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.