In Progress: Little steps for a long journey

You can call me Joe. 
I'm hoping my own journey so far and going forward can resonate with some of you.
 
I've really covered the bases when it comes to self-actualization, I swear I know every strategy like the back of my hand - but the changes I've cared about most haven't come. The changes that HAVE happened, have been great. Success with women, presentation skills, healthy diet, etc. But one thing that hasn't changed threatens to root me in place like concrete, for good.

There's a cycle, and it begins with getting distracted (riveting I know, just stay with me). I'm now behind on something I was supposed to be working on. I lie and say I've done it - whether this be lying directly or just acting like nothing's the matter.  Can't break the facade, which means I can't be seen working on it later. Rather difficult when I have only so much time alone after work, school and research before I see my girlfriend. Don't break the facade, I can just finish it later and make up an excuse as to why it's late (Let me tell you, I'm quite the architect with these.). In the meantime, I've kept myself busy, but with everything EXCEPT what I was supposed to do. Maybe I game, or do 3d modeling, or the news - whatever it was you better believe I was efficient at it. The time spent on my assignment would have to be explained, if not to someone else than myself - I'd have to face the issue at hand - but even I need to believe the facade. I could finish all the week's work in one night. (I could, I've done it before, but there's no reason in the world to think of that as some dependable occurrence.)

As time drags on toward deadlines I can't even put a pencil to a piece of work, or an important email that I have to send. I give up if I start to fail during a day instead of catching myself and switching gears. I'd rather give in and believe that I can't take corrective action than do something about it.
Part of this is a tendency to get distracted, but there's something else - something I hope is reversible. When I was kid I used to dream. Sure, I was distractable then too (actually more so) but I didn't have any feeling of resistance when it came to my schoolwork. I loved it. Then middle school came, severe bullying, near suicide, difficulty with parents compounding. I was bullied, at least in part, because I asked too many questions. I liked learning too much.
 
I was the "What-If" kid. What-if the coffee maker could do this? What if the landing craft could do this? What if nature could do this? What if (in math) x could do this? I didn't understand why the abuse was happening, so I aimed the blame inwards and nearly committed suicide at 12. I became anxious, judgemental (toward myself and others), and got most of my drive from keeping up a facade rather than letting my curiosity roam free. As you might guess, keeping up a facade based on lack of effort and ease....isn't sustainable. It was for high school, most of Bioengineering Undergrad.

But now, with research, school, work and a girlfriend who just lost her father, the facade can't be sustained. These past couple years, I've tried to use negative thought to force myself to change my actions. The results haven't been good.
 
It's as if I were in a sealed off room, and due to my own breathing I will eventually risk breathing in too high a concentration of CO2. My current strategy would be to hold my breath, to avoid breathing in the CO2 - doesn't work too well, and leaves me with the suffocating emotional feeling I'm all too used to now. 
Instead, I think I need to reach for the oxygen,
and turn on the supply. The oxygen is my..drive. Curiosity, breathing room, whatever you want to call it.

Without that flow of oxygen, I'm left with the 2 options I encounter every day:                                                                                                                                               1. Be paralyzed, suffocate as I stop yourself from taking in any air.                                                                                                                                                                                2. Breathe the air that's available - the distractions, the low-engagement entertainment from gaming to news. My need to consume remains, but I'm unwilling to let myself freely do so, out of recollection of what I went through.
 
My biggest hurdle is commitment. My biggest hurdle in accomplishing that is the emotion that I attach to the smallest tasks and decisions. I know that if I can commit to small changes I can avoid the "molehill into a mountain" dilemma. I also know that I need fuel to get me there, and that negativity and self-shaming will do more to fuel the defensive facade than it would productive actions that in their enactment would acknowledge that facade is based on a lie. The ego will always protect itself.
 
And so there's the loop. My goal is to find my dreams again, and form values that will get me there. When these values are strong enough, my daily actions will more easily represent them and the direction I want to go.  My goal right now is to be responsible - a small one compared to what I used to have, but perhaps what I need now more than ever. If I can accomplish this one half-decently I should get the momentum I need to do more.
Thank you for listening friends, and godspeed. I look forward to knowing you.

