When I consume other peoples creations I feel competitive and inadequate. Wanting to prove that I too, am capable. This approach blinds me from my true self, as I give in to the shiny allure of greener grass.
It’s only after I stop consuming and give myself a break from outside influence, that I can suffering through the quiet of my own thoughts and get a glimpse of who I am. Sometimes the process is so uncomfortable that I retreat to the comfort of outside opinion. Releasing myself from the duty of making decisions, and turning my head from my good, bad, and ugly. There’s no way I am exempt from consuming. Any good idea I’ve ever had has been because of information I have consumed. Taking the ideas of others and adapting them to my own circumstances is a method that works. The trick is giving myself the time it takes for ideation, adaptation, development, and implementation.
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I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you've been given. To stop running from whatever you're trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. This section of Dopamine Nation resonates with me. In more than just poignant wisdom. It feels like a description of how I have approached living. I have early memories of slipping into the mindset of “…at this point…” forever looking into the future at a specific event. Only to get to there and bypass it because a new future event had come into focus. For someone who was trained to be present on stage through improv, I have a difficult time staying in the moment off stage. The author of the book shifted the way I see addiction, opening up the definition and making it in less severe and more everyday. Not as something that one suffers but as something that one uses. Suffering just happens to be a side effect. Addiction is something we all use to cope. Seeing it as tool is what creates the justification while in the addiction and suggests that it is common practice. Opening up that definition I have a clearer picture of my own addictive behavior. Which begs the question, what am I running away from? Discontent is a way I have identified since high school. After getting my job as a teacher I remember a conversation with my mentor where we discussed a student we were both teaching. We wished we could be as content and simple. I was hiding under the humility of the phrasing, really loving my discontent with where I was. Convinced my discontent was ambition. Looking back on it now I can’t help but think that perhaps I haven’t always been happy with who I am and the circumstances I’ve been given. Disappointed that I hadn’t lived up to other’s expectations or my own fantasies. Like Siddhartha I have been looking for solutions outside of myself. Chasing a dragon that doesn’t exist. Avoiding what’s staring me in the face. Sitting in this space I don’t believe I am unaware. In fact I think it’s my awareness that is the root of my avoidance. The quote above ends with the necessary action, and the part I have been avoiding: Run towards what you’ve been avoiding. It is my professional and personal opinion that a campus tour is paramount in the college search process. Especially for young searchers. When I recommend a campus tour I am asked how to best approach it.
There are some standard questions to ask and people I think they should talk to. But the focus of the conversation always comes back to a feeling. The vibe, as I describe it, can only be felt when you get onto campus. It’s not only college campuses that give off a vibe. We feel it with lots of things: houses, cities, parks, museums, art, restaurants, food, books, everyday objects, animals, philosophies, movies, beliefs, and people. I have no rational explanation for what and why things resonate with me. But when it happens it’s like something I’ve always known. A part of me I am getting reacquainted with. Sometimes it provides the words I’ve struggled to articulate. I felt it a lot when I went to college and was introduced to new ideas and ways of thinkings, especially in theatre and art. It’s one of the things I most enjoy about the internet. Access to all the different ways of doing anything. As I get older I find it harder to recognize what resonates. It is particularly difficult to set aside popular opinion, old beliefs, and ways of being, and allow myself to tune into the resonance. But when I can it is most rewarding. I have had this draw to be in the calendar I’ve created. To write things down, fill it up, track what I’m doing. Only to open my calendar and not have anything to write down. The only thing there is to do is get to work and do the thing that want I want to track.
I know there are some stats around writing things down will increase the likely hood of them happening, but writing things down doesn’t make them happen. The other benefit from this calendar has been a steady reminder of getting back to work. Especially getting back to the project I’ve started. I always struggle remembering to come back to the non urgent task. Being drawn to the calendar has helped with that. For Christmas this year, I was gifted Dopamine Nation: finding balance in the age of indulgence by Anne Lembke. I was introduced to the book through the Huberman Lab Podcast. The book pulls from the wisdom of recovering addicts for strategies to deal with a world that provides unlimited access to pleasure. As I was reading last night I came across this line: Reflecting on the trajectory of his whole life, rather than just the present moment, allowed this young man to take a more accurate inventory of his day-to-day behaviors. Prior to this the author describes that inside addiction (or pleasure) we lose our ability to have long term vision. Unable to see how our current actions can and will affect our life over a longer period of time. There is is a transition in recovery when addicts can see their actions beyond the immediate moment.
The physical calendar I set up this year has had a similar effect. Seeing the year as a whole has given a clearer perspective on the day-to-day actions that can help me accomplish my long term goals. It’s easy to let the day-to-day fires that need to put be out get in the way of the non-urgent tasks that need to be done consistently in order to reach my goals. Keeping perspective of the whole year is necessary to keep getting up even when I fall off. Time is strange and elusive. The older I get the faster it seems go. The times I have a better grasp of the time I have left (days, weeks, months and years) are when I can see my current place in relation to everything else.
