To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.
And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.
Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now, at this very moment—of all external events.
That’s all you need.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Walking is a deliberate, repetitive, ritualized motion. It is an exercise in peace.
The Buddhists talk of “walking meditation,” or kinhin, where the movement after a long session of sitting, particularly movement through a beautiful setting, can unlock a different kind of stillness than traditional meditation.
~ Ryan Holiday from, https://ryanholiday.net/benefits-of-walking/
Running is also a deliberate, repetitive, ritualized motion.
But gosh do I hate running. There’s no peace at all. At the very least, I’m glad that I can run (in the shoes I like to wear, for the general health of my feet,) without injury. I can go a good mile—where “good” refers to the length, I’m not cheating calling the distance “a mile”… I emphatically do not mean the running of said mile is A Good Thing. I digress. I can go a good mile and I’m confident that the next day I will not be in agony. I know that running is exceedingly good for me. I sleep better that night, am in a better mood the next morning, and something about that level of effort just turns the volume down on the rest of the world for a good day or even two.
But I know people who swear that running is peaceful. …that running is meditative. …that running is an enjoyable part of their life. …something they even look forward to.
I sure wish I could figure out how to reconcile those two alternate realities.
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Arbitrary milestones are just as useful as nice round numbers. This morning I decided I’d take some time to reflect on blogging.
I love grammar. I wonder if you thought that I meant this blog post would be my reflections on blogging? No, I took some time to reflect on my own. Today I’m yet again beating one of my favorite drums: It is life-critical to intentionally take time to reflect on the things one is doing.
What am I actually doing with my time? What is doing me benefit? What, harm? What things do I believe I must do? Why do I believe those are necessary? What promises have I made? …to myself, to others? What actually happens if I break one of those promises? …would anyone even notice? What could I do if I stopped everything and did some other thing with incredible focus? Why does that other some thing interest me? Could I more simply change what I’m doing to make a little room for it now? If I awoke to find all the things in my head, and on my lists, were done what would I do? …would I rush to add more things to do? …would I work on something new? …would I want to re-do something I’ve done before?
Discovery. Reflection. And then, go be efficacious.
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Not only do most deliberate practitioners not spend all day at it, they also devote a lot of time to recuperation and recovery. They sleep as much as their bodies need. They nap if necessary. They take frequent, refreshing breaks. Most of us understand that rest is necessary after physical activity. But we can underestimate its importance after mental activity, too. Deliberate practice needs to be sustainable for the long term. How long a person keeps at a skill is often far more important than how many hours a day they spend on it.
~ Shane Parrish from, https://fs.blog/2021/04/deliberate-practice-guide/
I’m going to trot out a rare: HOLY CRAP! Because that post is a small book on deliberate practice. If you’re only up for some skimming, click through and smash-scroll to the summary and book list at the bottom of that post.
Then I’m going to briefly stride over one of my fave soap boxes: Sleep.
…and settle onto pointing out that I make a deliberate practice out of working on writing these blog posts. I’ve been working, (off-and-on, one break involved some lawn mowing,) for four hours this morning from that one Parrish post. I’ve read it, blogged [this] about it, posted about it in another community, captured a few quotes, learned more about the Oddyssey, and wrote a blog post about a common Homer quote.
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External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? —But here are insuperable obstacles. Then it’s not a problem. The cause of your inaction lies outside you. —But how can I go on living with that undone? Then depart, with a good conscience, as if you’d done it, embracing the obstacles too.
~ Marcus Aurelius, 8.47
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If it’s easy, you’re not growing.
It’s like lifting weights: if you can do it without trying, you’re not going to get any stronger.
The whole point—of life, of working out, of work—is to push yourself, and to grow as a result of pushing against and through that resistance.
~ Ryan Holiday from, https://ryanholiday.net/seek-challenge/
Nine years ago I was smack in the middle of my HVAC-installer apprenticeship. I lovingly refer to the roughly two-week period as, “that time I got really into attic-yoga.” The contractor installing our central HVAC had a young fellow working with him, and that guy hurt his knee. I spent days learning how to make and insulate hard duct work, HVAC line sets (the wiring and refrigerant piping), electrical, removed the ancient mouse-pee infused blown-in insulation and eventually put in new fiberglass insulation through the attic. It was hell. Hot. Sweaty. Ichy. Low roof. Things to climb in, over, around, through and under. Mostly while carefully stepping, squatting, leaning, and crawling on the long thing ceiling joists. And it was not something I was planning on doing. One day I was all like, “Benjamin is installing the HVAC!” [that’s a money reference] and the next day I was studying attic-yoga.
I bring this up because it’s too easy to think “I’m doing the hard work!” when you are simply going to the gym (or for the morning run, whatever.) Sure, you’re working hard, you’re sweating, and building muscle; you are literally doing hard work.
But that’s nothing compared to choosing to do the hard work, on the spot. Do I whinge and call AAA (road-side assistance club) or do I climb under the van to figure out how to get the spare tire out at Midnight after a long day? Do I take the time to split the portion of the firewood that would be a pain 8 months from now, or do I just stack it and hate my today-self in the dead of winter? Do I take the time to carefully explain something even though it’s not my responsibility or do I just “walk past” that person who needs a hand? Right now, on the spot, do you choose the hard path?
