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Hustle and Stamina

There’s something to be said for the hustle. Being able to sprint when you need to can get you places you could never get to otherwise.

That being said, there’s just as much to be said for stamina. Relentless sprints don’t win the long game. Hustle when you need to, and don’t if the time isn’t right.

Awareness and Growth

Growth is a function of feedback loops, our ability to ideate, execute, and reflect on that experience.

While the ideation and execution are necessary, they alone aren’t sufficient. Growth comes from well-tuned reflection on what went right, what went wrong, and most importantly, why. Growth, improvement, and progress come from our ability to see.

If we can reflect and see, there’s no problem too large.

Principles and Outcomes

The two are inevitably tied. Adhering rigidly to a principle will often predetermine an outcome, and pursuing an outcome at any cost will affect which principles you are (and are not) adhering to.

Best to consider both when deciding how to act. Oftentimes the optimum, the scenario which achieves a good outcome while reinforcing your integrity, lies somewhere in-between.

Trips, Falls, and Spirals

 When we trip, it’s easy to see the bottom and start falling toward it, to fall prey to the downward spiral.

Impossible to perceive but just as real- the upward spiral that proceeds from picking ourselves up.

Flipping the Switch (or at least thinking about it)

A lot of our big decisions in life are like light switches. We like to think we take the time to consciously decide but, more often than not, we don’t. We default to a yes or a no. Without a critical mass of momentum in the other direction we stay there.

Default “Yes” decisions:
  • Going to College
  • Getting a job and working for someone else straight out of college
  • Buying a House
  • Getting Married
  • Having Children
Default “No” decisions:
  • Moving to and Living in a Foreign place
  • Doing something radically different than anything you’ve done before
  • Doing anything outside of social norms
There isn’t one way that’s “correct”. There is, however, value in take the time to really consider what things would be like if you flipped the switch. You’re likely to notice more switches you didn’t even realize were there.

Cyclical, Frictional, and Structural

In economics there’s a notion that unemployment can be deconstructed into three parts: cyclical, frictional, and structural.

Cyclical unemployment is a result of the business cycle, the natural ups and downs of the economy. It’s largely out of our control and takes everyone with it.

Frictional unemployment happens when we graduate from college or leave a prior job; there’s a period of transition while we find the right match. Frictional unemployment is a byproduct of the process and completely natural.

Structural unemployment happens when our systems don’t provide workers with the skills our economy needs. Heard that one about jamming a square peg into a round hole? It’s like that.

This model for unemployment adapts nicely to how we think about all of our problems:

  1. Is the problem cyclical? Is the situation fundamentally good but everyone is struggling as a result of an unforeseen downturn?

  2. Is the problem frictional? Are you in a part of the process which is naturally difficult, either because you’re just starting or in transition?

  3. Is the problem structural? Are you fundamentally mismatched for where you are? Are you a square peg trying to put yourself into a round hole?
Cyclical and Frictional issues are normal, when they happen we batten down the hatches and ride the wave. Trouble comes when problems are structural, often because they’re obfuscated by layers of cyclical and frictional problems. This makes them hard to identify at best.

If all of your cyclical and frictional issues were lifted would you be happy and at peace with where you are? If no, consider finding a new hole, a new place.

Multitasking

There’s a secret to increasing meaning, learning, productivity, and happiness:

Don’t multitask.
 
With any negative statement, there lurks a positive. “Don’t X” implies “Do Y or Z”. Considering the two together bring more depth than either alone. In this case:

Be present wherever you are. Be doing whatever you are doing.
 
If you’re spending time with friends, be with friends (not on your cell phone).
If you’re answering emails, be answering emails (more importantly, if you’re not answering emails don’t be near your emails).
If you’re working on your creative project, be working on your creative project. Don’t get pulled away.

The real magic behind this is that focus is a force multiplier. Four hours spent on four things is FAR less than four blocks of one hour dedicated to each.

Be present in everything you do- the work, play, friends, and alone time, and reap the benefits of what you sow. Meaning and depth won’t come unless we create the immersion to allow for them.

Decompression

Athletes regularly plan time for recovery, both at a micro and macro level. They plan days off for muscle recovery and schedule larger chunks of time where they reduce frequency and intensity to help their bodies recover.

There’s no reason we can’t bring this to every area of our life. We need regular time for mental, emotional, and spiritual rest and recovery. It’s at this moment that we make new subconscious connections, arm ourselves for greater creativity, and give ourselves the room make grander revelations and leaps in life.

We should live our lives at 100, but growth happens at the resting in-between the stress.

The Seesaw

I recently heard someone say that clichés are underrated, that they often hide nuggets of truth that, upon reflection, help to lead a better life. It’s simply the act of dismissing them as cliché that deprives them of value.

All that setup to lead to something I’ve been considering lately: life as a balancing act.

The analogy of a seesaw seems most appropriate. We have so much to balance between the two sides: work and play, supporting and being supported, time for friends and time for reflection.

We never do it perfectly, but as long as we have a good self-correction mechanism we end up alright.

Sometimes, much like the bully on the playground, we lay our foot down and commit fully to one side. We become fully engrossed in our work and ourselves, forgetting to live the enjoyable parts of life. Meanwhile, more weight accumulates on the other side in a desperate attempt to self-correct.

At this point, mechanics allows for two options: Enough weight accumulates, and we get rocketed back to the other side. An aggressive self-correction to balance the bulk of mass, leaving us to commence the balancing act with our lighter load. This kind of rocketing may or may not be fun, but generally leaves us reconsidering how to balance.

The other option: The Seesaw breaks under the pressure. We become so out of touch with ourselves that we don’t even allow for the correction and we break. We burnout. We snap.

We almost always manage to put the seesaw back together. But the scars stay as a reminder.

A Reminder

This week got away from me a bit (evidenced by the afternoon post). A few things I’m reminding myself of as a result:

  1. Control only exists in our life to the degree we exercise it. If you let what others think- or what you think others think- direct you then you aren’t in control (although you can always take it back).
  2. Don’t create stories about what others lives are like or what yours “ought” to be like. Just live it.
  3. Presence, happiness, and meaning are about the long game.
I hope this finds you having a wonderful summer Saturday.