Hydrangeas, Humility, Letting go.

 The hydrangeas near my sit spot have been slowly blooming more and more. Now they are so numerous and big the bush is drooping. makes me think of that saying, how does it go, something like, "the tree with the most fruit bows the lowest." Gratitude for the abundance of beauty and the ever-changing art-show nature puts on for us all. And the gardener who planted these flowering perennials. And the birdsong and a hundred other things that fill me with joy and awe each morning I go out to sit in nature for a few minutes.

I continue to not be able to get very much ahead of things. I am making progress, but even on break, there is just so much trying to fill in all the gaps, new and urgent tasks that crop up and take my time and energy, it is rare I get a lot of backlog things done on a given day. I am making steady progress though. I finally uploaded all the pictures from my old-school digital camera to my computer (I should share some of those here at some point. Good pictures from my travels and such). I finally got an appointment with a legal person to go over wills and living wills and power of attorneys and such, which I'd been meaning to do for many years now. I went over my apple notes and transferred over the important ones I wanted in one place. I did a massive more-than-weekly review with all the backlogged stuff. I got rid of my backlogged emails, so I'm now dancing around a clear email inbox.

Though I am realizing the intelligence of a suggestion I read, in terms of organizing notes, and email inboxes and such. The suggestion was just to take the whole big long backlog, and archive it all, sight unseen. If you really need to, go back a month or two or however long you feel comfortable with, if you really think there's something important in there and go through each one, but otherwise, just get it archived, out of sight, out of mind. The value gained by hand-picking through all those old emails is miniscule, and the time taken to do so is immense. If you realize you really need something, you've got the archived box/folder, and especially with digital things, there's little cost to keep it, often you can find things easily with a search, and even if not, it's usually still less time, searching through your archived folder for a single thing, than all the time it takes to process each thing.

This principle, what I'm calling the "just archive it" mentality, is something I'm trying to figure out how to implement in more of my life. I think there are numerous situations where it applies, though with physical stuff, there is the issue of running out of physical room. It's not as close to free as with digital files. Still, there is a low-effort approach to sorting and organizing, that gets unused things out of the way quickly, leaving me time for more important things. That is the approach I want to be taking with more things.

I'm thinking about how I can't make more hours in the day, so my only way to 'manage' my time, is to choose my priorities, what I spend time on, more carefully. This can be challenging, as often there is a strong urge just to complete something, to have the open loop closed. But that thing is really not worth putting that time into, so it is a struggle of willpower to decide to just let it go.

I'm enjoying playing more during my break as well, spending time with Suzannah. We're building a lego treehouse together. It's super fun. Kinda like doing a puzzle together, but 3-dimensional.

OK, I've got a bunch of posts to catch up on still, and a haircut to get to in a bit, so that's all for this post. I should share a picture of our treehouse in it's mid-construction state.

With love,

Isaac

Catch-up short: pre-wedding, Monadnock, life finds a way.

 Hmm, counting the weeks, it looks Like I somehow got 3 weeks behind. I blame the end of my summer semester, plus the wedding that I went to. Time for some nice short 'make up' posts.

On the morning of the wedding day, Suzannah and I hiked up Mount Monadnock (the wedding was in New Hampshire). It was a beautiful hike, and at the top, it was so windy it almost felt like we were going to get picked up and blown off. It went from too hot to too cold. At the bald stony top of the mountain, were little pools of water, and in one of those pools were a swarm of tadpoles! it was really unexpected and cool. I don't know how or why they went up there, but it's a symbol of the power of life to find a way to thrive in the most unlikely of circumstances. I think I took some pictures and videos, but it was with Suzannah's phone. Maybe I can get her to share them with me later.

In current news: We're about to go up to Iowa City with a friend who has a Costco membership to go shopping. And I've got to cook up something for lunch, before then, so that's the end of this post. Maybe next time I'll tell a bit about the wedding ceremony and the rubber-duck race the next day. I do have pictures and videos of that.

Until next time (which will hopefully be soon)

-I

The joy of closing loops. The ecstasy of having time. The results of working like a dog.

 Yes, still a bit behind.

Let me tell you what feels AMAZING. Having a big ol' list of todo's on my task card, and smashing through all of them, plus a bunch of extra curveballs that got thrown at me today. This is what I've been waiting for. Time. TIME. Time to close a bunch of the open loops that have been sitting around in the back of my brain and scattered around the house, nagging me every time my eyes fall on them, until I go blind to them altogether, and just feel unconsciously stressed simply walking from room to room, because I'm subconsciously (or often consciously) reminded of all the things that need doing, that I have not done, because there are time sensitive essential things that need to get done now. 

And so I live in a sea of minor stress, like death by a thousand papercuts. And I bear with it, because it's not responsible to stop what I'm doing and take care of all these minor issues. They're none of them really important, they're none of them making a big difference. But all together, they do make a signifigant difference. The difference between living in a space that feels together, and a space that feels incomplete, under construction, waiting to be finished. And cluttered.

Now. NOW I get to work towards actually completing it. Yes I know, nothing will ever actually be complete. But it can be well functioning. It can be current, where the incomplete things come from what is coming in day to day, rather than incomplete even when the day to day is taken care of, because of the backlog.

So perhaps I sound a little manic. I do kind of imagine myself laughing like a supervillain or something, it's like this is too satisfying, I must be doing something wrong. Eating two pieces of chocolate cake for breakfast.

But part of what feels so good, is this stuff is actually getting done. And has been for several days. I haven't been going at an exausting pace, and there's been time to play with Suzannah and enjoy my break. But, unlike what has sometimes happened in the past, where I have squandered my time, I am not squandering. I'm using well. And I'm not getting (too) sidetracked, I am doing what I set out to accomplish.

This bodes well for my coming fall semester, where I am likely stepping down from three classes per semester to two. The concern is that I will squander my free time. The hope is that I will take the intensity of focus I've been required to master, to get all my work done on time, and have some to spare for important projects aside form school. I think this may be a good use of my time and energy. There is a loss of efficiency you can get, when learning things, when you mono-task too much. Spending all your time learning piano is great if you want to be the worlds best pianist, but if you have multiple things you want to learn, you are better served interleaving them, spacing your repetition, taking breaks from your work to do different work. And having a balanced life involves daily application of multiple different domains, not just writing papers and reading books. Learning to cook. Strength training. Spending time to nurture relationships and friendships. Volunteering. Pursuing interests and passions and creating.

So I think it's a good idea. On the other hand, I haven't definitivy decided because: finishing 8 months earlier. If I blaze through classes and keep grinding, I can finish 8 months faster. Is it work it? Part of me wants to finish, be done with it, and get on with the more practical stuff. But the other part wants to take my time, go deep, and be balanced. Kinda sounds like a no brainer. Oh, except part of me also wants to start helping and working with people, right now. I don't want to be waiting. Maybe I can do that anyways. Anyone can hang up a shingle and call themselves a life coach, maybe I can start offering freebies as a 'life coach' just to start getting some experience. Or even charging for it? Or start working for someone in a position where I'm helping but don't need the credentials yet? That is all very much just beginning to think about, as I write it.

But anyways. That's where I'm at.

Maybe next time I'll talk about what I'm working on learning over the break, beyond just checking off todo's.

Love and joy,

Isaac

Isaac