Return to the River - Part 1

I look in his eyes,
Wishing to communicate,
What lies 'round final bend.

Not a finish-line,
No exit or river's end,
But instead a Mouth.

I once rounded that bend, and entered that Mouth..

Then the Mouth opened,
And it screamed out an ocean,
This path...
Once narrow, now wide.

I had searched for one,
one perfect path, one answer,
A silver bullet.


Instead there was choice,
more than I could imagine,
there was no answer.

Just destination,
And an ocean of options,
The rest up to me.


*Read "The River", my first post, before this.

The Day I Got It Right

It's just past midnight, and I'm still a little dazed. 

Today was, if anything, full to the brim. Woke up,  did dishes, went to work and got things done, had a nice lunch at a local diner and made some progress in the book "1984. Left work for a meeting on the medical device company, powered through some roadblocks and made some new contacts at the coffee shop, got home 2 hours later and seriously felt like kicking back. But didn't. Went to the gym, crushed the arms, gym closed early - no excuses, finished at home, picked up my girlfriend from Law School, got some Frozen Yogurt to-go so we could run to the pool before it closed, dropped her off, Pwned some noobs in League and cooked some seared salmon. Wrote a daily blog post.

You know what I didn't do? Sit on my ass. You know, when you literally waste hours on end - end up losing sleep while simultaneously having gotten nothing done (impressive, right?). Then you can't sleep because 1) you're stressed, 2) your day feels unfinished and 3) you've thoroughly screwed up your circadian rhythms with your phone screen.

So how the hell did today end up being one of the only days in years that I completely "got it right", and why am I confident this is a trend?

Today I made sure that I was always moving, doing something, pushing myself extra hard if I wanted to quit. I reminded myself that if I was exasperated to do what I could and give the problem time, if I was tired I'd just sleep that much better, if I looked too much like a newbie with a barbell to get stronger and ask questions. If had a full plate, I didn't try to eat it all at once - I tackled a section, let it digest and revisited it later.  I stayed vigilant, keeping an eye out for when I was slipping instead of being frozen in fear, unable to catch myself when a misstep inevitably came.

I lived today like its outcome wasn't important. That instead of an endpoint it was just part of a longer process. The finality, judgement, and entanglement of self-worth with a random day's outcome, gone. I lived today like I wanted to be something, instead of like I was avoiding being something.

Predict, Pivot, Pursue. Invest in yourself in every action. Run toward the uncomfortable, open that door and face what's behind it. You have nothing to lose but regret. 

*Tip of the day: Don't let yourself get overwhelmed. This is when you revert to old habits and become less conscious of the choices you make. If things are too crazy, take a deep breath, prioritize what you want to address and ask yourself honestly, "What can I do?", focusing on reality rather than a perfect world. Then move on. The moment you let yourself be overwhelmed, you cede power to your subconscious, habit-driven mind, which will justify you turning into a potato to reduce the swelling that you've let occur. Be aware, sense when you are close to this edge.

"Never go to bed angry"...with yourself.

If you've ever been married or known people who have, you've probably heard the phrase "Never go to bed angry" thrown around. It's a way to force two people in a relationship to face what's causing conflict and resolve/reduce it before going to bed. Why? Because problems don't go away, no matter how much a couple will continue to avoid the subject. You wake up the next morning, feeling almost hungover from being angry, unable to start the new day clean and unsure if you'll lose ground by letting go of your grudge.

What "Never go to bed angry" does is force communication when both sides would otherwise be too defensive. So if I follow this advice in my relationship with my girlfriend, why don't I follow it in the relationship with myself?

So much time is wasted because we feel defensive, unwilling to give up ground, wanting to blame someone else, finding some bland or destructive way to avoid getting anything done for hours on end. There are a million reasons we get defensive, for me it's fear of failure and perfectionism.

