Take Some Time - Your Future Self Will Thank You

Day 5
Awake: 6:36
Left For Work: 7:10
Video: Daniel Goldstein - The battle between your present and future self

Who is our future self? If you think about it, our future self could be constituted as even being one second beyond now, or now, or now.  If this is difficult to imagine or really personify, think of a time you made a decision, and the second you made it, you knew it was the wrong one.  The present self decided, and within one second, the future self regrets it.  This begins to present a problem if and when we stop taking our future selves into consideration.  this could consist of something as small and short term as eating 10 Big Macs on a dare, or as important and long term as not having any retirement savings. 

Goldstein talks about a "commitment device", a psychology term of creating restraints and reward/impediment-based plans to achieve goals.  this is exemplified in the story of Odysseus, wherein Odysseus asks his crew to plug their ears with wax and tie him to the mast, so he could hear the songs of the sirens.  Goldstein says that it is better to develop our own self-control than to create these empediments for our future selves do not do what the present self wants.

i would have to agree with him.  There is no reason to punish the future self for the actions of the self in a different time and place. Not only is it healthier to advance the present self with an affluence of discipline, but, as Noah Levine talks about in his book, "The Heart of the Revolution", when we beat ourselves up for some wrong-doing, we are only exasperating a pre-existent  pain.  In other words, we have caused ourselves pain, and then we feel bad about doing that, and so we feel twice as bad as we should. Rather than doing that, we should - of course, first and foremost, work on our self control, but also - learn to accept out own defeats, and ponder them, learn from them, and pointedly grow from them.  Do not create pain for yourself by punishing deeds, but learn that you will be doing yourself a disservice by repeating such behaviours, and let that be enough to disuade your present self.

Just a Ponderance

Day 4

Awake: 6:10am

Left for Work: Didn't haha...too sick

Video: not going to mention

Today's video, which I'm not going to mention, was not something that I really enjoyed.  The content was interesting, but the speaker was very pretentious, and self-absorbed, and it really showed through in his talk.  I don't really have a lot to say on the matter, as each person perceives these things differently, but i will say that I have no interest in hearing a talk that is meant to be inspiring, but is just self-serving.  So all I have is this:


That about sums it up.  End game.  Goodnight all!

A Series of Very Small Victories

Day 3

Awake: 7:44am

Left for School: 8:31am

What is vulnerability? If you ask this, most people would respond in any or all of the following ways: "weakness, failure, defeat." This is how I felt until this morning.  Brene Brown has devoted her research to a group of people whom she has collectively dubbed, "the whole hearted". As an aspiring human being, that sounds like bliss to me! The interesting thing is, Brene Brown found very unexpected but attainable results.  She speaks of these people being authentic, of being the most courageous, the mose compassionate people of her research.  The difference that she found was their utter surrender to and acceptance of vulnerability. 

Now here's the interesting part where I'm concerned.  Brown says that these people who take risks and put themselves in less than ideal circumstances - situations that scare them - re not absent of fear, but rather acutely aware of it to the point that they gain joy as a result of their risks. 

Great! Because that is how i live my life! I can be whole hearted too! This is true for me in all areas of my life, save one - love. In the last five years, I have taken many risks that scare me, but the one risk that i am continually afraid to take is in the realm of love.  Why? Because putting yourself out there will lead to weakness, failure, and defeat.  This is what i thought.  I told myself that I just didn't want that.  I told myself that was not how I want my life to unfold - settling down, being still, having a constant in my life, but what Brown says is that THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE DO NOT CONSTRAIN THEMSELVES WITH PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS OF WHO THEY WANT TO BE, but are free in who they are.  For years, I confused my shackles with goals, aspirations, and the like, but just the opposite was what mattered.  Where I was finding the most joy in my life was in the areas where I took the most risks.  Numbing the pain will numb the joy as well.  Logically, I've known this for years.  Why could I not practice it?

