Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.
~ Paul Graham
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When life is short →
When no one can take your time →
When nobody can take anyone elseâs time through a system, people end up with more time to themselves. When you have more time to yourself, you end up doing better work and more work. You can get a lot more stuff done in a given day than maybe you could in another organization that has six times as many people but 20 times as many meetings, 30 times less time during the day to yourself. So we try to avoid anything that breaks days into smaller and smaller chunks.
~ Jason Fried from, Working Smaller, Slower, and Smarter
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Thereâs a critical bit of culture however which must be in place it to work: People have to know their responsibilities and have to âpullâ work towards themselves. Everyone has to know their own area and has to take responsibility. This is very different from the usual [that is, dysfunctional,] workspace where everyone shows up, and their bossâor worse, everyoneâtells them what to do. In the team where people take responsibility and take work, everyone has to understand the mission. Everyone has to understand the vision of what they are trying to co-create. Everyone hast to empathize with their teammates.
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Focus your attention →
One of the most powerful things you can do as a human being in our hyperconnected, 24/7 media world is say: âI donât know.â Or, more provocatively: âI donât care.â Most of society seems to have taken it as a commandment that one must know about every single current event, watch every episode of every critically acclaimed television series, follow the news religiously, and present themselves to others as an informed and worldly individual.
~ Ryan Holiday from, The Daily Stoic, p39.
Stoicism is a terrific tool. (Itâs not about suppressing your emotions.) One of the practices is to pay attention to where your attention is. If I know Iâm not going to do anything with this informationâthis news show, this political argument, this batshit-crazy conspiracy theory, this story, that solicitation, this bit of entertainment, that bit of distraction . . . If I know Iâm not going to do anything with this information, then it turns out that it is trivial to not be distracted by things. People think Iâm ignoring things, or that Iâve not noticed things. Iâm simply choosing where to allocate my attention, (and therefore my time and efforts.) I choose to be in control of where my attention is placed. Only then can I apply it where it will do good.
What in your life can demand your attention? Are you okay with each of things that you just thought of?
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Commitment →
If someone were to ask me to identify the single primary quality that an artist or entrepreneur should cultivate in himself, I would say depth of commitment. Because depth of commitment either embodies all the other virtues or establishes the fertile field in which they can take root and grow. Depth of commitment presupposes courage, passion, recklessness, capacity for self-discipline, and the ability to have fun. It implies perseverance.
~ Steven Pressfield
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Commitment doesnât increase in a smooth fashion. One moment things are as they are, and then you catch a glimpse of how they could be. A glimpse of how they should be… how they must be! When it happens, itâs like cresting a hill after a long walk up a tedious slope. In a flash you forget the thousand gnats and brambles you endured on the climb. Thereâs nothing for it but to charge down the hill into the valley. This is the valley. This is the solution. This is the way the work should have been done from the beginning. You ignore the shadow which you can clearly see lies at the very bottom of the valley. You ignore the far slope certain you wonât have to climb that hill. Surely nothing better could be found beyond. Surely all the work of all those previous hills was worth the effort to reach this valley.
Right?
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Because your soul demands it →
So I make it really simple. Iâd say art is: âThat which you have no choice but to do, because your soul demands itâ.
Yes, itâs a fairly flawed definition. But it illustrates something that most people donât get about artists or entrepreneurs. We do it, because if we donât, life feels empty. The downside being, it doesnât exactly come with an easy life.
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I’ve found it very difficult to distinguish, “I started this thing therefore I must finish this thing, and I must do it well,” from, “I must finish this thing, and I must do it well.” Notice the missing, “I started this thing therefore…” I have a lot of ideas, several of which I often believe are totally not utter crap. So I start on them.
But once I’ve begun, it gets very hard to tell why I am continuing. What exactly indicates when my soul demands I should continue?
I think about whatever thing I’m currently working on all the time. So I can’t simply use, “does it hold my attention?” It sure feels like I absolutely must continue this thing! Meanwhile, I’ve a long list of things that consumed my attention and energy at one point, but which today are lost from sight in the rearview mirror.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with taking holidays by trying to set something down. This requires immense effort in the beginning; I usally have to cold-turkey-quit to get away from my passion project du jour. Sometimes, day by day, the urge to pick it back up fades and I feel like maybe that project should be left in the rear view mirror. I suppose that my soul doesn’t actually demand it because I hope that my soul wouldn’t just give up after a few days.
Questions today. None of them elucidating. ymmv.
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Have you even tried? →
I call bullshit. You already found your passion, youâre just ignoring it. Seriously, youâre awake 16 hours a day, what the fuck do you do with your time? Youâre doing something, obviously. Youâre talking about something. Thereâs some topic or activity or idea that dominates a significant amount of your free time, your conversations, your web browsing, and it dominates them without you consciously pursuing it or looking for it.
Itâs right there in front of you, youâre just avoiding it. For whatever reason, youâre avoiding it. Youâre telling yourself, âOh well, yeah, I love comic books but that doesnât count. You canât make money with comic books.â
Fuck you, have you even tried?
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âŠand I thought I had my irreverence dial turned to 11!
Thereâs also a terrific Mexican proverb: The appearance of the bull changes when you enter the ring. The matadorâs point of view is different from the spectatorâs.
What Iâd like to draw attention to today, is skin in the game.
Have you ever had to make the decision to lay someone off? Why do you think you understand that last round of layoffs at Giant Company? Have you ever created something? Why do you think you understand the creative process of this painter? Have you ever entirely owned and operated a cafe? Why do you think your suggesting for, âya know what you should have on the menu…â has any value?
