Reality Laughs

I’m attempting to be bored right now. On purpose, because I’m always doing.

It’s not working. I keep playing with my phone.

There isn’t much more to say than that.

Why is that true?

I’m not sure but I think the clue is in the fact that this reveals itself with time.

What is the defense?

I’m not sure, but it isn’t a self-inflicted tall poppy strategy. Don’t deliberately deny yourself the gift you have.

I think the answer is first: don’t expect the vulnerability to come from the same place where your gift operates. If you write well, your life won’t blow up because of something you write. Lebron James will not risk his life blowing up because of his basketball talents.

It’s like the sink cost fallacy in a way. If you are losing money in a business remember that you don’t necessarily turn it around by staying the course and spending more money on the same strategies. You don’t make it back the same way you lost it.

The gift you have creates your biggest opportunities for vulnerability because it creates a void elsewhere in your life. And that void, which exists because of the disproportionate reliance on the gift, is your vulnerability.

The gift makes you choose one thing over another, favoring the gift. And that choice is what dooms you. Not the gift itself.

This is not to say that “emphasize your strengths and ignore your weaknesses” is a flawed aphorism. Rather it is to say that you should have the humility to see that you are creating more weaknesses.

The only antidote I can think of is humility. Constant awareness of humility.

The only way I know to keep awareness is to keep reminding myself (I’m doing that now, and the reading daily helps too) and through helping others. Quietly, anonymously, one-on-on.

An awareness of balance will help too. The universe is in balance. If I see x, then -x must also be true somewhere, somehow. If I see benefits, then what risks and I not seeing. Have the humility to know that you can’t see and understand it all.

I’m not sure how money fits into the equation. That’s still a piece I haven’t figured out. I can be like Mother Teresa, sure. But that’s not me. The polar opposite is a mono-focus on making money to the exclusion of all other concerns.

Hah. A paradox. Let’s leave it there. Good insights come when I find a paradox and live with it instead of trying to eliminate it. Plant a paradox seed and let it grow.

Today I was at the right place, doing the right thing.

I am content.

Found a good Gary Vaynerchuk video with the key insights of being accountable and not blaming others. I talked about this in the other entry I wrote.

Thought from the video: social media exposes who you are.

Follow-on thought, provoked by that idea. Everything exposes who I am. My car. Etc. Am I willing to see and accept what it exposes? I drive that car. Why? What is it feeding in me?

Self will not reveal self to self. But maybe taking away a thing will reveal self to self.

Example: intermittent fasting. Take away food during certain times, and see what the emotions do. Interesting! Emotions I feel have no relationship to the biology of ingesting calories to fuel the wet machine.

Thoughts bubbling up from watching a few Gary Vaynerchuk videos. I’m never going to find the specific ones at this point.

First, the phone in my pocket isn’t evil. It’s an empty vessel connecting me with something I want. So to say iPhone addiction or similar phrases is wrong, and it misleads. I’m not addicted to the phone. I’m addicted to the things I find there. The responsibility, the accountability is with me, not Apple.

Social media is the same. It’s not good or bad. It just is. Facebook isn’t evil. It’s my use of Facebook that is the important fact. After staying away for years (because I thought Facebook was evil) I have an account now, for one specific private group. That’s all I use it for, despite the enticements thrown at me. I took responsibility. The tool is fine.

As soon as a thing is tagged as bad in some way, maybe we give away agency, ownership of our own lives. The language we use to describe things matters.

Even accepting that Facebook people do bad things to others in their quest for profit, the correct first response is “All that may be true, but what am I going to do about my life?” And I can’t control Facebook, I am wasting my time if I whine about Congress not doing something about it, and I am arrogant if I mock “them” (whoever “they” are) because that’s implicit arrogance on my part.

The only productive thought is “Ok, maybe that’s true. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is the spawn of Satan. What am I going to do right now, actions, to improve my life?”

That’s a Dan Sullivan philosophy too. He has no time for victims. Your parents were bad parents. You suffered a setback from random events, caused by whatever. Ok. What are you going to do now?

Never a victim. Always accountable.

Pay attention to what your brain blurts out, especially when it’s startling. It might be trying to tell you something.

In a convo on Slack with CJ yesterday I blurted out (no filters) what I thought would be my amazing goal. (It’s written in a text file on my computer, named extreme.txt). And followed up with saying I doubt my ability to achieve that.

It’s good in this way because CJ shares similar objectives for himself. And falls short, like me. And flogs himself for it, like me.

Then I said in order to achieve that I would need to do a severely radical action — clear the decks in a major way.

And I said I was afraid to do this.

My brain told me truth. What I truly want. (Extreme.txt). What I need to get there. (Extreme clear the decks). And why I’m not getting there. (Fear).

I’m going to let these thoughts bake in the oven for a little while. Do I really want extreme.txt? Or is it ego/ambition/etc.?

Because if it’s real . . . what the fuck am I doing? YOLO.

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

Meditations, 6:51.

I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing when I approve of my own actions.

That’s the objective.

Today I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing if I spend time shopping for cars with my daughter because she asks me to. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing when I spend time with my wife performing a business task that she needs help with.

Even if my brain tells me to do something else.

A Scott Adams Periscope a while back contained the advice to let good thoughts out of your head. If you had a good thought about someone, say it. Don’t admire secretly.

I don’t do this nearly enough, but I have done it more than before, so thank you Scott Adams and the internet for making my life better.

When I tell people what I think, a funny thing happens: I think this will make the other person feel good, and that’s why you do it. Maybe they do feel happy. Probably will, in fact.

But I feel better when I do it. That’s the real payoff. I’m not doing this to get someone else to do something or feel something. I’m doing this for myself.

It’s a way to create gratitude. You don’t think “I am grateful.” Much better is to do grateful.

Praising or thanking another person creates gratitude in me.

Am I going to come across as shallow and manipulative? Will they think that I’m just saying these kind words for my own reasons?

Nope. Not a risk, in my experience.

An honest thought (“She looks pretty this morning and wow look at how she put together her outfit today!”) sincerely expressed will be received exactly as intended.

Even (maybe especially) an honest “I love you” or “You’re doing great” comment matters.

Let good thoughts out of your head and share them.

Along those lines, here is something from Marcus Aurelius:

When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.

Meditations, 6:48.

All I would add is — tell them.

Because it isn’t suck. It just is.

The thought and the phrase came to me after seeing a Gary Vaynerchuk excerpt on YouTube.

Life is life and stuff is stuff and sometimes you are doing what you want to do and sometimes you are doing what you don’t want to do.

It passes. The good stuff and the bad stuff and the indifferent stuff. The stuff you want to remember you’ll forget and the stuff you wish you could forget you’ll always remember.

Right now it’s always ok. Even when it’s suck.

Think of your own life, and the objectively suck things you have experienced. Where are they? Just memories. And the great thing is I can tell people and say “I went through this, so can you.”

Embrace the suck. Grin and bear it. Whatever metaphor you choose.

Even kidney stones. That was the most pain I have ever had in my life. What did I do? Waited out the week or so until I pissed them out. The pills barely affected the pain. I didn’t even have the awareness to say embrace the suck to myself. I just, y’know, lay there one breath at a time.

I don’t want that experience again, but maybe next time I will be able to lie there and be aware enough to say “embrace the suck” to myself. Or not. Whatever.