Rule 4 is today’s reading:
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
12 Rules for Life, page 84
I read this chapter for the first time only a few weeks ago. Rereading it . . . well, there are so many actionable suggestions there! There are ways to get on The Path. Or to return to The Path when you’ve detoured into the weeds.
Somehow, I have set up the day more or less in line with his suggestions.
I have defined a task to accomplish today. It’s maybe not as small as he would suggest, but it’s feasible, to my best guess. This is aligned with the inner negotiation: what is there to do that I can — and will — do? Aim small. my life will be measurably better when it’s done.
My personal, specific Monday will be better by getting this one thing done today, on Sunday.
I have added rewards into my day. Explicit breaks in the day to go do something. I have not committed myself to a long, hard, joyless slog.
Let’s see how it works!
Aim small. You don’t want to shoulder too much to begin with given your limited talents, tendency to deceive, burden of resentment, and ability to shirk responsibility. Thus, you set the following goal: by the end of the day, I want my life to be a tiny bit better than they were this morning. Then you ask yourself, “What could I do, that would accomplish that, and what small thing would I like as a reward? Then you do what you have decided to do, even if you do it badly. Then you give yourself that damn coffee, in triumph. Maybe you feel a bit stupid about it, but you do it anyway. And you do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And, with each day, your baseline of comparison gets a little higher, and that’s magic. That’s compound interest. Do that for three years, and your life will be entirely different. Now you’re aiming for something higher. Now you’re aiming for something higher. Now you’re wishing upon a star. Now the beam is disappearing from your eye, and you’re learning to see. And what you aim at determines what you see. That’s worth repeating. What you aim at determines what you see.
12 Rules for Life, pp. 95-95. Emphasis in original.
Today:
- Exercise for approx an hour. 45 minutes is the aim but it always goes a little longer.
- Shower and dress.
- Do the work laid out. This phase is simple: converting edits on a paper draft into their equivalent in Word.
- Stop. Go get lunch. It’s going to be that pizza place next to the coffee joint. I will patronize both and make my taste buds happy.
- Return. Print the new draft, go through one last edit on paper. Be ruthlessly careful in editing this so anyone (even me) could follow the markup and make the edits in Word without thinking. Output: monkey work. I’m a monkey and I will appreciate not having to think.
- Gym. Go lift. Do the regular things but for the next several visits, start to learn about the squat and doing it right. Later I will need out on other lifts. For now, back to basics. Bodyweight, kettlebell, etc. Don’t worry about barbell, don’t worry about weight. I only care about knowing how to do a squat well. Heavy is later.
- Back to the computer. Paper edits to Word. Monkey mind in action. Final version done.
- Output: PDF emailed.
- Ahh. Now here is the question. What’s my reward when shipping the PDF? I was going to say Mocha Frappuccino but it will be late in the day so no caffeine for me. Hmm. I will let the brain make suggestions. Maybe a burrito from the list of places I saw yesterday.
That’s my plan. It’s laid out in Cal Newport-style time blocks. Let’s do it.