So much power

Everything in 2019 is pretty much overclocked. The propellers (yes this is a prop plane) and engines on this aircraft are more engine than we need to get airborn and make our way to Bangkok and Siem Reap. The processors in this phone are far more powerful than I will ever need to get the job done. In fact the processors in my iPad are such overkill, that there isn't even any software made that can stress them out! My motorcycle will go 115 miles per hour (yes I know this for a fact) but the speed limit is 55 most of the time and with all of these items, I only use a fraction of the power that is available to me.

Likewise, my body is capable of far more than I usually demand. I have run marathons and ultra marathons and climb the Rocky Mountains and crossed the USA on my bicycle and still I can do even more. Interestingly enough the area of life that is **most** overclocked in terms of capacity, that I think gets the least mileage out of that potential - is our brains.

Thinking is hard work, really hard work and there is not nearly enough of it going on around us. It doesn't appear like it is actually work (until you try to do it for a living!), because there is no sweat involved, although there certainly is a great deal of effort involved. We all need to use a great deal more of what is available between our ears. There is so much power untapped here.

Temptation Bundling

Temptation bundling 

James Clear speaks eloquently about temptation bundling in his book “Atomic Habits” as the combination of an activity that you want to do with one you need to do.  I can personally vouch for this habit builder activity. It could even be called a structure builder in my opinion.  And if you want to layer it up even more, add a “not that until this” requirement.

What this looked like for me is that what I want to do is read. I am years behind in my reading lists! What I need to do is exercise. Temptation bundling is combining the two - audiobooks are the way to effortlessly do so. Thus I only allow myself to listen to books while exercising. Period. No exceptions!

Layering it up means that I touch no electronics before I temptation bundle every single day. That means no distractions! It’s icing on the cake!! 

This provides the structure of my production each day. It makes certain that I get the valuable things accomplished in order of their contributions to my daily productivity. I discovered years ago that email is only doing someone else’s priority not my own. Social media is less than useless in terms of my productivity and so boxing that “no electronics “ rule into my life is a huge plus. And of course I do need to correspond with email but it is later in the day action which equals its lower value to my daily productivity.

Terminal discontent

I spent some time with friends today. They are so typical of humankind. They are afflicted with discontent. Their particular discontent happens to center around personal relationships, which is one of the primary discontents we all deal with at some point. We want the impossible, and when we inevitably don't get it from the persons we love and are involved with, the result is a nearly terminal discontent. Terminal in the sense of constant, but it also often ends the relationship eventually and so is terminal in that sense as well.

While all forms of discontent are burdened by the weight of expectations, none so much as relationship discontent. Few humans can boast of a relationship that is never strained by the stress of expectations. And we even have expectations about the other person's expectations! We weight that relationship with so many expectations that we actually frequently create problems where none existed in my opinion! Stop! Now!

Mitigating my discontent most often begins with me assessing my expectations and readjusting them to something approaching reasonable. Some will cry "settling" here, but if what is going on in my imagination (i.e. expectations) does not line up with reality, then one of them must give.

"We can’t imagine an alternative to work.”

What????

Hunnicutt stated this in an article about the "religion of work." Benjamin Hunnicutt is a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa and author of Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream. It is astonishing how many articles and blogs are coming down the pipeline these days, touting the demise of retirement, the abolishment of free time, the need to be working in order to be mentally healthy!

I say astonishing because none of these people can imagine an alternative to work!?! Leisure has gotten a bad rap in the 21st century, and personally I think this is completely bogus. I enjoy my work and I enjoy my leisure, and I enjoy them equally! I also am a much nicer human being because they are about equal in my life. As my daughter said to me, "I like this version of you much better than the one where you worked 80 hours a week." Best part of all was the discovery that each hour of "work" is now far more productive, than all those busy hours were before.

But can I imagine an alternative to work?? Oh heck yes!! There are endless books to read, and blogs to write, and places to visit, and food to try, and drinks to sample and fish to catch . . . oh, that sounds like my life already doesn't it?? My friends I already am smelling the roses! So does that make me one of those rare people who leverages his passions and wants and best contributions to the world into a paycheck?? Probably.

If you can't imagine an alternative to work, you need a better imagination. Tim Ferris would probably recommend some psychedelic drugs at this point, and I would likely suggest some international travel to get you moving out of your mental zipcode so that your imagination could vastly improve. We get an extra 30 years now compared to generations of the past, whatever are you gonna do with that gift?? At the moment I am sitting on my balcony among the flowers, purple, pink, white, reds, and the vista is a grand range of snow capped mountains, with a glass of sparkling water and over 2000 articles waiting in my que to be read and dissected and passed along. 

War Stories

War stories

We all have them. Scars too. My dad tells his of growing up poor, fighting and struggling his entire life to scratch out a living. This was his war, and these are his stories. The two guys next to me on this flight, are telling each other actual war stories, and those are their stories to tell. But I find most of these stories the wrong stories. We need to tell ourselves and others, another story.

A story about how we changed the world. About how you made a difference. About how you changed one persons life. And then another. And then another. About how you were continually learning and developing yourself and others. About how you created opportunities and possibilities for others. About how the world is a better place because of your efforts. About how living this kind of life changed you. 

Directions

Directions

It is a typical pattern of life, but sometimes difficult to recognize it for what it is, that you have to go backwards to go forward. This happens to me all the time as I travel for work. I frequently fly two time zones in the wrong direction, in order to catch a flight going in the desired direction. Many times we have to travel North in order to reach the highway that will most efficiently take us South. 

It happens in language acquisition. When you begin to study a new language, you have to set aside a lifetime of skills and accomplishments in order to learn the very basics. Even the dogs understand more than you when you begin! It doesn't matter if you have a doctorate or not, in the new language you are several stages below the animals. It is the only path forward. And it will continue to appear to be going in the wrong direction for a long while. As one language teacher described it to me, you speak wrong! You continue to speak wrong. And less wrong. And then less wrongly. And then less wrong, and finally, more right. You only get there close to the end, and the entire trip felt like you were going the wrong direction.

It happens in finances and investments. I recently purchased some investment properties. I spent the entire first month of ownership going the wrong way (spending money instead of making money) in order to arrest and reverse several directions the property was heading. Yet it was still the shortest route to where I needed and wanted to go. It happens in relationships, our spiritual journeys, and in our careers. 

Don't get frustrated when you have to go the wrong direction to get to the right directions. Where you are going matters. Patience and tenacity achieve remarkable results even when it feels like you are going the wrong direction.