going to try the gym thing today. The bag is in my car).
• Target task.
• Preconfigured call with team member.

Another lesson learned: I’m going to block out entire days for no calls. And days where I bunch them up.

And use Work Cycles.

I have to say that a few days of steady action like this and The Sads aren’t pressing me hard. That’s good.

One more thing. I got the reading in this morning. Meditations, of course.

It’s what the old guys said: you can’t think your way into right actions, but you can act your way into right thinking.

It goes without saying that you can’t think your way into right thinking, all by yourself. You need external, human help. Your own best thinking got you where you are today. You need someone else’s ideas, and the humility to accept them and put them into practice.

Again. Let’s test the ability of systematic, focused work to change emotions.

• Preplanned call. Administrative.
• Preplanned call. Administrative.
• “Check in” email to keep the plates spinning.
• Target job. Same one I worked on yesterday.
• Lunch.
• Target job.
• Preplanned call. Administrative but building production systems so it’s more than mere hygiene.
• Target job.
• Preplanned call. Administrative.

Again, use Work Cycles.

This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

Meditations 8:22a.

Persistent mild generalized sadness. That’s where I am right now.

I suspect it’s related to me not working on some tasks at the factory. My stack-ranking efforts are . . . well, I stack-rank my priorities but I don’t do them in that order.

Probably other reasons exist, too. But, let’s attack one thing at a time. What’s in front of me and actionable right now?

That’s why this little excerpt from Meditations hit home today. I reap the rewards (current emotional state) of what I do today. And for too many yesterdays, what I do today is not what I intend to do today.

Today at work, I will match actions to intentions. Here is the plan.

Use Work Cycles for the Target project.

• Prescheduled phone call. Unavoidable, brief. Do it. Be helpful to my fellow human, whoever he may be. EDIT: done.
• Respond to messages in email etc. with “later, can’t today.” EDIT: done.
• Target. EDIT: done.
• Lunch. Necessary to sustain the meat bag that I am. Walk briskly after eating for 30 minutes, for the man I am. EDIT: done and done. (NB: state of mind has improved.)
• Target. EDIT: done.
• Prescheduled phone calls. One is a deferrable administrative matter. Do it anyway. The other is work. Help him in the way he wants to be helped. EDIT: done and done.
• Gym. Go, even if all you do is some kettlebell squats ‘n wimpy lightweight stuff. I am afraid of going back after the fucking lockdown. EDIT: did not do. Will go do some push-ups and pull-ups at home.
• EDIT: did lots more Target instead. And I got a lot done. Yay me.

Will this help with The Sads? Probably not entirely, but I can do it. And it’s a start.

BFOTO! Look at how little attention is spent to Most Important Work. What am I going to do about that?

Exhortation to self: Get Some.

EDIT: net net, I’m in a better frame of mind at the of the workday.

I Got Some.

Is always at the same time, manually set: 5:55 pm GMT. The publication date is more or less accurate. Sometimes I publish on today (in my time zone). Sometime tomorrow. Sometimes 5:55 pm GMT is in the future or is late in my time zone. I might publish in the future or I might publish in the past. I don’t really care.

I started this . . . for reasons I don’t know. Maybe to mask my time zone. But now that I have started, I persist . . . for reasons I don’t know.

Most of these entries are written in the morning while reading. But I also write them during the day when I Have a Thought. That is why I put everything (books and blogging tool) on my phone: to capture an idea.

Beware the logical error of the false dichotomy.

Anytime I fall into this trap I find myself full of righteous indignation. How is it possible for me to be so right and that person to be so deliberately, obstinately wrong is such a fundamental way?

That’s a signal.

An emotional reaction is not the only signal. Immediately seeing the one and only extremely easy and obvious answer to a conundrum is another signal.

The problem is not, primarily, jumping to the answer. That is a problem and can cause damage, but it’s not the real problem. The real problem is my misunderstanding of the question. It’s the fact that I am presented with and do not recognize a false dichotomy.

What to do? Always look for the “and”.

It’s not an “or” world. It’s an “and” world.

Even if I can’t see the and.

It’s there, but the problem is me. I can’t see it.

When I’m at my best, I don’t even try to reason out the and. All I have to do is say “It’s not an ‘or’ universe. It’s an ‘and’ universe.” That is enough to pull my head out of my ass.

It’s enough to see a paradox (hint: it’s almost certainly not a paradox) and be willing to entertain it in my head.

I’m writing this for me, today, because I saw something on The Internet and the man’s error is blindingly obvious. 🙄

My brain follows rabbits down trails. The internet helps me with this indulgence.

Today I came back to Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms. I probably hadn’t thought of this since high school.

The power of one man’s conviction. reality always wins. God is not mocked, to coin a phrase.

