Without going all the way
Today, I read this quote:
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth — not going all the way, and not starting. – Buddha
Arguably, those two mistakes are the first two that you can make with any venture.
Everything you don’t start has even less value to you, than something that was a complete and utter failure. With a failure, you’ve at least had experiences, perhaps learned some things, met some people.
If you start along the way, heading in the direction of success, why do you stop? (Why do I stop?)
My biggest problem, historically, has been one of commitment. I stumble, I falter, lose direction, lose momentum, take time off for no particular reason, and then I look back and discover that I’ve effectively given up. I’ve seen myself do it over and over again. The two questions from this are “Why do I do that?” and “How do I stop?”
Why, is pretty classic – fear of failure combined with my oft-mentioned laziness. If I didn’t really try, I can’t really fail, so not trying is a “better” option for my ego. I can maintain my self deception that I’m smart, with it onto it – that particular venture didn’t go anywhere ‘cos I gave up, not because I’m useless.
How to stop is harder – it involves some moderately radical shifts in how I think about things, how I behave, and how I rationalise my behaviours. The first thing is to recognise when I’m indulging in one of these behaviours. The second is to deliberately do the opposite of what my ‘natural’ inclination is. Repeat, ad nauseum, until the ‘right’ behaviour feels natural.
[image is The road to Offen 2 by Jasmic]
CommentsCommitments that start tomorrow
I’ve mentioned before that I procrastinate. Arguably, it’s one of my defining personality traits – and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that.
My solution (for now) – if I’m going to do it, if it matters, if I want to commit to it, I’m not going to do it “tomorrow”.
There are some obvious exceptions – if I think of something work related on Sunday, Hell Yes that will wait until tomorrow. Similarly, I’m OK with making plans for the following day (as long as I’m not putting off something that I’d be better off starting today).
Tomorrow is one of the more dangerous words in my vocabulary – sometimes, it even gets an inflated sense of self importance, as it blows out to “next week” or “next month” or maybe even “next year”. All of these translate to “later, maybe never”, and there’s too much I want to get done for things to wait that long.
Much as living in the past is a bad idea, doing only in the future is an unhealthy habit.
So, time to be more healthy.
CommentsLess consumption, more creation
My default mode is one of consumption (of media mostly, but food also, as my waistline will well attest), not creation.
A few months ago, I got the Kindle app for iPhone (after working around Amazon’s attempt at region restriction – I hate having to make significant efforts to give a company money), and this gave me a wealth of new media to consume. Also, we were in the midst of the main US TV season, so there was plenty of TV to watch.
That’s where I’ve been – consuming, not creating.
While I’ve enjoyed my consumption (I almost always do), of late, I’ve been noticing the lack of creation in my life. So, I’ll be making more of an effort in that regard.
What I’ve noticed is that creativity begets creativity. The more actively creative I am in my life, the more creative ideas I have – ie, the more I write, the more photography ideas I have. The more photography I do, the more blogging and business ideas I have, etc. etc. Since writing, photography, and making money are the things I want to focus on for a while, I need to focus on all of them.
Growing up, creative pursuits were somewhat looked down upon. They were hobbies at best (at worst, wastes of time), not the sort of thing someone smart (I as always regarded as moderately bright, academically) and sensible (I wasn’t, but my parents wanted me to be) would actively spend time on. Work was serious, anything else, not so much. I need to actively fight against this attitude becoming part of my day to day reality.
Assuming any of you are still reading (I’m hopeful, due to RSS subscriptions), you can expect to hear a bit more from me in the coming weeks and months.
[image is Creation of a Strobist by ecatoncheires]
CommentsLetting Go #4: Anger
I used to be a really angry person.I’d let myself get angry over stupid things, for no good reason. I still am at times, but now it’s something I struggle with, rather than just accepting it as part of who I am.
It starts off when someone says something, or does something that just sets your teeth on edge, something that rubs you completely the wrong way. Myself, I get a feeling like pressure, high in my head, like I’m literally going to blow my top. Recognizing that as an early symptom helps me to get a head start on releasing the pressure, letting it seep out in harmless little ways.
One thing that helps me out, is actively working towards understanding where the other person is coming from, what their motivation is for what they’re saying or doing helps. Either they’re doing it by accident, which means I have no reason to get angry (but I will try and make a note to discuss it with them at a later stage, to avoid a repeat) or they’re doing it deliberately, to get a reaction out of me, in which case there’s no way I’m going to give them what they want (yeah, I can be stubborn at times).
Generally, fear is at the root of anger. When yo start feeling angry, try and understand what you’re afraid of.
Of all the emotions, giving yourself over to anger is probably the most outwardly destructive, the one with the greatest potential to screw up your life, your relationships, your job, and your self esteem.
Make it worth at least attempting to exercise a bit of control over it, right?