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Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it—turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself—so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it achieve its goal.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Creating anything of consequence or magnitude requires deliberate, incremental and consistent work. At the beginning, these efforts might not look like they are amounting to much. But with time, they accumulate and then compound on each other. Whether it’s a book or a business or an anthill or a stalagmite, from humble beginnings come impressive outcomes.
~ Ryan Holiday
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Sometimes I manage to remember that lesson.
…usually that my remembering happens during my morning routine. I won’t bore you with the specifics, but: I regularly read things which spur the sorts of thinking I’d like to do more of; I spend time writing in, and re-reading, my journals; time reading good-old printed-on-dead-trees books; time thinking about how to create some thing I’m building; lots of thinking and jotting in outlines.
Things take me vastly more time and work than it appears from the outside.
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Remember that to change your mind and to accept correction are free acts too. The action is yours; based on your own will, your own decision—and your own mind.
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No great thing comes into being all of a sudden; … Now if the fruit of a fig-tree is not brought to perfection suddenly and in a single hour, would you expext to gather the fruit of a man’s mind in so short a time, and so easily? I tell you, expect no such thing.
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What is this, fundamentally? What is its nature and substance, its reason for being? What is it doing in the world? How long is it here for?
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Then the only proper response for me to make is this: You are much mistaken, my friend, if you think that any man worth his salt cares about the risk of death and doesn’t concentrate on this alone: whether what he’s doing is right or wrong, and his behavior a good man’s or a bad one’s.
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To watch the courses of the stars as if you revolved with them. To keep constantly in mind how the elements alter into one another. Thoughts like this wash off the mud of life below.
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I owe a large debt to Leo Babauta of Zen Habits for the tremendous number of tremendously useful posts I’ve had the pleasure of noodling over. One way I try to pay back people who’ve been kind enough to create positive things sprinkled around the Internet is simply to point as many people as I can towards said things. If you’d like to try a large dose of—what I lovingly refer to as—Leo-zen, try his free ebook, The One Skill.
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[I] will not be better than Socrates; but if I am not worse, that is enough for me. I shall never be a Milo, and yet I do not neglect my body; nor a Croesus, and yet I do not neglect my property: Nor, in general, do we cease to take pains in any area, because we despair of arriving at the highest degree of perfection.
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Don’t expect, then, that you can sample the masterpieces of great minds by way of summaries; you must examine the whole, work over the whole. Their structure is a totality fitted together according to the outlines of their special genius, and if any member is removed the whole may collapse.
…
That is why we give boys apothegms, what the Greeks call chriai, to learn by heart, because the childish mind, which cannot comprehend more, is able to grasp them. But for a man advanced in study to hunt such gem is disgraceful; he is using a handful of clichés for a prop and leaning on his memory; by now he should stand on his own feet. He should be producing bons mots, not remembering them. It is disgraceful for an old man or one in sight of old age to be wise by book. “Zeno said this.” What do you say? “This Cleanthes said.” What do you say? How long will you be a subaltern? Take command and say things which will be handed down to posterity. Produce something of your own. All those men who never create but lurk as interpreters under the shadow of another are lacking, I believe, in independence of spirit. They never venture to do the things they have long rehearsed. They exercise their memories on what is not their own. But to remember is one thing, to know another. Remembering is merely overseeing a thing deposited in the memory; knowing is making the thing your own, not depending on the model, not always looking over your shoulder at the teacher. “Zeno said this, Cleanthes that”—is there any difference between you and a book? How long will you learn? Begin to teach! One man objects, “Why should I listen to lectures when I can read?” Another replies, “The living voice adds a great deal.” It does indeed, but not a voice which merely serves for another’s words and functions as a clerk.
There is another consideration. First people who have not rid themselves of leading-strings follow their predecessors where all the world has ceased to follow them, and second, they follow them in matters still under investigation. But if we rest content with solutions offered, the real solution will never be found. Moreover, a man who follows another not only finds nothing, he is not even looking. What is the upshot? Shall I not walk in the steps of my predecessors? I shall indeed use the old path, but if I find a shorter and easier way I shall make a new path. The men who made the old paths are not our suzerains but our pioneers. Truth is open to all; it has not been pre-empted. Much of it is left for future generations.
~ Seneca, from Letter 33, Maxims
This is Seneca at his mic-drop best. (Unlike the borderline torturous silver point style you also see quoted from on occasion.) Here he’s writing a personal letter to one of his long-time students.
If it’s made you perk up, I recommend digging into this letter further by reading, On the Futility of Learning Maxims, overs on the Stoic Letters web site. That’s also a great introduction to the nuance of translating these very old works; there are significant differences between M. Hadas’s translation circa 1958 and whatever translation Stoic Letters is using, (I looked, but it’s not clear to me.)
Obviously the thread I’m tugging on here is meta: It’s one thing to nod along in the audience of a performance— “yes yes yes I agree I’m doing that yes.” It’s quite another to stand up, and ask to speak next. It was about 10 years ago that I began this blog, and about 5 years ago that I began seriously devoting intentional effort to creating something here.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m not sure that I’m setting much of an example. But trying to walk-the-walk has definitely helped me.
