This is the first of two posts leading up to an invitation for a social experiment that I would love for anyone interested to accept. This post lays the foundation for how my thinking has changed over time and how this small change has made me feel empowered and crazy about life.
The last two years have been about experimentation. Experimentation mostly with drugs and lawlessness.... I'm totally kidding. Experimentation with small adjustments and readjustments in my everyday life. Running before or after work. Not checking email at home. Drinking X number of water cups before lunch. If a pattern emerged over time with certain actions (consistently feeling awesome after drinking a huge glass of water early in the morning), I incorporated it permanently into my life. Things with not so awesome results (like trying to live off $45 per week), I just adjusted or abandoned. Either way, every tiny experiment gave me lots of insight into all sorts of things about myself and the world around me.
The funny thing about being in control of these tiny things in your life is that they give you the most insight into the gigantic things in your life like defining what's important to you. Lots of people around me seem to be futility trying to come define the most gigantic of these topics, "What do you want to do with your life?" I after messing around with a few experiments, I have come to the conclusion that the question should forever be remixed from, "What do you want to do with your life?" to "What are you doing with your life?" The first question seems to ask for a specific answer that feels very final. Life doesn't work that way though. It's more like an organism that's always evolving. The new question is focused on being productive today so that you're better off tomorrow. Are you moving you towards a better future?
We've become obsessed with the finish line. So much so that the path we take is slowly losing more meaning. Take a step back and we see that the path is composed of laps and each lap can be broken down into meter increment markers. It's a group of strides that allows us to step over each one of these increment markers. Each stride broken down further into individual steps. So why I spend so much time stressing about what career I would like to have next? Why do I anxiously marinate on how insightful living in this country or working for that company could be? This obsession with the finish line has been tripping some of us up even before we can get into our initial stride. We fixate on answering that first question from before so much that it takes time away from moving towards the answer. So why not instead think about goals and back up a bit. What if we then defined a general direction to grow. This direction would have wiggle room and this direction would be evolving as we evolve.
I realized this about half way through 2008. I started whispering "baby steps" to myself when I went on a run or had a productive day. For a long time it didn't really mean anything to me except to bite off small chunks of my goals each day. So I would spend a small amount of time on each step and the rest of the time daydreaming about how sweet it would be if I accomplished my goals, again the finish line. Then one day the "aha!" came.
Babies crawl for a while until one day they decide to move to the next level. Not so different than jumping from college to a career or from company to company. The initial step is foreign yet exciting. The next one feels unbalanced yet good. Here's where babies win out in this analogy. Unlike us, step after shaky step, the toddler is not thinking, "Damn these steps are tiny, I can't wait to run." They're thinking "Holy shit. Wait I can move?" and maybe, "I don't need to cry for those lame gigantic people as much anymore." It's about faith. Not in the guy in the sky sense but in the feeling you have within yourself. Sure the end goal might be to find balance and then run but it's putting foot in front of foot that gets you there. That's what I've been trying to do in my like. To define broad directions I'd like to evolve towards. I'd like to learn languages. I'd like to start my own company. I'd like to live in another country. All very broad paths. Then on the daily I try to keep faith in the fact that if I move a little bit in a direction that feels good today, I'll be better off tomorrow. The result is a growing feeling of clarity and empowerment.
Think about your goals. Understand the direction you need to travel and then have faith in yourself. If you crave another path later, your perspective is still richer than if you were stagnant since, there is no replacement for each individual step.The funny thing about being in control of these tiny things in your life is that they give you the most insight into the gigantic things in your life like defining what's important to you. Lots of people around me seem to be futility trying to come define the most gigantic of these topics, "What do you want to do with your life?" I after messing around with a few experiments, I have come to the conclusion that the question should forever be remixed from, "What do you want to do with your life?" to "What are you doing with your life?" The first question seems to ask for a specific answer that feels very final. Life doesn't work that way though. It's more like an organism that's always evolving. The new question is focused on being productive today so that you're better off tomorrow. Are you moving you towards a better future?
We've become obsessed with the finish line. So much so that the path we take is slowly losing more meaning. Take a step back and we see that the path is composed of laps and each lap can be broken down into meter increment markers. It's a group of strides that allows us to step over each one of these increment markers. Each stride broken down further into individual steps. So why I spend so much time stressing about what career I would like to have next? Why do I anxiously marinate on how insightful living in this country or working for that company could be? This obsession with the finish line has been tripping some of us up even before we can get into our initial stride. We fixate on answering that first question from before so much that it takes time away from moving towards the answer. So why not instead think about goals and back up a bit. What if we then defined a general direction to grow. This direction would have wiggle room and this direction would be evolving as we evolve.
I realized this about half way through 2008. I started whispering "baby steps" to myself when I went on a run or had a productive day. For a long time it didn't really mean anything to me except to bite off small chunks of my goals each day. So I would spend a small amount of time on each step and the rest of the time daydreaming about how sweet it would be if I accomplished my goals, again the finish line. Then one day the "aha!" came.
Babies crawl for a while until one day they decide to move to the next level. Not so different than jumping from college to a career or from company to company. The initial step is foreign yet exciting. The next one feels unbalanced yet good. Here's where babies win out in this analogy. Unlike us, step after shaky step, the toddler is not thinking, "Damn these steps are tiny, I can't wait to run." They're thinking "Holy shit. Wait I can move?" and maybe, "I don't need to cry for those lame gigantic people as much anymore." It's about faith. Not in the guy in the sky sense but in the feeling you have within yourself. Sure the end goal might be to find balance and then run but it's putting foot in front of foot that gets you there. That's what I've been trying to do in my like. To define broad directions I'd like to evolve towards. I'd like to learn languages. I'd like to start my own company. I'd like to live in another country. All very broad paths. Then on the daily I try to keep faith in the fact that if I move a little bit in a direction that feels good today, I'll be better off tomorrow. The result is a growing feeling of clarity and empowerment.
People sometimes comment that I have strangely random interests but they are actually more calculated than I realized before this year. They subscribe to my inner toddler. I try to do things that make life feel more rich and that make me feel good. As lame as that sounds, I wasn't actively doing that before. I tried to cook dinner for friends a lot last year. Maybe I'll own a restaurant in many years. I took Hindi last quarter. Maybe I'll travel all over India and be able to socialize with the locals. I went on a run last week. Maybe I'll finally reach my fitness goals this week. Each might just be one step towards the finish line but tomorrow brings another step and the day after one more and...
1 comment:
Awesome post man. I'm making those adjustments on a daily basis, some due to the fact that I am in a completely different part of the world. It helps to expand your mind a little, if anything.
I'm down.
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