Month: July 2020

Yesterday was a bit of a slog. I had to do some work that was easy, and repetitive. In other words, it was boring. I found my mind slipping away from my task. My body followed a while later. I took longer breaks for walks, for lunch, during exercising until I hollowed out my workday. I tried to evade work. And I largely succeeded. Only I didn’t find happiness. Every time I slipped away from work I felt guilty. When I worked I thought about reading stories or video games, and when I read stories or played video games I thought about work. My emotions bounced between boredom and frustrating (while working) to guilt and worry (while playing).

Playing and Working were largely the same.

I never engaged with what I was actually doing. Instead I focused on myself, and what I was feeling. And I kept telling myself that doing something else would make me feel better. If I played, then I wouldn’t feel bored. But if I worked, then I wouldn’t feel guilty. Only, neither worked. I felt unsatisfied with both of them. And that frustration built up until I switched tasks. And then I repeated the process.

There was joy to be found in either activity. I could gain a deep sense of fulfillment from working on hard problems. Or even easy ones. Instead of worrying about how easy the problem was, I could have seen it as a chance to improve my focus. To become a more intentional person. And with reading stories, I just need to engage with them. To let myself connect with the characters as they explore their worlds and best their problems. But I didn’t. Instead I hurried through each page, because I know I should be doing something else.

Today, I’m going to look for happiness where I am.

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy asking the wrong questions: What do I need to do to be happy? What do I need to have to be happy? How can I change my circumstances to be happy? But none of these questions lead to happiness, because they put your focus on what you don’t have. They assume that you aren’t happy with what you have right now. More than that, they assume that you cannot be happy with what you have right now.

Instead of grasping for happiness somewhere else or somewhen else, I’m going to accept all of the happiness my circumstances have to offer right here and right now. I’m going to start asking myself better questions: What do I most enjoy about what I’m doing right now? What is my favorite part of my life? What parts of my circumstances bring me the most joy?

But, I’m afraid of happiness.

Because I worry that it will lead to complacency. And that I will no longer strive to improve myself. But looking back on the past few weeks, I’ve made more progress towards my goals when I was happy, than when I was not. Focus led to happiness, and happiness led to being focused. When I was unhappy, I pinballed between new activities. This didn’t get anything done, and often left my feeling just as bad.

To allow myself to look for happiness, I need to remember that happiness does not mean complacency. Happiness in gratitude for your current actions and circumstances. Complacency is a kind of quiet despair. You can’t change your circumstances, or maybe you can, but it’s not worth the cost. But that’s ok because they are ok, or at least endurable.

To be happy, I do not need to stop striving to become kinder, or more focused, or more capable.

What about you?

Where do you look for happiness? Are there any emotions that you are afraid of feeling?

Today, life is about speed. Doing something faster is better than doing it slowly. Because of course it is. Because that means that you’ll have more time for other things. And you’ll have more time to work on doing those other things faster. So you can fit more things into your life. Because of course you want more things in your life.

That is something that I struggle with too. But more than cramming more stuff into my life, I want to fill my life with important things. And the first, and most critical place to start, is my mind. More specifically, it’s with my thoughts.

What does it mean to think slowly?

We have learned that thinking quickly means being more intelligent. And that is true. But, it also largely misses the point. How long did it take JK Rowling to write the first Harry Potter book? Do you know? Do you particularly care? No, because the quality of the work is far more important than how long it took to create. We’ve switched our focus to speed at the expense of quality. And I would like to switch it back.

If you wanted to entertain yourself by watching tv, you wouldn’t try to consume as many shows as possible. You also wouldn’t watch them on fast forward. Because the goal is no to watch a lot of shows. The goal is to entertain yourself. Even if watching more shows would help you to do that, the way in which you view them matters, as well as which ones you watch. Understand the goal behind each action, and make sure that that action serves its purpose.

But what is the goal of a thought?

That is for you to determine. Whatever goals drive your actions, should also drive your thoughts. Any deeper meaning behind your actions should exist behind your thoughts. That said, I find thoughts to be more about self discovery and analysis than actions.

And how does one think more slowly?

