Practice makes perfect.
No, perfect practice makes perfect.
Perfect practice, until it becomes a part of your personality.
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Better means different
You want a better (for any definition you choose) outcome? You need different thoughts, actions, outcomes.
It’s foolhardy to assume you can take the old you with you into a better outcome. Better (hah) to insist on “different” from yourself in all ways as a first step.
Gratitude list, just for drill:
- Wife and kids
- Home
- Health
- Continued accomplishment of X (you know what it is) for so many decades
That last bullet point shows the limits of writing in this way. In fact the whole list is vague because of the medium I am using.
But the feeling of gratitude is real in spite of the vagueness.
If you took it all away tomorrow I would be sad (unlike a stoic) but I believe I could start over from nothing, like a stoic, and continue to live a good life.
Keeping that last bullet point would be a necessary ingredient to a good life in those circumstances, but that is within my control.
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Boredom, I have one
Noise of a movie on TV, sitting in the kitchen watching a frozen pizza cook. Let’s do nothing for the next 10 minutes or so while the pizza is in the oven.
Edit: I made it to 7 minutes then reflexively grabbed the phone.
When I am ignorant and I ask a question, usually there is a deeper question there. Don’t be satisfied at the surface.
And when people ask me a question, be sensitive that there is a deeper question there.
It might be technical. Or it might be emotional. There is always something beneath the surface. Look for that something, in myself when I search for an answer. And try to answer that something beneath the surface for the other person, if I am asked for an answer.
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Get bored on purpose
I’m going to try this.
As usual, it’s ancient wisdom. “Be still, and know I am God.”
No, that doesn’t mean meditation (necessarily).
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Change quickly when wrong
If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.21. Gregory Hays translation.
The theme song for what I’m doing here, what I aspire to be.
Scott Adams frequently said on his daily Periscopes that he changes his mind instantly and without ego when shown to be wrong. (Not his words but that’s the idea).
I did that, starting today. I am doing something that (to me) is helpful, encouraging to people I know well and want to help. Not so, I was informed. What I’m doing is pushy and not helpful.
Stopped. I didn’t take even a little offense. I’m just glad I found out my beliefs about how to make things better was wrong.
And my relationship with the targets of my “advice” seemed to improve immediately.
I want more of that.
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I can do it, too
Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.19. Gregory Hays translation.
It worked for you, so it will work for me.
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In rehearsal again
I am talking to myself. This time, it is really truly a rehearsal. I am reciting a speech in my head that I will never give to make myself look like a saint to an audience that doesn’t exist.
Stop it. This gets you nowhere.
I know, but my mind goes back there, by itself.
When you find yourself there again, just talk to God about it. Use the same internal verbalizing that you’re using to speak to your imaginary audience. It works for them, it will work for talking to God.
You talk today to the imaginary future audience so your ego feels big today. Or you reduce today’s fear of the future that might never come.
Yes, the speech assumes I moved to a new place to live and I’m giving a talk there, hoping to that people will like me. The likelihood of a move is remote but maybe I am afraid of being alone, or something like that.
Just so. If you are rehearsing today because you are afraid today of a future event, talk to God the same way you talk to yourself.
The future rarely happens the way you imagine it will. Talking to God will bring you back to now. you are always afraid now. Talking to God now will transform fear now. Let the future event happen or not. Probably it won’t, in reality.
And while you’re at it, do some menial task, like wiping down the kitchen counters or unloading the dishwasher. Talk to God and do something small that makes you feel good? That’s a recipe for success.
Yes, I wiped down the table. It had crumbs all over it. That felt good.
(NB: From the Observer. The Kingdom of God is within, as everyone from Jesus to Tim Grover has reminded you. You already know the answer. It’s just a matter of doing what you know you have to do. This episode just proved it, again.)
Hah. The Observer made an appearance! It’s turtles all the way up.
Notes from my second reading.
“You already know what you have to do, and you know how to do it. What’s stopping you?”
About thinking outside the box: “There is no box.”
“If you want to be unstoppable, you have to face who you really are and make it work for you, not against you. Truly relentless people—the Cleaners—are Predators, with dark sides that refuse to be good. And whether you know it or not, you do have a dark side. Use it well and it can be your greatest gift.” Emphasis added.
Comments. This is an introductory chapter, so not a lot of meat is found here. Hints of the inner power (the dark side, he calls it, driven by animal instinct.
I like the emphasis on knowing who you are and making it work for you.