Funny how the people stifling reality saw themselves to be on God’s side and perceived Luther and Galileo to be on the anti-God side. (Or more subtly, they may have perceived an erosion of their entrenched power).

Don’t fall into smug feelings here. It is easy to justify your belief that you are right, whether you are the Pope or the Heretic. Are you right? That’s another question entirely.

Your Path is your Path. Mine is mine.

My job is to make sure I have a Path. And stay on it.

Your life is your business. You do you.

I’ve been thinking about this all day today.

A few days before my 33rd birthday, a Path was offered to me, unbidden and unwanted. I seized it with all of the reluctance of a drowning man gasping for air. Many people push it aside. I’ve seen them die.

I didn’t have a Path until I was 33. Until then I was an idiot, seeking pleasure and randomly banging up against the guardrails of life. I was driftwood. Flotsam.

My Path has, at its core, remained the same since then.

How I describe my Path in words to myself, in my head, has changed over the years, but it’s still the same Path.

What I do to stay on the Path has changed over the years. But it’s the same Path.

What I have reaped from staying on the Path has changed, and I expect the results to change and change again, until the day I die.

How lucky am I? I have a Path, upon which great things have and will be built. Because I am on the Path, I have a soul. I own my own life.

No time for reading. For controlling your arrogance, yes. For overcoming pain and pleasure, yes. For outgrowing ambition, yes. For not feeling anger at stupid and unpleasant people—even for caring about them—for that, yes.

Meditations 8:8

I think I will ignore the advice about reading. “The first thing to go is the reading” is what Bob used to say. Meaning: if you want to maintain your spiritual condition, you must do the work. And keep doing it.

Part of that work is keeping your mind focused. Reading spiritual works (and I include Meditations in that category) is essential to that focus. Or, the Carpenter said “pray without ceasing”. Think of the reading as a form of prayer: your mind is directed away from self-thoughts and toward higher thoughts.

All the rest of what Marcus Aurelius talks about: these bedevil me. The arrogance. The anger. Those feelings are so justified, though. 🙃 Look at The World Today, Kids Today and Their Music, Those Corrupt Politicians, etc.

It is so easy to fall into smug arrogance.

“You know what your problem is? I know exactly what you’re doing wrong. Here, let me tell you.” Bob used to joke about that.

The Fourth Way people and the Sufi masters (if I remember right, and I long ago discarded all of those books) would talk about the dangers of confronting people with precisely-identified error. Better to follow the way of the fox. (That is, lead someone to enlightenment through an indirect path).

It takes a strong person, when facing a direct accusation of error, to deliberately choose to be defenseless and openminded.

I remember back in those days consciously choosing, in conversations, to be a boxer who kept his arms at his side, accepting any blows without retaliation. That’s what I got from Bob, Ouspensky, and the Sufis.

That spiritual muscle is serving me well, even today, in business. I’m a horrible business manager. When confronted by grievously wrong things I’ve done (we are digging out of a hole right now), I stand there, choosing not to defend my ego. It’s wonderful.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. And that’s not what I’m getting from Marcus Aurelius today. The direct attack on others (motivated by good intentions, even) that leads to anger and arrogance mostly hurts me. Not them, whoever they are.

I can hate a politician. Who is harmed? Me. I rattle these thoughts around in my head and get riled up. The politician doesn’t even know I exist and is unaffected by my disdain.

I can express my hatred of that politician to another person. Who is harmed? Me. My comments drive away other people. If they like the politician I have created an unnecessary point of division. If they share my feelings of disdain, they will be wary of me in the future.

Anger and arrogance, sooner or later, seek out other targets. And who wants to be in the line of fire when an angry, arrogant person starts forming opinions about people and things around him? I know I shun people like that.

Memo to self. You can’t afford to be angry and arrogant. Even if you’re right (and you absolutely are not the smartest and best-informed person of the 7.5 billion people alive, so don’t pretend that such feelings are well-grounded).

My opinions harm only me.

My life is important to me.

Let’s live the good life today.

Freedom has been enabled for the day across all of my devices. (The worst of the poison has been blocked).

I have read a bit from Meditations and written down these thoughts. (Spiritual focus exists, even though this is ephemeral).

Now, coffee and a light breakfast. Then: address the task at hand as a journeyman would. And later: light physical training. Weights or a 5k.

My dog parks herself strategically so when I walk to the kitchen she is in my path. As I approach, she rolls onto her back. I rub her belly. We’re both happy.

You have an idea and don’t Get On It and get it done?

If you don’t have a direction, a goal, and you don’t Get After It?

If you’re not on your path, you’re driftwood.

Have a path. Get into action.

This exhortation is for me. Fewer paths. More action.