Self-E. Burning, Vinegar.

My teacher: "when I first saw people walking around with selfie sticks, I was concerned that people seemed to be carrying around these club-like weapons, until I learned what they actually were"

Me: (in my head) "They are a weapon. But they only do spiritual damage, and it’s mostly self-inflicted, so nobody worries about them."



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Hello.

I have given myself 21 minutes for this post. (The above was written earlier, right after I heard it and the response came into my head)

I've been timing most of what I've been doing these days, because I am a slow, easygoing sort, who likes to sink deeply into whatever work I'm doing, especially writing and certainly learning. But, I do not have time for that.

I have approximately twenty summaries, of various lengths and types, due by Tuesday, and really I should get them done by Monday, so I can begin working promptly on next weeks batch, starting Monday afternoon.

Just for fun, I'm going to share my current schedule, in brief:
Weekdays:
Wake up around 4:15-4:30
listen to some nice spiritual discourse for about 15 minutes as my brain slowly gains sentience
Quick bathroom stuff
Meditation, prayer,
about a half hour of exercise, running and doing sun salutes
shower
Work for about an hour to an hour and a half on homework
Breakfast and class starts at 8:30, so I try to leave by 8:00
Class goes until 4:30, hour break for lunch. It's intense lecturing taking notes as fast as I can until 2:30, and then practicing what we've leaned until 4:30
Get home, maybe meditate or nap for 10-20 minutes
Work till dinner
Dinner is as quick as I can make it, I just walk over to a Poke place (Maybe I'll describe that later, basically, a nice Asian style build-your-own salad/rice bowel.)
Back to work until bedtime, usually around 8:30, so I can get ready for bed and be asleep around 9, for my early morning work.

Weekend is not much different, except I am just working on writing papers all day, instead of going to class. So a bit worse, because not broken up by the practice time, which is a nice change of pace.

I allowed myself the luxury of Friday night with a little web series, and let myself sleep in till 5am today.

My head feels a bit spacey, my neck and back a little achy. I have another... 18 papers to do, tomorrow. I completed... I think, 8, today. I think, I hope, I've started speeding up, as I iterate and briefly reflect each time, on how efficient I was and what I can do to improve that. Some of the papers are shorter, but some take a surprisingly long time. But perhaps part of that is just me being inefficient.

You may think this is all said with a quiet desperation, a kind of pitiful defeated sobbing.

But no, I actually love it.
I mean, it's super challenging, and my body, brain, mind, are groaning under it.
But,
A) if I end up behind, it will be a huge pain, but nobody's going to die, nobody's going to go hungry. The stakes, realistically, are low. The worst of it is I'll be creating more work for myself than I'd have to do if I finished them all on time. Which is very motivating, but not terrifying.
B) I'm getting approximately enough sleep, I'm getting a little bit of exercise and taking short breaks.
C) the work is generally very rewarding, I feel it directly moving me towards higher levels and new spells in my "Teacher" class

But the reason I love it is not even specifically about gaining teacher super-powers. It's about gaining general kick the doors down spit and vinegar workaholism.

This super intense, super demanding workload, with a fairly serious repercussion (not mean, not punishment) for lapsing, is forcing me to muster reserves and develop behavior patterns and habits to be the sleep deprived malnourished college grad I always felt guilty about not being. Even more so, being the no-social life utterly focused student of mastery that I always wished I could be.

I no longer have any excuse to feel bad about myself in comparison to other people who are working super hard. I now know I can do it to. I can work just about every waking hour of the day, intensely and deeply, with just the bare minimum amount of breaks necessary to keep from burning myself out.

There are people who work harder, but it's not sustainable and I don't ever want to be one of the burnout people. But I do love testing myself against the storm, so to speak, and seeing that I can live through it.

And I look forward to applying some of the skills I'm acquiring now, to my job, to my passion of nurturing new souls. I want to be a world class teacher, and I know the only way to do that is to work really, really hard, and make sacrifices towards that goal, in other areas of my life. Well, now I know I can, and it can be satisfying, and sustainable. generally sustainable. I think I need a wee bit more social interaction for something truly sustainable. But that's part the benefit of this: by going way past the point of a reasonable workload, I'm having to really push my efficiency, notice and eliminate wasted time, energy, and wasteful routines, because I"m so desperate for just a little more time, and every few minutes I can squeeze out pay off immediately.

I feel like I'm forging some strong, sharp weapon, and it's glowing cherry read to white hot, from the tremendous heat it's being subjected to. Forging a sword requires a lot of burning. So, for my dream, for mastery, burn on.