[Image by liber]
Letting Go #3: Fear
What have YOU got to be afraid of?
Me, I feel pretty secure – at least compared to my distant ancestors. The odds of me being eaten by a lion, or attacked and killed by the neighbouring tribe are (despite what the media would have you believe), almost vanishingly slim.
Feeling of fear are like feelings of pain, discomfort, hunger or tiredness. They should be acknowledged, and conciously evaluated. You have the best computer in the world between your ears, there’s no reason to be controlled by the most primitive parts of it.
Initially, pain is your body’s warning system. It’s your body’s way of telling your brain “This feels like it might start doing damage soon!”, and your brain wants to react to that, to stop the pain before whatever is happening becomes damage. Similarly, fear is your mind warning you that something has potential to go wrong, that something might be happening that could cause unpleasantness, something you want to avoid.
Fear can also lead you to make bad decisions. Fear of someone’s reactions leads us to lie, or conceal the truth. Fear of failure can prevent us from starting. Fear of falling might stop us from climbing.
That’s not to say you should ignore your fears – as I said above, consciously evaluate what’s causing them, and use your brain to decide your reaction to that circumstance. Use the fear, let it help you notice things, but don’t let it control you.
You’re smarter than that, right?
[image by la7mad]
CommentsLetting Go #2 Relationships
Like possessions, there are relationships that are worth keeping in your life, and those that aren’t.
Over the last few years, I’ve been making an effort to remove the more negative people from my life. First, and foremost amongst them, was me – and I was the hardest person to remove.
Now, obviously, short of some sort of foolishly drastic and terminal type action, I couldn’t remove myself from my own life. I could, however, work on changing my attitudes. Get rid of the cynicism, the negative self worth, the excessive sarcasm. Make an effort every day, to make myself a bit more up beat and positive about things.
Once I got rid of the worst aspects of my own personality, I could start removing some of those people from my life who were more negative.
For me, this broke down to two types of people.
The first are those who have attitudes that are, well, poisonous (you know, like I used to be). The negative, the nit-pickers, the needlessly nasty. The sarcastic and cynical. When you’re trying to bring yourself up, folk like that just aren’t helpful – apart from helping you back into your old habits.
The second are people who cause you to be negative. There are a few things that push certain buttons of mine, and cause me to get irritated – the chronically late people, who turn up an hour after they agreed to, the “world owes me” people, who don’t see why they should have to pay for anything – various personality traits that rub me the wrong way.
Of course, ending your relationship with these people doesn’t have to be a big dramatic scene, you can simply discontinue them. You can (and should!) still be perfectly pleasant when you bump into them, still be friendly, be interested in what they’re up to. What you shouldn’t be, is involved. Not any more.
Once I got myself out of ongoing relationships with people who cause me to be negative, my life became a lot more positive in general.. Funny how that works!
CommentsLetting Go #1: Possessions
Let go of that which you no longer need. It serves only to clog up your life, your mental space, and your ability to build the life you want for yourself.
Post one of an ongoing series.
Possessions - Not stuff you need, or even stuff that’s active in your life that you want to keep. However, getting things you no longer want or need out of your life allows you more mental space, more freedom (and a much less cluttered home). Personally, I’ve long been a hoarder, and that’s something that I think I finally have under control. For a long time, things have represented success to me, a “he who dies with the most toys wins” type attitude. I’d hold on to things that “might be useful” some day. Before I changed country, I had something like 7 years of old computer components (some of them even worked) stashed away… “just in case”. Old hard drives (most under 1 gig in size), serial and parallel cables (neither of which I’ve used for the last 6 or more years). It was a ridiculous amount of crap. Getting it out of my life was arguably one of the best things I’ve done.
Some things, you just can’t get rid of – even if you don’t need them in your life right now. Getting them out of your house, out of your daily existence (I’ve got a bit of stuff in long term storage) is a good half-measure – it’s literally a case of “out of sight, out of mind”.
The idea of a spring cleaning is a positive one. Once (or more) a year, spend half a day reviewing everything in your life. For every item, ask yourself “Will I need this in the next 6 months?”. You’ll be surprised how often the answer is “No”, and you can move it out of your day to day life, and into storage.
The next step is to actually put these things into storage. Label your boxes, with a list of items and the date you put them away (so you can find things if it does turn out you need them).
Possessions to more than fill up your living space, they fill your mind. They own you as much as you own them.
Personally, I don’t like being owned.
In a time of recesssion, who experiences a boom?
Just a little bit of thinking out loud here, following on from a recent post.
So we’re coming into what most experts are calling a global recession.
But that doesn’t mean that it will impact equally on everyone.
Certain industries, I’m sure, will prosper in the coming years. The question is, how can we position ourselves to take best advantage of this?
Off the top of my head, there are a few industries that will experience boom times.