It took four months and one boy to unravel me.  What a perfect time to see this video.  I feel secure in my emotions.  They are not weak of a sign of failure!  They make me brave! Willingness to be the authentic me in ALL aspects of my life is the ticket to having a whole heart. Is it terrifying to put myself out there right now? T let all you lovely people see my self-perceived inadequacies and imperfections? In a word, absolutely. But I can be brave just this once.  And just once next time.  And one more time, still.  Because what is success, really, if not a series of very small victories?

Realization of Potential

Day 2

Awake: 7:35am

Left for School: 8:33am

Video: Donald Sadoway - The missing link to renewable energy

Have you ever given any thought to the energy crisis? Of course you have.  It's an important issue; one that is all emcompassing.  Everyone is affected whether they see it or not.  Danald Sadoway sees it in great and original ways.  The MIT proffessor, along with one of his students, has created a containable, sustainable energy source - a battery - out of antimony and magnesium, two extremely abundant resourses. 

Now, I don't know a blasted thing about the procurement of energies other than what this guy just told me, so I have to take it all at face value.  That being said, these ideas - his ideas - are very exciting.  These men can create a cell large enough to supply 200 households with power.  Why wouldn't that be great? But what really struck me; the thing I noticed the most, was actually only his sidenote.  He said something to the effect of, "yes, I'm inventing things, but there's more.  As a mentor [(to his student/partner)], I am inventing inventors!"

Of course this is what I would pick out of a fifteen minute conversation about batteries, energy, and heavy metals!  This concept was what captivated me on my walk this morning.  What is this concept? And then it happened! :-o A man riding his bike smiled at me and I thought insantly, "I should ride my bike soon!"  This guy didn't even know that he just shaped a thought in my brain. 

Then, there was the slow, sad man that walked by,

the smiling poodle,

and the bitter a.m. neighbour.

These people's mere presence gave rise to the realization of the potential that lives within each of us as we encounter anyone or anything in a given day.  A transfer of energy takes place, wherther is affects our day or our though process alone.  With this in mind, I set out for the day thinking about the only sustainable energy I can speak at any length about - POSITIVE ENERGY!

Off to a Great Start! Getting What You Want Out of Each Day

Day 1

Awake: 6:12am

Left for Work: 7:03

Video: TEDxTalks - Billy Collins - Everyday moments, caught in time

Creativity is a blossom. You can take its seed when you see it, or you can depend on a windy day for it to blow into your lap.  A burgeoning idea, though, can act as a force for creating your own seeds. People get stuck on the notion of inspiration as a means to achieve creativity, but here's what struck me: if creativity "came" to people, as they say it does, it would not be called creating, but perhaps mediating, for the idea, the inspiration, couldnt really be yours in the first place. Now one could say that in this age, few ideas are really original, or even personal, but the point of the matter remains that if we are to work towards the inspiration with which to create, and find it within ourselves, we are more likely to be authentic.

I have a habit of taking the things that inspire me and running with them - for a day or two, but never longer.  For ages, I tried to daw them out, to drag one tiny idea over a million days. Today, i truly realized that, though this may work for some people, it cannot work for me.  It is up to me to find a new inspiration each and every day, and to float upon that notion as it takes me anywhere I want to go.  NO FORCED IDEAS. NO CONSTRAINTS. JUST THE SIMPLE THOUGHT THAT I AM FREE TO CREATE IN ANY WAY THAT I INSPIRE WITHIN MYSELF.

For myself, I must make my own creativity. It is neccessary that I inspire myself. External encounters may be seeds from time to time, but if I create my own blossoms, soon I will have enough of them to harvest my own seeds.

:)

Each day is a ditch
filled with rocks -
some are smooth;
most
are sharp.

If you step on enough
of the sharp rocks,
isn't it true
that you don't feel
their bites?

Some may say
that's logic.
I say:
that's life.

Many sharp rocks
may give me calloused feet,
but those who step
on a single sharp rock
are likely going to
bleed.