Thinking more slowly is about giving your thoughts room to breathe. Let them stay in your mind for a few moments, instead of just one. Explore their edges. What do they have to say about who you are? Where your actions will take you? Is that a place that you’d like to go? Delve into their depths. How would you change if you pursued this idea with the entirety of your focus? How would this affect the people around you?

How does this thought affect you? Does it tend to arouse certain emotions? Or drive you to take certain actions? Notice how these things, without reacting to them.

What about you?

Lately I’ve been caught up with video games. I’ve been racing along to get or achieve things, and I lost sight of why I was playing in the first place. But what about you? Have you been rushing your thoughts along without considering them?

Yesterday felt hollow. It started like a normal day, but during the afternoon, I felt tired and listless. Not the tired earned from hard work. It felt more like the oppressive exhaustion of apathy. When I worked, I distracted myself constantly. When I read fiction, I quickly grew bored. When I played video games, I didn’t enjoy it. All of the things that normally bring me joy, failed.

Sometimes that happens.

This is not the first time a day has turned to ash for me. And normally I’d just get some rest and feel refreshed the next day (and I will do that to be sure). But this is perhaps the first time I’ve seriously considered it. What reasons do I have to disengage from life? Why did I stop caring about my actions or their consequences?

Was it due to a shock?

There have been some negative events in my life recently. My granny died last week. I felt terrible when I learned of it. Even though I knew it was coming. But if this was the cause, why today? What caused all of these feelings to well up now? I also read a profoundly negative book about the state of the world and it’s trajectory. But why would that affect me so much? I disagree with many of the claims and the overall tone. At work, I had to deal with one of my least favorite tasks. I was constantly pulled from one distraction to another, and had little time or motivation to advance my long term projects. Or maybe, things are simpler still. I ate some candy for the first time in weeks. Could this have been as simple as a sugar crash in the afternoon?

I don’t have an answer.

And maybe they all contributed. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. But I have started to pay attention. The next time something like this happens, I’ll look back on today. And maybe then I’ll be able to see a pattern.

I’m trying to stay with things that are unpleasant a little longer. Because that helps me to understand them. And that helps me to understand myself.

What about you?

Have you had any negative experiences lately? What caused them? What does that say about you?

Recently, my grandmother died. It was a shock. One day she was alive and sending out holiday cards, and the next, she wasn’t. I couldn’t visit her anymore. I couldn’t show her my new girlfriend. There would be no more trips to visit her, or afternoon tea.

It hurts to know that she’s gone. That I will never do any of those things with her again. I’ dredge up all the ways she touched my life, and flog myself with them. Why didn’t I spend more time with her? Why didn’t I go visit her? Every missed opportunity is another lash. I could’ve had more time with her, but chose to do other things.

But death shouldn’t be unexpected,

My grandmother was ninety eight. I looked at an actuary table for her last year. The median life expectancy of a ninety seven year old female was 2.7 years. And when I saw that I thought, I need to go visit her within the next couple of years. I knew she didn’t have long to live. But I always expected it to be longer. I was informed. I knew how long people her age typically lived. I assumed that she would make it at least 2.7 years. I mistook my knowledge as a guarantee. Having a median life expectancy of about three years means that half of the time, she would die before three years. I knew this to be true. But in my mental arithmetic, that would happen to someone else’s grandmother.

Because when it’s unexpected, it hurts the most.

It hurts to lose time with my granny. But worse is the criticism I level at myself. I didn’t visit her as often as I should have. And when I did visit, I spent time doing other things. Were things like reading books, or exercising as valuable as more time with my grandmother? I don’t think so now. But I did so then. Not in the lip service way we give to things we know are important, but in the way that matters most, my actions. I acted like my grandmother would be around forever. That’s what hurts the most.

Death is an excellent companion.

Everything around me is fragile and limited. Waves drifting across the sea of time. Roiling with vigor one moment, and gone the next. Sometimes I truly understand that, and appreciate the ephemeral beauty of my fellow humans.

And rarer still, sometimes I appreciate that I am human too. That one moment I will be gone. And that I should value my time appropriately. Because one day I will look back on my actions, and judge them with the perspective of my entire life.

Death is an excellent companion, because it allows you to see the world as it truly is. Knowing that things will not last, helps me to value the things that matter, and ignore that which does not.

But what about you?

Have you experienced a loss recently? Has it changed your perspective?