OK, finally I'm caught up with this post.
Yesterday, in my sleep deprived state, I had couple important thoughts. First: I'm much happier and more effective when I've had a reasonable amount of sleep.
Though another important thing that I'd learned earlier also helped me: even if I haven't had a reasonable amount of sleep, I can still function and get done the basic necessities of life. This is important as I was raised with an odd kind of guilt around going to bed late and not getting enough sleep, so that there was a meta-emotional level of fear and dread around not having gotten enough sleep. Like it meant I'd just sinned and God was going to thunderbolt my evil non-sleeping ways. And I was going to end up making some horrible mistake because of my tiredness.
The truth is, it's bad, but livable, and worrying about it just makes the day worse. Though being cautious is still a good thing. Like, don't operate heavy machinery, or drive when you're really sleep deprived, it is dangerous.
But don't put yourself through a guilt trip either. Most people never even think to guilt trip themselves for not going to bed early, that's kinda specific to my oddball upbringing, but it just means they've got other things they guilt trip themselves for. Maybe it's a thing related to Christian traditions? I don't know.
Anyways, realizations I had:
# 2: I can't wait for things to be perfect to live my life the way I want to or do the things I think are important. Life is just going to keep happening. Maybe I will get another period in my life where I've got a lot of free time, but I can't wait for that time to come. I need to be prioritizing things well, and eliminating the unimportant things, starting now.
I've got, like, a completionist tendancy. If I've got 10 things on my todo list, I want to get all 10 of them done, even if 5 of them are really not that important. It's like I've grabbed onto something, and I can't get myself to let go, even when I should. It's that story/metaphor of the monkeys with their hands in the big jars of peanuts, unable to get their big, nut-filled fists out now because the openings of the jars are too small. Indian monkey traps. The people who set the traps can just pick up and relocate the defeated monkeys, who think that something has grabbed them inside the jar, which is too big and heavy for them to move.
If those monkeys just let go of their fistful of peanuts, they could easily escape, but they just don't think to let go. They don't realize that's what's got them trapped.
I relate to those monkeys in a big way. All these things that I want to do. Good things, worthwhile things, things that will add something valuable to my life.
But in the final analysis, things that I don't really need, and are not really important to me. And because I have limited time, they are things that I cannot do, without crowding out more important things, which I then don't get to at all.
I think to an extent I've got a list of things that I think are really important, that I've been waiting to do for the 'right time.' I've got a list of less important things, that I want to do so they are out of the way, out of my mental space, so I feel free to spend a really good amount of time on these bigger, more important things.
Also, these more important things are bigger, longer, and so I won't see results on them for a while. Vs. many of these less important things, I can do relatively quickly, and be done with them. I get the satisfaction of completing something. Unfortunately, I have to ask myself if it was really worth doing those things at all. And this is a much trickier question to answer than it at first appears, because they are worthwhile things to do, when considered on their own. It is only when you take into account what you are NOT doing, BECAUSE you are doing these things, that the true cost of doing them becomes apparent.
Let's take a concrete example. I'd like to read all of the assigned readings for my classes. Rather than just the textbook, and maybe skimming the rest, if that. Maybe I'll find some good stuff somewhere I wasn't expecting it, that I can use later. Also I would like to have my home clean and tidy. It doesn't have to be perfect, but generally orderly and clean.
Let's say I don't have time to do both. And maybe, ultimately, my life would be better if I kept things in a basic level of cleanliness, vs. my life being pretty much unchanged, if I read 200 pages of targeted readings, or the full 500 pages, per week. If I say, "I will do both" and start with the readings, I don't get to doing any cleaning. I have the low grade stress of living in a messy unclean environment, and the only benefit to doing all the readings is a sense of completion and being able to check all the readings off my todo list.
That feels good, in the moment, but I'm only getting that temporary pleasure of being a good student and crossing off my reading list, at the cost of a clean environment. that's like + 2 - 5. +2 for completion. -5 for unclean environment. If I don't take into account the cost of that +2, I think I've just made my life better. But it cost me -5, because I didn't spend my time doing that.
Hope that's clear enough.
Realization #3
This was less of an 'aha' and more of a 'that's it, I'm not doing this any more.' It may have been born of my surly, sleep deprived state of mind, and is related to realization #2. As I sat in my office, exhausted, facing a huge pile of things to do (and a messy office) I just had the thought, 'that's it, I'm tired of all this stuff.'
Tired of the huge list of stuff I'm trying to do, tired of all the little bits and bobs I hold onto and thus have to organize. Tired of the intricate organization systems I've tried to do, both physical and mental, to try and make my physical and mental space more pleasant to live in. It's not worth the time and energy it takes to upkeep it. I just wanted to throw out all the complexity, consolidate it into simple, fast systems, and not spend any more time fussing about it.
Of course, even that takes time. But, at least let it take less time. I wanted to stop any fussing about details, or trying to add new complexities, and just keep things simple and quick unless it was something that I actually cared about. Something actually worth the time.
It was like I was seeing the true cost of all the stuff I had, physical and mental. And, due to feeling low on psychological resources (because I was sleep deprived) it made me just want to let go of it all. Whether that meant actually getting rid of it, or just sticking it in a box out of the way.
I think keeping some of that mentality is a good thing, even when I've got more psychological resources, because it supports that same +2 - 5 math.
Final thought, since this is getting long, is me cautioning myself. Getting 'more efficient' or 'focusing on what's really important' can itself become unhealthy. Part of the spiritual teaching I like from my main spiritual teacher is that any act can and should be made into a spiritual act. In which case, what in particular you are doing is not the central issue. This contrasts with the 'figure out how much your hourly wage is, and if you can pay someone less to do it, then outsource it' philosophy of some modern productivity teachers. And I lean more towards the ancient wisdom side of things, when there are opposing viewpoints.
OK, that is all for now. I guess I will be curious to see how well I can implement these realizations into how I do things going forwards.
No comments:
Post a Comment