Education: Many people will take advantage of redundancy payouts or increased free time to upskill. I’d expect educational institutions to see some growth, but as individuals, this may a bandwagon we can get on by creating educational electronic products.
Entertainment (on a budget): Why take the family to the movies when you can rent or buy a DVD and watch it at home, and make your own popcorn, buying your soda from the supermarket? Similarly, buying books will lose out to buying second hand, or borrowing from a library.
Employment Assisters: CV editors/writers, cover letter writers. Anything that helps make people more employable, that’s probably a service you can sell. However, out of work people won’t have a lot of spare funds, so you have to be able to do it cheaply.
Optimisers: A business that helps people be more efficient at something, that returns more value than it costs. The hard thing is proving that value before being given the opportunity to provide it.
Discounters: This is really the low hanging fruit, and it’s a no-win scenario in the long run. However, if you’re starting out in a new field, then your discounts make you more attractive. Of course, you’re also probably competing with people who have more experience, and they’re discounting as well, so you need to find something to differentiate yourself.
While it’s a truism that a rising tide lifts all boats, I don’t think that the same applies when the tide is on the way out – some boats will stay a little higher than others. The challenge is in finding a way to ensure that you stay well afloat.
The way to stay afloat is to add provable value. To help people out with some things for free, while knowing that then, you’ll be the go-to-guy for things that need your personal touch.
In my dayjob, I’m about as recession-proof as I can expect to be. I work in IT, I’m quite senior, and the most broadly capable person here (in terms of both breadth and depth of experience). While I wouldn’t like to try and run these systems without the support of my team, I could conceivably do so – now all I have to do to keep my base income flowing is try to make sure the company stays afloat.
Of course, as we all know, I want more than a dayjob, that’s what I want to be living without right now. So the challenge, for me, is applying my skill-sets to recession-proof ventures.
CommentsThe Way To Be Followed Alone
A good friend pointed me towards The Dokkōdō, a work written by Miyamoto Musashi at the very end of his life.
Musashi has been in my mind, and in my life (as much as a really old, dead guy can be), off and on, since I was about 14, when I first read his “Book of Five Rings“, arguably one of the two most significant writing on martial arts and combat to come out of asia (the other being Sun Tzu’s Art Of War).
Despite my longstanding awareness of Musashi, I hadn’t encountered The Dokkōdō before being sent the link, so reading it the first time hit me really hard. Given when it was written (1645 or so), it doesn’t relate 100% to modern life, but a lot of it trends very strongly along the Way that I’m trying to walk these days. I’ve read it a few dozen times since then, and every time I gain from it.
In this post, I’m taking the liberty of expanding on Musashi’s points, details how I see them potentially impacting on a modern life that embraces them. This has probably been the post that’s taken me the longest to write – every one of these little lines strikes deep chords with me, and requires much thought. I’m not entirely sure I’m communicating what goes through my mind from each of these points, but I’m trying.
Musashi was very much a creature of extremes – he lived in a world of pure black and white. His way of life was complete and he committed himself to it absolutely, he lived it absolutely, and deliberately sought to avoid everything which didn’t add positive value to his Way. This isn’t the way I’ve chosen to live my life, and I imagine that’s true for most of us. Nevertheless, there are lessons here, and they don’t require much deep through to start applying them to your life.
1. Accept everything just the way it is.
I’ve heard this paraphrased in a number of ways, but the one that’s stuck with me is “Don’t fight with the weather”. You can’t change what you can’t change, so accept it. Of course, you need to carefully consider what you can and can’t change, and accurately decide which is which. It would be all too easy for this to be a recipe for giving up.
2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.
Now, I’m obviously a bit more of a hedonist than Musashi was, but I get where he’s coming from here. Pleasure, in and of itself isn’t a bad thing to seek, but in very small doses. However, it’s appropriate to seek it in moderation, and only when it doesn’t come at too high a cost. For Muasahi, his Way of life was absolute, and any deviation was to be avoided.
3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.
Feel fully. Know fully. Once you are complete in your knowledge or your feelings, than act accordingly, with full commitment of heart, body and soul. No half measures.
4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
Consider yourself as a part of the world, and act accordingly. Act as you would prefer that everyone else act. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Don’t inflict your desires upon others, but instead, share yourself with them to their benefit.
5. Be detached from desire your whole life long.
Do not seek worldy things too deeply. Now, I’m not advocating going and living in a cave (although, that’s just what Musashi did), but try and minimise your desires. If you covet less, you’re happier with what you have. Instead of seeking to possess something you have not, seek to be something you are not (yet).
6. Do not regret what you have done.
A regret is nothing but a grudge you hold against yourself, and I’ve written about bearing grudges here before. If you make a mistake, you should try to correct it, make every effort to learn from it, but beating yourself up about it serves no purpose. Regrets are an anchor, dragging you back into your past.
