A friend of mine plays golf. She started as a mature-age player (in her fifties) and now plays at state-level tournaments. She spends five to six hours each day practicing and wouldn’t let any social, family, or work event stand in the way of her practice.
We get frustrated and annoyed with her when she pulls out of events, but she doesn’t care. She has made her choice. Golf is her priority, and nothing can come in the way.
I envy her resolve. For me choosing between things has always been a struggle. I am very bad at making choices and end up having more than I need. Living in the times where life is more like a buffet rather than À la carte. I want to taste everything.
We have been brought up with the notion that we can have it all. Like a pampered single child, we demand and expect everything from life. The mere thought of missing out on something, however trivial, feels unfair, cruel, and punishing.
Yet not so long ago, sacrifice was a noble way of living. People lived with less and expected less. A “sacrificial mindset” brought more satisfaction than “having it all.” Having less causes fewer problems. Affluence leads to dissatisfaction. Choices don’t necessarily make us chose better. Instead, they make it more challenging to decide.
When my children were young, they wanted to get into all extracurricular activities their friends were doing. Working full-time, I knew I couldn’t chauffeur them after work and have a meal on the table at night. So I made a deal with them. They can choose two activities at a time. When they have decided, they will have to stick with it, for at least two terms, even if they didn’t like it. After six months, they could swap. The discipline worked like magic.
I have applied the same rule to myself. Chose only two things at a given time and stick with them for at least 100 days. Stick with something for a while, and two things can happen - either you get it out of your system and know for sure you don’t want it, or you start enjoying it.
The other way of making choices is to decide what pain do you want in your life. Everything we pursue brings some pain. Relationships do, work does, and so do our passions. Even the harmless hobbies too. Of course, all of them provide joy, which is why we pursue them, but we also pay the price for them.
So rather than making choices based on joy it will bring, what about if you choose what pain you are willingly going to accept. So when you fall in love, you are accepting the pain of vulnerability, rejection, betrayal, and hatred that comes with it.
What are you willing to struggle for? The bad thing is our lives are full of struggles. The good thing is we can choose our struggles. By choosing what we are willing to struggle with, we can decide which direction we want to take our lives.
Oliver Burkeman noticed a recurring theme in much of the best productivity advice, the kind that seems to make life more meaningful, as well as more productive: it’s that you should think about your work, and life-projects in general, in terms of concrete physical actions and artifacts in the material world.
David Allen, the productivity master, makes the point in Getting Things Done: points to a good to-do list consists of physical actions. Things you can do with your limbs. (So not “get the car fixed,” which is a multi-step project, but “call Jim the mechanic,” which is the next action you can actually take.)
In a recent episode of his podcast, Cal Newport makes the excellent suggestion (also explored in his book Deep Work) to set targets for focused work in tangible products. If you aim to spend the morning planning a given project, aim to produce, say, a two-page strategic plan which you can print out and hold in your hands. Then print it out, and hold it in your hands.
Speaking of deep work, the term popularized by author Cal Newport who said it’s, “Activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limits,” Tim Denning came up with another term in one of articles - the productivity trifecta, which he claims leads to best work in your life.
It is:
Deep work
Flow states
Stream of consciousness work
The productivity trifecta translates to this insight - deep work utilizes a stream of consciousness approach to working, started by a flow state. You allow your thoughts to lead to actions without hindering them.
Deep work can be learning a new skill, a creative activity like painting, writing, preparing an in-depth proposal, or even making music. It is the form of work you look back on and are proud you achieved.
Deep work is hard work and Tim postulates that you can’t do deep work for more than four hours a day.
I’ve found I can do deep work on things I like for hours. Primarily because of two hidden forces - interest and curiosity. When you’re genuinely interested in a topic and curiosity wants you to go deeper into it, deep work becomes the easier and meditative.
This week I published my first short story. The Flight.
Here is the link to this week’s artilces.
Five rules to overcome self-doubt
Can Acceptance of Death Make Us Live Better
What I Learned About Being Vulnerable Online This Week
Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral
Enjoy!
That’s it from me this week.
Take care.
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Beautiful and thought provoking message this week Neera. I particularly like these two chapters
So rather than making choices based on joy it will bring, what about if you choose what pain you are willingly going to accept. So when you fall in love, you are accepting the pain of vulnerability, rejection, betrayal, and hatred that comes with it.
What are you willing to struggle for? The bad thing is our lives are full of struggles. The good thing is we can choose our struggles. By choosing what we are willing to struggle with, we can decide which direction we want to take our lives.
Thanks for sharing