From this vantage point I am able to break down the projects I have into a clear time frame in which to get them done. It lays out the year in a way I can wrap my head around. The best tool for this is a calendar. While I am dependent on my digital calendar I benefit a great deal from a physical calendar. Digital calendars leaving me wanting a spatial understanding of the weeks, months and year ahead. It’s too easy to scroll through the year without knowing what a week or three months mean in relation to each other. There’s no context ratio (1:7. 1:4, 1:12) to gives me a sense of how they work together, of what I have to work with. I find these kinds of constraints helpful. Without them I tend to drift and lose sight of any direction I had. The constraints give me something to leverage my time and effort against. Maximizing creativity and innovation. In the weeks leading up to the new year I get stuck in these fantasies of potential changes. I can see myself making different choices that result in:
In these fantasies, that clearly have no physics, the changes happen overnight. I jump straight to the results rather than understand the path or the process it takes to make them real. As a result, I fall off the wagon and slip back to the status quo, happy to get back to the fantasy next December. If the changes aren’t going to be big then why do them all? Go big or go home. That’s exactly what I do, set out to go big and then end up back in the comfort and safety of my own home. The hard part about any kind of change, whether new year’s resolution or not, is the subtlety in which success happens. I love a Cinderella story as much as the next, but the reason I do is because it appears to happen quickly. I can sustain effort for a short period but in a longer duration I lose interest and steam. In looking back duration has played a key role in the success I’ve had. For this year, I want to embrace Andy Galpin’s wisdom: Consistency over intensity
Aesthetic and design are at the forefront of popular culture. With accessible manufacturing processes, and affordable material it’s easier to get our hands on well designed objects. Having a home that mirrors Architectural Digest, Interior Design and Martha Steward Living, is achievable on a budget. In high school, while living in England, my dad and I got into Minis. The great thing about a Mini is that they are affordable, making them modifiable to a ridiculous degree. I poured over magazines filled with Mini kits, where you could purchase a fiberglass body that would turn your mini chassis into just about anything, from a Viper to a Jeep. Endless possibilities. At the time I didn’t understand why anyone would buy an actual Porsche when I could buy a replica at a fraction of the cost. It’s extremely convincing and makes financial, and aesthetic sense. Except for when it comes to quality.
Cars are probably not the best example, Minis and VWs can be very nice and produce an excellent driving experience. Instead think of this as a metaphor. As I get older the bigger the role quality plays. Quality is more than longevity of the object, it’s about how it’s used, what it feels like, the experience etc. While I use my phone and computer to take digital notes I love the quality of my writing experience with a paper notebook. The democratization of commodities has been driven by cost, which opens up access. This decisions sometimes comes at the cost of quality. This is hugely gray area, and there’s no way to put a standard in place for everyone. Quality is like art, it’s dependent on the person. The point I want to make is that quality should be a factor when considering the objects we use and the experience we create. In the same way I crave salt, fat, and sugar I crave work. It can be attached to periods of time I haven’t been productive. Like a way of making up for vacation. Other times it’s the desire to move a project forward. I even have cravings for physical work. I need to get outside, go to the gym, or work with my hands. As much as I appreciate the white collar work I could potentially do into my 70’s, I love having a tangible outcome from a day's work. Staring at a spreadsheet or filling out paperwork just doesn’t have the same satisfaction as stacking wood. The downfall to this craving is the equally shiny distraction. Yes, things like television, but I’m talking about the difficult to identify distraction. Things like laundry, cleaning the bathroom, or even starting a new project rather than finishing the one in mid-progression. Work is a reverse bell curve. Starting a project provides a dopamine spike. Enough to motivate starting the project. Due to the nature of the project I need to take a break. It’s too big to finish in one sitting, I have to wait for the glue to dry, or I get stuck on a problem I can’t immediately solve. This slump is enough to end the project completely. Even with the craving it’s hard kickstart the motivation to finish. That second dopamine spike is a bitch, and it’s never quite as satisfying as I want it to be.
But the reason to complete a project, to get back to work is much bigger than the dopamine rush I get from starting. There is a deep fulfillment to completing projects. Looking back on what’s been done and knowing the work it took to get there. It’s the same fulfillment that creates nostalgia and reminiscing. Like years after the 50 mile hike and going out and to eat with the same group of guys to allow the stories to come flooding back. When I crave work, that’s really what I’m craving. Everyday we tell ourselves and others stories. It’s the way we process information and make sense of the world around us. Many of these stories that inform the way we show up to the world come early influencers; our parents, friends, teachers, books, movies, church leaders etc. It doesn’t take much to dive into our past and find the time, location, and influencer that solidified a belief we have ourselves. This belief turns into a script that is repeated as we navigate where and how we fit into the world. There stories can earmark our superpowers positioning us for success: I don’t tell students to become actors because they starve, but I really think you need to act. You’re studying public relations, I thought you would have done something bigger than that, like a lawyer. I can see how you’re communicating with your partners, and there’s wisdom in it. Or they can shed light on our weaknesses and our potential downfall: What kind of person needs that much attention? If you put a fraction of the energy you put into performance you might actually be able to do something. Why did you say I would stand up for you? I’m not going to do that, you’re on your own. Repeated over and over again these scripts become part of the fabric of our stories as we play them out daily. This repetition is a feedback loop that reinforces the belief and the story of who we are. Over a long enough time frame they become the perception of our reality.
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