7. Never be jealous.
Jealousy is another form of covetousness. Put it aside, be who you would be, act in the way that you would act.
8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.
Part of Musashi’s detachment from society in order to pursue his perfection of his art also meant that he spent a lot of time away from friends and family. He regarded this as simply a part of the cost of his chosen way of life, and as such, not something to be regretted.
9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself or others.
Both resentment and complaint look to the past, not the future. The past cannot be changed by your actions in the now – only in the future can you have an impact.
10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.
Let’s assume that Musashi is talking about in his professional life here – but bear in mind the name of this – The Way To be Followed Alone. To a great extent, Musashi had no personal life. Personaly, that’s a far larger sacrifice than I’m prepared to make, but it’s the one he made.
11. In all things have no preferences.
Make intelligent decisions, but don’t be hamstrung by them. In the Book of Five Rings, Musashi talks about the fighting schools that prefer longer swords, or heavier swords, and considers these to be a deviation from the true way. A sword is a sword is a tool – learn to use it, and use it in all its forms. If the manner in which you work depends on a sword that is longer than usual, then you are limited to only using long swords if you wish to be effective.
12. Be indifferent to where you live.
Much like the preceding, but looking outwards to the broader world. The where part of where you live should be less important than what the locale can provide to you ,in terms of furthering your chosen career path.
13. Do not pursue the taste of good food.
My waistline is proof enough of this – but more than that, Musashi is restating the second point, above.
14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.
This is so true, and very much forms the basis of this site. Getting rid of old possessions has freed my mind more than I ever imagined possible, opening up worlds of opportunities to me.
15. Do not act following customary beliefs.
Challenge the mainstream. Don’t do what everyone else does just because it’s the thing that everyone does. Do what you know to be right.
16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.
OK, so collecting weapons isn’t particularly relevant for most of us. However, bear in mind that Musashi was a swordsman, weapons were the tools of his ‘trade’. If you replace the word “weapons” with “your tools”, this precept becomes far more relevant to the modern world. Personally, I’d love a huge collection of camera gear. I enjoy the technology space, I’d love to collect cameras, both old and new. To a certain extent, I could justify it, but would it make me a better photographer, or cause me to be able to create better images? I’ve already lived through the process of doing this with computer equipment, and I don’t intend to do it again. So, I’ll gather the tools I need, the tools that will assist me in being a better craftsman.
17. Do not fear death.
For a warrior, death equates to failure – to fail in battle was to die, to fail in your duties opened the possibility of your life becoming forfeit for your failure, so the ideas of failure and death were almost synonymous for Musashi. Fear of failure is what prevents many of us from starting something, prevents us from giving our all, trying our hardest, just in case it’s not good enough. So, do not fear to fail – fearing failure can prevent you from committing fully to take action – thus, failure is almost inevitable.
18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.
Kinda disagree here, but that’s probably more a reflection of the time in which I live.
19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.
Not being in the least bit religious, I’d prefer to paraphrase this: “Be self reliant in all things, depending on no outside agency for assistance. Yet respect the beliefs of others, knowing that they do you no harm”
20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.
To thine own self, be true.
21. Never stray from the Way.
Be mindful of the path you’ve chosen to walk. Actively walk it, day in, day out. Be self-correcting on your path.
Even re-reading what I’ve written, so many thoughts spin off in other directions. I’d love to hear what you have to say about this – either the original piece, or my commentary/expansions.
CommentsActively seek out good luck
If you think about it, we’re all lucky already. We’re living in relative comfort, with an abundance of fresh and healthy food, clean drinking water (so much of it, we even bathe in it), comfortable shelter. We don’t really have too much of a concern about being shot, starving, swept away in a flood, or abducted by pirates. Hell, we’ve even got internet access!
Life is pretty good, at least when compared to that a lot of people have.
So, how do we become even more lucky?
Simply believe that you are. Fake it until you make it. If you’re a lucky person, then you’re well situated to take advantage of potentially advantageous situations that come up around you. You’ll take the little risk required to get there. Focus on the fact that you are lucky, and you’ll be lucky. Good luck is finding $0.50 on the ground – but you don’t capitalise on that luck unless you make the effort to end over and pick it up.
Good luck happens all the time. The trick is noticing it, focussing your attention on it, actively seeking it out. Put yourself in situations where you’re going to be lucky (if you want to be lucky enough to win the lottery, at least buy a ticket…. and check the numbers!). Attempt things you can be lucky at. Enter competitions, you might just win (someone has to). Make the most of a bad traffic day by driving a different way, and take the chance of finding something new to do, somewhere else to have lunch (it might just turn out to be a lucky find).
Luck isn’t about what happens to you – it’s about how you react to what happens.
You’re so lucky already. The question is, do you act like it?
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