On this day

January 5th

Be more philosophical

January 5

If you want to make a positive difference in the world—or simply maintain your sanity—you need to step back. You need to learn how to be more philosophical—which means being more discerning about what you let into your mind and learning how to see the big picture, calmly and with perspective.

~ Ryan Holiday, from This Habit Is Making You Miserable

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Just in case you had a negative reaction to the word philosophical: I distinctly recall when I thought “being philosophical” meant telling others how to do things, or at least pontificating about how I do things better. I distinctly recall learning that the word comes from “the love of truth”—and how that struck me deeply. I distinctly recall that the more I learned about philosophy in general, the more I wanted to learn about my philosophy—first discovering that I didn’t have a definitely chosen one, and then beginning to choose.

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Intentional action

January 5, 2024

Elsewhere I’ve talked about the Karpman drama triangle. About learning it’s not even actually fun to be the hero who rushes in. Rushing—doing something quickly sacrificing doing it correctly—is never the right choice.

The most exciting thing about professional project management is that it trades away excitement for systems thinking and intentional action. We make heroes out of people who show up with the last-minute save, but the real work is in not needing the last minute.

~ Seth Godin, from Project management

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Of course, we can delete the word “professional” from the above and it points to something we might choose to work on: If I’m late… If I’m rushing… If I’m “too busy”… Where exactly does that come from? Once I started look at my life this way, and started asking such questions, it didn’t take long to realize the problem was within myself. We choose to take on too many things. We choose to stretch for more connections, activities and things. The details differ. But it’s the same for each of us.

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Restraint

January 5, 2023

Because that’s all that could restrain us (if anything could)—the only thing that could make us want to stay here: The chance to live with those who share our vision. But now? Look how tiring it is—this cacophony we live in. Enough to make you say to death, “Come quickly. Before I start to forget myself, like them.”

~ Marcus Aurelius, 9.3

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Note to self

January 5, 2022

It never ceases to amaze me how strong is the sense of urgency to dive into doing things.

…but, oh, it is sooo nice to sit still, in the quiet, pre-dawn, with a bunch of cool, (in my opinion of course,) projects.

How cool would it be, if ever day I eliminated one thing? one app, one habit (or an addictive behavior rejected), one item of clothing, one responsibility, one random thing from the myriad of things…

Choose wisely.

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Reflection: Day 5

January 5, 2021

BECOME MINDFUL OF ATTACHMENTS THAT LEAD TO CLUTTER AND COMPLEXITY — “For example, if you are attached to sentimental items, you won’t be able to let go of clutter. If you are attached to living a certain way, you will not be able to let go of a lot of stuff. If you are attached to doing a lot of activities and messaging everyone, your life will be complex.” ~ Leo Babauta

Many of the prompts I’m sharing have been chosen from the generous gifts given me by others. When I’m explicitly quoting, they are attributed (as above.)

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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin?
(The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)

It’s only five sentences!

January 5, 2020

As Vonnegut said, if you can’t write well, you probably don’t think as well as you think you do. There was something about a particular project that wasn’t clicking for people. I couldn’t describe what was wrong—why I couldn’t communicate clearly. The more I talked to key confidantes, the more I tried to explain it, and the more I listened, the more convinced I became that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t have something straight in my thinking. So I asked for a meeting of minds to craft a clear explanation. To write it clearly, I believed I would need to clarify my thinking.

Four people sat down to write a better description of a project. It took over four hours to write five sentences. They’re not particularly complicated sentences. The affect—the change in my perspective, the things I now see have been done wrong and need changing… The affect is vertiginous. I’ve begun sharing the sentences with key confidantes. I’m letting them set and I’m picking them up at intervals to see if their power persists.

Forget about my five sentences.

What’s something you could solve, improve, or take to a new level if you sat down and crafted five perfect sentences?

Could you do it in four sentences? …how about three? …two? …what about one?

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Explore yourself

January 5, 2019

A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine. Each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and adapting. A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favorite pattern. A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence. A teacher is never a giver of truth; He is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.

