First full day. Yesterday held a mid-morning Decision and action.
Remove obstacles by saying no. Remove obstacles by asking for help in removing them, of course. But above all, say no.
If I don’t listen to the still, small voice now . . . when will I?
I’m plunging forward. There are no half-measures.
It started today.
100 days of “No”.
That’s as good a mantra as any.
It’s arbitrary so I reserve the right to change the number, but the objective behind it stands.
We’ll start our analysis with a truism, stark, self-evident and understated: sometimes things do not go well. That seems to have much to do with the tyrannical nature of the world, with its plagues and famines and tyrannies and betrayals. But here’s the rub: sometimes, when things are not going well, it’s not the world that’s the cause. The cause is instead that which is currently most valued, subjectively and personally. Why? Because the world is revealed, to an indeterminate degree, through the template of your values (much more of this in Rule 10). If the world you are seeing is not the world you want, therefore, it’s time to examine your values. It’s time to rid yourself of your current presuppositions. It’s time to let go. It might even be time to sacrifice what you love best, so that you can become who you might become, instead of staying who you are.
Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, page 170. Emphasis in original.
Oh.
Where you are judged on your actions today.
Future you is the judge. That’s why Hell is so awful. Future You is the judge. There is no escape from the realization that you did this to you by your own decisions.
If you do not have a definite aim, you will go nowhere and everywhere.
It need not be a well-defined goal. Need not be a SMART goal. But make it directionally accurate. You know your goal is somehow northwest of where you are. Aim northwest. You will get clarity from movement.
One of my goals is to be a crazy-fit 90 year old man. I have an image of the future and me in it. White hair, buzzed short. But . . . fucking hell, he’s 90??? Astonishingly fit.
I’m in no rush to reach that vision. I will become 90 years old one day at a time, no matter what. I don’t yearn for this or recoil from being 90 years old.
I am only interested in what I’m doing today.
And it is an intriguing aim. Imagine quality of life in every facet at 90 as a “fucking hell, he’s fit” 90-year old man. Imagine the interesting task of building toward that goal: what to do, how to eat, everything. N=1 experiment.
You have a goal. When do you begin?
Start now.
You lack the tools, the resources to achieve your goal.
Start with what you have on hand right now. You have the resources to start. You don’t have the resources you need to finish. But you’re at the starting point, and you have enough on hand to start now.
Get tomorrow’s resources tomorrow.
Starting now gives you something you didn’t have yesterday: direction and momentum.
You can’t get much done at all. You need information, you lack skill.
Life lessons are learned in life.
I started lifting with a few YouTube videos and a great deal of sheepish confusion at the gym. I learned some stuff quickly, from putting my hands on a barbell. Those were lessons I learned only from doing.
Better technique comes with practice and instruction. But I can only practice and receive hands-on instruction if I’m in the arena, at the gym, as an ignorant amateur weightlifter.
Do what you can do just as you are right now. You are smart enough to take action today. You are strong enough. You will get smarter and stronger tomorrow, building off the momentum and learning of today.
I can only lift the bar, without weights? So be it. Go upstairs one step at a time.
Always aim toward your goal. You will find it moves in front of you, like the horizon, so you will never get there. You will never be done. You will never be there.
But you will feel immense satisfaction by staying in the present moment, immersed in your self-appointed journey. And you will feel pleasure — and find guidance — by looking back to yesterday you, and noting your progress.
You lifted weights at the gym today that yesterday you could not lift. You understood something you read that yesterday you could not understand.
Don’t fret that the barbell could have contained more weight than you lifted. Look at what you did today, compared to yesterday.
Don’t fret that you are still ignorant and lack understanding. Look at what you know today that you didn’t know yesterday.
What you were yesterday was the foundation on which you built today’s accomplishment. Today you is built on the foundation of yesterday you.
Incremental progress. One millimeter a day, if that’s all you can do today, is world-changing.
Build a strong today you. Tomorrow you will be thankful for the foundation you built today, just as you are thankful for the foundation yesterday you built for today you.
“Canary in a coal mine.”
It’s a phrase everyone knows. And everyone knows the meaning of the phrase, even those of us who were not coal miners a century ago.
Memo to self: Look around you. Look around your life, your coal mine. Really look at it. Look at it like Tony Eafrati looks at a target.
(Listen to one of the Jocko podcasts where he talks about this. There is an unexpected revelation of power in how he describes looking at the target, just looking with patience, when planning a military mission. “Those who have eyes to see, let them see.” Develop Sight, Seeing. his skill matters above all else.)
What’s my canary?
By the way, do you even know that you’re in a coal mine?
That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well resent a fig tree for secreting juice. (Anyway, before very long you’ll both be dead—dead and soon forgotten.)
Meditations 4.6
Don’t look outward at them, whoever they are.
Look within.
Apple trees produce apples.
But as near as I can tell, a conscious man can, with deliberate effort, change himself. No longer bearing apples, he become an orange tree, bearing oranges.
This is the hope that drives me forward: the belief that I am capable of achieving something different—and higher.
Quantic’s Life in the Rain.
And in my optimistic moments, I must acknowledge that this has happened to me. I have, to use the misused cliché, been born again.
Having had that awakening, I then confront the truth of my infinite ignorance. Do not despair. Even the wisest of us is equal in his infinite ignorance.
Stay on The Path. I will, for the rest of my life, be in a position of infinite ignorance, regardless of effort or intelligence. There is no possibility of arrival, or achievement.
Action is the aim. The journey is the destination. Keep trudging is the mantra.
Whenever you see something happen and announce your judgment, remind yourself that time has not stopped. Whatever you see is not the final result.
Let’s see what happens. It’s not the end of the story.
This is why it’s so important to never give up. You’re not sprinting for the finish line. There is no finish line. A new chapter will be written tomorrow.
Write it.
The stars that take their course across the sky every night. My daily life.
The story is one of an endless cycle. Awaken, go about my day, sleep, only to arise again.
The folly of done. Of accomplishment. Ticking tasks on the list as done, and somehow expecting the cycle to stop and give me respite.
This is one of the insights from Day 11 of the 75 Hard program. Each day is relentless. Each day asks me to perform the tasks assigned to me, without pity or consideration. Each day will be followed by another, with its required tasks, until I die.
Speed is unnecessary and desiring speed is silly. It cannot be given to me, even as I cannot make the earth circle the sun a bit faster because I want it to be summer again.
This is another way to think of the mills of God, grinding slowly.
What do I take from this?
Life is relentless. The treadmill moves at its own pace. Sprinting or sitting on the treadmill? Both pointless.
It’s time to find my pace. And peace.
Remember that. what other people think of me is unimportant.
My opinion of you is my business.
Remember that, too. Don’t feel the need to tell people what you think of them. They are hard enough on themselves, in the quiet of their own minds. My opinion of others hurts only me.
My opinion of me is my business.
And there, it is especially important to be kind. When I pull a stunt, be kind and guide myself towards my Primary Purpose.
I, like them (whoever they are), am human and prone to error and rash behavior.
Honesty, to see what is real, and acknowledge it. Kindness, because we need it (given and received) to stay on The Path.