In the spirit of the season: Go read this next, What do you do for fun?
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Worse, this combines really badly with my default working style. I have a strong neurotic desire to finish things, and to fixate on my total output rather than time spent working. I’ll often push myself to complete my current task, going well beyond my allocated working time, and not being willing to take a break until I’m done.
~ From https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iYR9hKzTKGhZwTPWK/meaningful-rest
This is an article examining what it means to rest, and how breaking one’s default behavior is critical. The bit I’ve quoted was definitely a problem for me. Changing my default thinking in the form of “shoulding” on myself has opened up several other doors to change. (Note that I still, very carefully grammared around implying I’ve been successful at change—that’s a default I’m still working on. :)
What’s your default that’s holding you back?
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My touch-phrase for 2019 was, “no.” In terms of self-imposed stress and crippling depression, 2019 was the worst year ever; I’ve more than 10 years of journals and I’ve checked. 2018 was bad, but 2019—the year I set out specifically to reduce the problems—was definitely and significantly worse than 2018.
I remain convinced that it is not possible to optimize one’s way out of burn-out. If I have 500 things I want to get done and I’m burnt-out, the solution is to reduce the number of things, not get better at getting things done. I’m speaking from personal experience, not from theory.
2020 has to be the year of getting less done.
In 2019, the “no” touch-phrase was meant to guide me to developing the habit of saying no to things coming towards me. A huge amount of ideas and opportunities come at me, and I’ve gotten much better at saying, “no.” (I’m not quite ready to say I’ve gotten “good” at it; but I’ve definitely gotten better.) I’ve gotten better at evaluating Big Asks from the world, and saying, “no.” A textbook example of that is people/groups which reach out to me, asking for my input or participation.
“No, I do not have the time to do that well.”
“No, I cannot to do that the way it deserves to be done.”
…and so on. Note particularly the absence of the societal lubrication, (a.k.a., the usual lie,) “I’m sorry, but…” Because, I’m not sorry. I’m defending myself, and I’ve reached the point where if my candid, timely, and honest response feels like a wack on the head… Bummer. Life’s hard; get a helmet.
2020 has to be the year of getting less done.
In a previous post (on my personal blog) I mentioned the idea of leverage; positing that I should focus on asking myself, “how much leverage does this opportunity afford me?” This still doesn’t feel quite the right fit for 2020 because leverage per se isn’t a value I’m interested in maximizing.
So that leaves me where?
2020 has to be the year of getting less done.
GLD — Get less done.
Maybe that’s the touch-phrase for 2020?
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Meta: I had posted this in the Movers Mindset Forum early in 2020. But, for some reason I cannot fathom—perhaps it was simply an oversight—I didn’t post this here on the ‘ol blog in very-early 2020 when it was written. ;)
What has worked better is tracking behavior without particularly striving to change it. Rather than drawing a “good enough” line and striving to meet it, you commit only to tracking the relevant numbers -– dollars spent, calories consumed, miles walked, pages read. What you discover is that simply knowing this data changes what you want to do, so that you’re not constantly fighting with yourself. You don’t need to depend on winning endless should/shouldn’t battles in order to change.
~ David Cain from, https://www.raptitude.com/2020/08/the-myth-of-grit-and-determination/
I believe this is true with one important caveat: The value you are tracking must be close to the actions. Allow me to explain…
If you track your weight, this will have little effect: When I pick up a cupcake, the scale is nowhere near—if I could think, “don’t eat the cupcake because weight loss,” then I wouldn’t be tracking my weight trying to affect my weight loss. But, “if I read for a few minutes now I can then mark off—right now—that I did some reading today. So, tracking, “ate more veggies,” works… or, “did something active,”…
Anyway, that’s been my experience. ymmv :)
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Years ago, I would often say, “you know what you should do?” followed by some suggestion. When I started reading various things in the, “having skin in the game,” vein, I realized how useless—annoying even—my suggestion were. (For example, to a café owner, “you know what you should have on the menu?” is not going to be useful.) Over time I came to understand that it’s only in areas where one has deep knowledge are suggestions going to have any chance of being useful. (Don’t confuse that with observations—”the door to your bathroom is broken,” is definitely useful to that café owner.) By paying close attention to when I heard myself say, “you know what you should do,” I slowly learned to keep such comments to myself.
Aside: I wedged in a new behavior, as a sort of software interrupt. When I feel the urge to say such things, instead I find a compliment, swap out that text, and then resume speaking. If you’ve ever heard me seemingly-randomly whip out a compliment—to a waiter, to a shop keeper, a manager—that’s often, (but not always,) what just happened.
Unfortunately, although I made great strides in reducing the advice-giving all I’ve actually done is narrowed the area where I give advice. In too many instances I’m still trying to exert my influence. Then when things invariably, (since it’s not my thing it’s someone else’s that I’m giving advice about,) don’t turn out as I wanted I get frustrated. Go figure.
Note to self: Continue to root out the urge to exert influence.
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