~ Bruce Lee

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Intersection of three lines

January 5, 2018

The three lines cross in that intersection, and you’re like, “Okay, I think I know where I am.” In the case of your “why,” one great intersection is saying, “Hey, what would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail? What would be the things that I would just love to be doing in my life if I could not fail? Unfortunately, somewhere along the line between high school, college, and maybe even before high school, kids stopped dreaming up crazy ideas, and they start thinking, “Okay, well, this is what society expects.”

~ Alden Mills, from Podcast #130: Become Unstoppable With Alden Mills

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1. What would I do if I couldn’t fail?
2. Whose lifestyle would I like to follow?
3. What am I passionate about, and in what can I find purpose?

The answers to these questions will not tell me what to do, nor how to live my life. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what to do and how to live, (and I hope I will always be working on that.) But these three questions are an excellent triplet of tools for picking at the bigger picture.

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§2 – Philosophy

January 5, 2017

(Part 2 of 13 in series, Changes and Results)

I wandered a haphazard path until I learned some philosophical lessons and made some critical, first changes. I tried many different things, keeping what seemed to help and abandoning what did not. It is only through hindsight that I can share the things which are the foundations of my progress.

The first step in my journey was realizing I was unhappy. This realization — detecting it, understanding it, believing it, surrendering to it, and finally owning it — was the first piece of bedrock on which I started building. I was clearly in a slow, downward spiral, and this realization led me to thrash around trying to change things.

( I didn’t find this until years later, but Leo Babauta has a wonderful post about, The Spiral. )

My initial progress was glacial as I began working on the twin skills of self-awareness and self-analysis. Although I began my journey blissfully unaware and ignorant, my problems became increasingly obvious. Owning up to each problem required all my fortitude and courage. Step by step I found the motivation to begin changing my life. It was the discomfort of the status-quo which motivated me to change; Without that discomfort — without the self-awareness which created that discomfort — I would simply have continued my downward spiral.

Along the way, it was also important to realize I was fragile (physically, mentally and emotionally), and that I would need to build up a tremendous, new resilience. Becoming mentally and physically resilient creates a comfort zone. It means that bumps in the road may slow, stop, or even set back my progress. But they will never turn my upward spiral into a downward spiral. In truth, I was well into building up my resilience before I understood what I was doing. But as my understanding caught up, it became possible to work intentionally on resilience.

( One article which helped solidify my understanding was about, Anchoring One’s Resilience in Your Authentic Self. )

Although I remain a work in progress, my success is entirely built on the simple philosophy of continuous self improvement. Unfortunately, it is not at all simple to implement. I tried a litany of changes — small and large, easy and hard, crazy and clever, pointless and miraculous — as I incessantly kept learning, experimenting, and building upon each tiny success and advance. The things which worked for me form the remaining parts of this series.

( It wasn’t until far into my journey that I learned of the Observer, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) loop. )

Which would boil down to these essentials:

– I owned up to being unhappy.
– I built up my skills of self-awareness and self-assessment.
– I built up my mental and physical resilience.
– I began making continuous self-improvement changes.

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The path of fearlessness

January 5, 2017

The two key fears are the fears of uncertainty and not being good enough, and in my experience, they’re both the same thing. We’re afraid of the uncertain future (and uncertain situations) because we don’t think we’re good enough to handle whatever might come out of the chaos.

~ Leo Babauta, from The Path of Fearlessness

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If one felt that this were true, what might one do unlearn such fear? As usual, Leo has a considered opinion spoken from the position of experience.

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Where the jobs are

January 5, 2015

While America continues to create market-dominating companies like Apple or Google, the number of American jobs they provide doesn’t compare with market-dominating American companies of the past like General Electric or Ford.

The reason why is simple: While much of the design and management happens in America, most of the physical products are manufactured in low-wage economies like China. Those factories that remain in America are highly automated, so that our manufacturing employment plummets even as our manufacturing output continues to rise. America still makes a lot of stuff, it’s just not made by people.

~ Doug Muder, from Where the Jobs Are and Why

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