Date Posted: July 16th, 2010
The Weekly Check-in is where I let you all know where I am on the path. “The Hard” is stuff I struggled with this week. It’s complaining except hopefully not as annoying. “The Good” is what went well this week. “The Learning” is what I realized this week. Learning could be related to The Hard or The Good but it might not be. The format is similar to the one FluentSelf’s Havi uses in her Friday Chickens.
The Hard
Exercise Please?
I didn’t bike to work on Wednesday or Thursday, and felt gross because of it. Brain fuzzy, can’t think straight, gross.
Nique needs to exercise consistently. Sewiously.
Not Enough Time
I want more time. I want energy to use said time. I don’t want to give up things I love doing. Can’t I have my cake and eat it too?
The Promise Breaking
I promised myself I’d get up with the kitty and either read (if the weather was nice) or use the exercise bike (if the weather was crummy). This didn’t happen. If the weather is nice I still bike to work, but getting up with the cat is hard. Especially when Rorschach decides that 4AM is a good time to start caterwauling. Rawr.
Maybe I need to face the fact that 8 hours of sleep is what I need. Getting up at 7 isn’t so bad…
Maybe I need to find some other time to exercise. Or something.
Also didn’t do as much writing as I would have liked to. (And I did want to do writing.)
Guilt Guilt Guilt
Not keeping promises to myself brings on the guilt.
Unfortunately while guilt will get me to sit on the bike or open the journal, it won’t make me want to exercise or want to write. Bleh.
The Good
Books!
Finished World Without End. Started Voluntary Simplicity. WWE was very good. I’m kinda sad it’s over. Voluntary Simplicity is looking like it’s going to be good too.
Finishing books is definitely a good thing. It makes me feel like I can accomplish something.
Meetings can be useful
I run a weekly progress meeting for one of my projects at work. Normally when I hear about meetings it’s about how long they are and how they take away from actual productive time. These meetings are different.
For one thing these meetings are short. This last one was 15 minutes? Maybe?
For another stuff gets done in the 10 – 20 minutes before the meeting. On both sides. No one likes to hear that they’re part isn’t done.
Happiness.
Crêpes at the Farmer’s Market
On Wednesday Aaron and I went to the Farmer’s Market on our way to work, and in one of the stalls was a crêpe stand. 
Very unexpected. Very tasty. I would have them again, though not every week.
It was nice to do something spontaneous and not feel guilty about it afterward.
Improving at Recorder
On Wednesday evenings I’ve been spending some time honing my music skills. Recorder has been my primary instrument for about 4 years now, so unsurprisingly I’ve been using some of that time to focus on it.
I’m happy to say that improvement is being made. I’m able to play more of the notes the recorder is capable of and I’ve discovered that the alto is better suited for many pieces I have until now usually played on the soprano.
I’m really glad I decided to block out one evening a week for practice.
The Learning
I feel terrible if I don’t exercise
*Writes note to self.*
Breathing is Good
Yep.
My Self-Worth is tied up in silly things
Like how productive I am and how well I keep promises to myself.
I need to remind myself that me not keeping promises to myself doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It means something’s misaligned.
I need to remind myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Tags:
Character-Development, Leadership, Mastery, Physical Health, Self-Discipline.
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Date Posted: April 2nd, 2010
If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else. ~ Dave Ramsey
Life is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy the Journey. ~ Anonymous
Sacrifice now; Enjoy later.
Life’s too short to not enjoy every moment.
These ideas are puzzling. How can you enjoy the journey if you’re in the sacrificing phase? Isn’t the first quote all about focusing on the destination? Is it possible to live both ideas simultaneously? Are they mutually exclusive paths?
To the last question, I think the answer is no, they aren’t mutually exclusive. The contradiction only occurs on the extreme ends of each idea.
If you’re sacrificing to the point where your life no longer has any joy, you by definition aren’t enjoying the journey. If you’re focusing so intently on the future goal that you’ve lost sight of where you are right now, you’re seeing life as a destination, not a journey.
If you over focus on the journey and have no goals, you’ll be happy–maybe–but you won’t amount to much. And if you over focus on the present moment you may develop a tendency toward reckless behavior: spending beyond your means, jumping impulsively into and out of relationships, living dangerously. It’s all about now, right?
Neither idea in the extreme is good. Ideally you want both. You want to enjoy the journey to achieving great things. You want to live in the moment AND look forward to the future. Let’s look at some examples of how to do that.
Example: Getting Out of Debt
The sacrifice here is money. If you want to get out of debt you have to spend less than you earn. You have to give up buying stuff. You have to sacrifice.
You could do this the hard way by focusing on the end goal of no more debt, trim everything away, have no life, no friends, no joy. Your life is all about getting rid of debt. If you manage to keep this up, yes, you’ll get out of debt, but it’ll be at a cost higher than the money you paid to the credit card company. You’ll probably have accumulated quite a bit of resentment for the months (years?) you spend over-sacrificing. With resentment you run the risk of overspending again because “you deserve to have fun now”. You could also go the other extreme and become a scrooge-like miser. You have no friends and no fun, but you’ve got money…
You could also do this the better way by learning to enjoy being frugal. Get the most out of every dollar you spend. Fully enjoy a single orange instead of eating 5 while watching TV. Enjoy cutting out the stuff that makes you feel guilty. Eventually you’ll get out of debt, and when you do you won’t have any resentment. The time you spent trimming your spending improved your quality of life. Why would you go back to your wanton ways?
Example: Getting to a Healthy Weight
The sacrifice here is tasty unhealthy food and a sedentary lifestyle. You have to eat healthier. You have to eat less. You have to exercise.
You could do this the hard way by going on an extreme diet. You will lose weight that way if you stick to it. But it’s not sustainable. You might get to your goal weight, but do you really want to live that way? Probably not. Do you want to spend your life doing exercise you don’t enjoy? Probably not. Not surprisingly when most of try such a lifestyle change we usually give up after a few weeks days.
The better way is to pick healthy foods you like. Slowly change your diet. Slowly change your lifestyle. Do the kind of exercise you like to do. Over time you’ll get to where you want to be. You’re still sacrificing. You still have a goal. But it’s not suffering. There’s no resentment.
Example: Starting a Side Business
The sacrifice here is time. Time for friends and family. Time for hobbies. Time for sitting around. It’s really easy to fall into the “focus too much on the destination” trap here.
There are several components to doing this while enjoying the journey.
First, love what you’re doing. If you love your work, you’ll almost automatically enjoy the journey.
Second, remind yourself that it’s temporary and enjoy the imbalance. Imbalance can be fun! Ask anyone who’s gone to a convention.
Third, figure out what’s essential to your life and keep doing those things. For me that’s family and friends, music, and deep thinking. Focus on maximizing the value you get out of the time you put in. As in, skip the chit chat about the weather when talking to your Significant Other. Don’t zone out when playing music. Don’t read feeds while attempting to write a blog post.
So yeah, you can definitely do both if you want to. And when you do try to do both, you get the benefit of sustainability (i.e. you’ll be able to maintain your destination state when you get there) and avoiding resentment. Is it easy? Not usually. Most of the time it’s a lot easier to think of the extreme way to get something done or to not do anything at all. Is it worth the soul searching to try? Absolutely. Don’t we all want to make and keep our goals and enjoy life the whole way? That’s why enjoying sacrifice is on the path less traveled.
Tags:
Career, Money, Physical Health, Self-Discipline.
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