Let the impermanence of all life-forms sink in. The stability and solidity of the things we see are mere illusions. We must not be afraid of the pangs of sadness that ensue from this perception. The tightness of our emotions, usually so wound up around our own needs and concerns, is now opening up to the world and to the piognancy of life itself, and we should welcome this.
~ Robert Greene
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Looking back, I think I went through a really intense period of burnout last year (in many aspects of my life, not just training). As a result, I found that the second I encountered meaningful challenge in my training – whether that be psychologically or physically – my body would just shut down, and kill the session dead. The best way I find to describe it is that my ‘spare emotional bandwidth’ is severely reduced, and things I would normally take in stride or even relish the challenge of instead boil me over into stress and anxiety much quicker. Consequently I’ve had to curtail the intensity of my training to the point that my criteria for success for a day will sometimes be as as little as “did a single push up” or “went for a walk”.
~ James Adams from, Parkour, Perpetual Challenge, and Burnout
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Last year I had a conversation with Adams for the Movers Mindset podcast. I had found this article (in July 2022) as I was doing my prep-work for the conversation and have only just gotten around to reading it. I really appreciate (both “hey, thanks for writing that” and “yes, I too have burnout”) him sharing the reality of burnout from pushing oneself.
Most of my days’ activity is no more than, “went for a walk.” Unrelated, last week I strained a muscle in my lower back—one of the lateral ones that’s connected to your pelvis and is involved when you twist and bend-forward. I was sitting, improperly with my lower back “collapsed”, turned my torso to my left and *twang* To be honest, it’s simply where the stress and burnout “came out”. It’s taken me a week of careful recovery work and today I’m back to: I can bend over, very nervously, with no pain but wondering at which instant it will hurt. Injury and recovery; I’ve done that countless times. But the real problem started in my head.
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Reading time: About 4 minutes, 900 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/18
A million years from now, when alien anthropologists begin gathering evidence about what humans were like, they will definitely want to dig up the Self-help and Spiritual/Religion sections of our bookstores and libraries. There they will find direct evidence of what we yearned for and struggled with.
~ David Cain from, Trying to Be More Present Isn’t Enough
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For some reason ( <- sarcasm alert ) my mind went directly from my title, to More cowbell. Which I’m linking to, on the off-chance you’ve not seen it. But to Cain’s topic I’ll simply add that it’s really (really REALLY) clear to me that I am the source of all my stress, anxiety, and problems. Certainly, there are injuries and trauma in my past—oh the stories I’ll not tell. Every time I turn and face the strange (hat tip David Bowie, rest in piece) I find it’s all smoke and mirrors. Every. Single. Time that I stop, and ask myself: What exactly is the thing that I’m anxious about, wigged-out about, pissed-off about, and—yes this too is a problem—excited about… Be clear, Craig. Use “i” language. Then I simply do it, or I delete it from my life. Bliss. Calm presence. The sun comes out and my mouth makes that strange shape y’all call a “smile.”
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When you call someone “untrustworthy” or “ungrateful”, turn the reproach on yourself. It was you who did wrong by assuming that someone with those traits deserved your trust. Or by doing them a favor and expecting something in return, instead of looking to the action itself for your reward. What else did you expect from helping someone out? Isn’t it enough that you’ve done what your nature demands? You want a salary for it too?
~ Marcus Aurelius, 9.42
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Longing for the past is generally referred to as nostalgia – a gentle, tender feeling that might make these stories seem like nothing more than harmless sentimentality. But it is crucial to distinguish between wistful memories of grandma’s kitchen and belief in a prior state of cultural perfection.
~ Alan Jay Levinovitz from, It never was golden
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You may or may not like that particular essay; There are 2,000 others to choose from over on Aeon. I was poking around, found this one, and pinned it for later reading. Figuring out how to pin things for later reading is a huge force multiplier. When I want to read good stuff, I never spend time looking for good stuff. I just go to the pile of good stuff—twitch at the 700+ items, veer back over into “that’s an embarrassment of riches, long live the open Internet—and start reading. Hmmm… nostalgia?
I remember, back in The Day, when I used to really enjoy reading— wait, no. That’s today, and without the 20-minute car ride to the Hall of Books.
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Lesson number one, when people ask me what [interviewing] tips would I give, is aim for the heart, not the head. Once you get the heart, you can go to the head. Once you get the heart and the head, then you’ll have a pathway to the soul.
~ Cal Fussman
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The passage that follows is from a book I’m working on right now. I’m not sure the passage works for a Writing Wednesdays post, but what the hell, I like it and my instinct tells me to put it out there.
~ Steven Pressfield from, The River
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I do have certain distinctly imprinted “passages” from my own story. No, it’s not story-time today. Upon reading Pressfield’s comment (and the passage) I was left wondering what was the critical feature (or features) of my own passages which made them indelible. It certainly wasn’t receipt of accolades or actual accomplishment. It certainly wasn’t that a passage began with a grand vision or even a coherent plan.
I hope you weren’t expecting me to have an answer… this blog is, after all, just me working with the garage door up.
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We need technology to live, as we need food to live. But, of course, if we eat too much food, or eat food that has no nutritional value, or eat food that is infected with disease, we turn a means of survival into its opposite. The same is true for technology.
~ Neil Postman
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People – especially really smart people – have a tendency to attempt solving big problems (like earning a profit) without first solving more basic ones (like how you’ll get there). This is why the “Step 1, Step 3” joke resonates. And it’s why understanding the hierarchy of earning profit is so important.
~ Morgan Housel, from The Hierarchy of Earning Profit
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Oh, crikey! That’d be me. I too–frequently get frustrated when my “awesome idea” isn’t received the way I’d like it to be. I think it’s exactly the same step–two problem that Housel points out. I’m jumping over step 2. But in cases where I try to figure out step 2… *crickets* It occurs to me that there’s another way to address the issue: Stop chasing ideas that solve a problem that I have, and instead try to chase an idea that solves a problem someone else has.
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