Iâm not implying Iâve done any of the hypotheticals above.
But I can tell you that I long ago stopped giving unsolicited advice when I donât have, and have never had, skin in the game I was about to advise on.
So, where do you have skin in the game? âŠand what are you going to do now that Iâve drawn your attention to it?
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The difficulty setting →
But a strong work ethic will keep on opening doors for you, again and again, for years to come.
~ Hugh MacLeod, from «https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2018/04/05/its-not-what-you-do-its-how-you-do-it/»
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MacLeodâs point about work ethic is spot-on. A certain type and quantity of work ethic is necessary for success; however you wish to define success for yourself, youâll need work ethic to succeed. Itâs necessary.
But itâs not sufficient. The game of life has initial difficulty settings, and we each have little control over that.
Are you born in a country that protects your rights? Are you raised by people who care for you, and create an environment where you flourish? Were you lucky enough to inherit good DNA (as opposed to having a genetic disorder)? Did you grow up in a safe and healthy community (or did people steal your things, threaten you with violence, etc.)?
Work ethic and initiative can enable you to overcome almost all of the challenges the random initial conditions of life might set up for you. You can even change the difficulty level of your own game. But itâs harder.
Youâre probably not responsible for more than a handful of people (children, parents, family, etc.) You do not need to sacrifice yourself for others. But if you have extra time, extra resources, extra skill, extra knowledge, or extra ability, what happens to the world if you choose to try to change the difficulty setting for others?
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Herky-jerky breakthroughs →
The trajectory is not a smoothly-ascending curve, but a herky-jerky spasm-fest marked by seeming dead-ends, plateaus, dark nights of the soul, intervals of boredom and stasis, not to mention bouts of terror, despair and self-doubt, which are followed, if weâre lucky, by quantum leaps to the next level.
In other words, we advance by breakthroughs.
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The key is to turn around and look back at how far youâve progressed. Set goals, plan, and take aim by looking ahead. But when you want to assess your progress, do not look at the goal. I spent far too much time looking at my goals and invariably saying, âI surpassed the goal⊠I should have set a bigger goal. I could have done more.â âŠor saying, âI fell short of the goal. I suck.â Both of which are dangerously negative.
Instead, leave markers along your journeyâyou can look at your earlier writing, look at your earlier paintings, reminisce with a friend, etc. Look at the markers youâve left along the way and think, âlook how far Iâve come!â
This is the only way Iâve found to maintain a positive outlook.
Think of a goal you currently have; something youâve been working on for a while. When was the last time you looked back to assess your progress?
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What versus how →
When you find yourself stuck on some decision, figure out if you are stuck on the âwhatâ or the âhowâ. Every situation is different, but here are some examples:
Thinking about marriage: Youâre likely to be stuck on the âwhatâ. Should I get married? Should I marry this person? Youâre stuck on what should I do. If you decide to get married, itâs quite simple. You probably need a marriage license and a simple legal ceremony. The how you get married is almost always very easy.
Thinking about quitting college: Youâre likely to be stuck on the âwhatâ. Should I quit? Should I continue? How you quit is very easy; go to the Registrarâs office, and theyâll give you a form. (Actually, you could simply walk away and theyâll do the quitting for you.)
Thinking about changing jobs: Youâre likely stuck on the âhowâ. I donât like this job; Iâd like that other career. Straightforward what I should do. But how do I do that? Existing family commitments, monetary support, contracts with your employer⊠So how you change jobs is hard.
Side hustles: I want to start a side-project working on my passion. How do I do that in my spare time? How do I create a business? How do I find some funding. Again, the what is easy and the how is hard.
It isnât that being stuck on one versus the other is better or worse. But figuring out which you are stuck onâhopefully itâs one and not bothâwill clarify your thinking and will show you the type of help you should seek.
I know what I want to do, but I donât know how to do it.
I donât know what I want to do, but I know how to do it.
When youâre stuck, figure out where your âdonâtâ lies. Then figure out who you can ask for guidance to help you remove your âdonâtâ so youâre left with:
I know what I want to do, and I know how to do it.
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§25 – Fun days →
Chapter 25, starts with, âYou are feeling crappy.â Why, yes. Yes I am.
I know how to train hard. I know how to play and have fun. I have complete freedom in what I do with my days. Complete. There is not a single responsibility I have which I have not freely chosen to take on; freely chosen in both the sense that I was under no obligation to choose it, and that I felt it was a worthwhile responsibilit to take on. Sometimes I train, sometimes I play. This shit? Iâve got this shit figured out.
Problem: If Iâm having fun, afterwards I feel guilty because the things Iâm responsible for are not getting done. Always. Every time. Itâs a disease of the mind that undercuts everthing I ever manage to accomplish. Thereâs no point telling me that this thinking/guilt is wrong; I am well aware. Thereâs no point trying to help me get things done. (Itâs not possible to finish everything.) Thereâs no point telling me to relax/unwind/have-fun. (Thatâs the space where the problem rears itâs ugly head.)
The only solutionâ scratch that. The only progress Iâve made is to give up on things. (For example, years ago I gave up on reading science-fiction. I gave away stacks of books and I only look back occassionally to doublecheck that I donât miss it.) I just keep hacking and slashing and saying ânoâ to as many things as I can.
Iâm hoping some day to be able to enjoy life, without the guilt.
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