So how do you win this game? How do you get yourself to honestly address what's bothering you? You realize it's just that, a game. The perceived importance of every minute failure is just that, perceived. If you wake up tomorrow aiming to never mess up, guess how that's going to go? You make it through, maybe, 30% of your day smoothly and then BAM! - a problem that you always seem to encounter sucker-punches you. Between your lack of readiness to fail and self-torment from messing up you spend the next 60% of the day being unproductive, projecting and not addressing the issue. Then the last 10% is spent lamenting on the day you've wasted and you end up staying up too late, sabotaging the next day because you can't accept the last. You put all your importance on not failing, so your brain labels the day a failure - one you will always take personally.

But what if....failure wasn't the focus. What if you change the rules of the game? Make the game about awareness. How fast can you catch yourself derailing? If you take a breath before responding or reacting can you even prevent it? In this game, you view failure as something happening externally rather than something you have done. You take responsibility without getting wrapped up in fault. If you can make this a habit it will not only improve your habits, it will remove the emotional baggage that you've attached to so much of day to day life. And maybe, just maybe, not having to carry all that heavy baggage around will leave you with a little more energy to enjoy the things you love and pursue your dreams.

There's no silver bullet. We live moment by moment, in an ever-changing life. The only constant you can control is yourself and how you react to the world around you. Predict, Pivot, Pursue.

P.S. If you haven't heard Mel Robbins' "5 Second Rule" TED Talk, then go watch it right now. It is an incredible tool for prompting immediate action and good habits that fits perfectly with the method in this post.

[Haiku 6/6/2017] - Awaken

Awaken.

My limbs start to move,
as if with life of their own,
dust falls from my bones.

A beat of my heart,
forces my eyelids apart,
life enters me again.

I walk as a man,
who has long since forgotten.
how to move or stand.

But muscles remember,
As if end of December,
The ice melts away.

Inside that chamber,
it was once lonely ember,
now a roaring flame.

It writhes, consuming,
Furious, lashing, fuming,
Free of being tamed.

Now I, free again,
Run without shackles within,
Power fills my veins.

I will steal the stars,
Battle the Leviathan,
My hands hold Gaia's reigns.

The Crow's Nest

"I just want peace." I can't tell you how many times I've said it, imagining some perfect quiet I could meditate to, some absolute stillness only an ethereal could achieve.

Now the wind in my ears is deafening, the water crashing against my face as our boat pierces another wave. As my heart races, my eyes relax, focused, and time seems to pass slowly. It's still loud, but also silent - like when you get pulled under and everything seems muffled by the rippling currents that sweep past you.

In this moment I knew peace, not in a trance but in life. With its taste on my lips and its air in my lungs, the static slipped away like a radio being tuned.

The point of peace was not to hear nothing, but to more clearly hear something.  Tie me to the masts, so that in the siren's voice I do not leap into the water in despair of having been deaf all these years. When I get back to land untie me and let me walk a new man. And let me walk in the sun, instead of running from its shadow. Let me reach for what I love, rather than fear to lose it.

My hair blows in the wind now, making it wild tendrils that dance unruly in the wind. But I somehow rest still in this chaos, a fixed point of gaze. A direction, my direction, and the only adventure that could give me peace.

Christmas socks

There's a joke that I tell from time to time, about how as we get older mundane gifts like socks become very appreciated. In the same way, as we grow up we're picking between different ways we're going to change the world in our heads. But as we become adults and the reality of life, humanity and mortality show us our own frail and damaged reflection, we get to the point where we only wish for one thing" peace. Not even on a scale outside us, just within. How we wish to go back to being ignorant, and happy. We want other basic things as well - clarity away from anxiety, the ability to change. not to take a journey but just a single step. As we come of age we dive from the land into the ocean, and the illusion of our control is shattered before our eyes. Now there is a current, one much stronger than us. This is where I drift now, struggling instead of learning. Learning to yield, to let go. Learning what it's like to release my grip, to shelter the flowers in my hand, not crush them. To extend my hands, not cross my arms. To let the wind come to me, instead of trying to catch it. I want to have clarity, I just want peace. Because I know from that place I can do anything.