When was the last time you felt truly happy or content? And I mean not to just "smile" or 'have fun' but to truly feel it in my bones and core. It feels to me like it's a mental state I have not quite felt as such as I've done in the last few minutes. And I think it's not that I'm angry, but rather that i'm not entirely willing to accept some situations outside of my control and that causes a slight perspective change. It's barely perceptible but it's definitely there. It feels to me like tasting something you've never tasted: If you've never had it you can't really imagine how it feels or tastes. But once you do it, it's taste becomes apparent and it becomes part of your memory so you learn to associate it to other things, and if it tasted good you also want to repeat the experience. This feels like that. In some way, it feels like a very different form of happiness to any I normally experience and yet, it feels like it should feel?!
Sasha Chapin talks about having more positive days by doing meditation and just having more mindful states in life. For a while I've had the same hypothesis but haven't focused on testing it. Focusing on solving the problems like I'm doing now also helps! Being aware of my own body and sensations and emotions and how they present in the body is certainly something I still need to improve on!
I feel much more positive and stable even now that I'm writing about this. I think I just require a mental shift, constantly, to try to be more relaxed and happy and stable about the environment and the life around me and in my own inner life. I feel like most of the time I'm kind of avoiding my inner thoughts in certain aspects and don't pay enoguh attention to the 'feeling well' state and instead I just charge through it and try to focus on doing what I have to do. But I can't supress the feelings or not take care of my emotions or myself. I want to feel happier and enjoy life with a more optimistic lens. And it just takes small shifts in emotional state. I'm gonna continue doing it and report back on this blog.
I've also been doing some readings that have made me reflect on things.
On intentionality:
Would you spend two hours on Twitter in a way that doesn’t make you happy if you knew that meant repeating those two hours one million times? It’s also a tool to feel the comparative relief of behaving in a way that you can stand behind, if only when examined by an audience of yourself.
This is clearly Nietszchean in nature, but it's clearly an useful mental model. It reminds me of Marcus Aurelius "only have thoughts you would feel morally correct to tell" (i'm paraphrasing here).
To look out for when solving problems:
Often, I'm waiting for the biggest jackpot of all: the spontaneous remission of all my problems without any effort required on my part. Someone suggests a way out of my predicament and I go, “Hmm, I dunno, do you have any solutions that involve me doing everything 100% exactly like I'm doing it right now, and getting better outcomes?”
I don't to end up in situations where i don't do what's clearly required to make a change happen because i'm looking for a magical jackpot that will solve the entire problem with the least amount of effort. The best problems tend to be hard to solve and there's really no way around it.
Definitely admit this to yourself:
The try harder fallacy has a cousin called the infinite effort illusion, which is the idea that you have this secret unused stock of effort that you can deploy in the future to get yourself unstuck. This never works because there is no Strategic Effort Reserve. All of my effort is currently accounted for somewhere. If I want to spend more of it on something, I have to spend less of it on something else. If I’m consistently not getting something done, it’s probably because I don’t want to—at least, not enough to cannibalize that time from something else—and I haven’t admitted that to myself yet.
I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Considering time is a very limited thing we humans have, we can't make the most optimal choices when it comes to using it. Yet we should try. And feel fine when we don't. (idk, my thoughts are still forming on this issue.) Like, to do something you have to do less of something. But to decide what to leave you have to commit to what matters to you and to your values. Right now for example, my main priorities are:
- Exploring startup ideas
- Increasing my physical strength and VO2 max.
- Reading and writing more
And anything outside of that should be deprioritized. I shouldn't feel bad about it, but rather try to keep these priorities in mind.