Beautiful day. Nothing to fear.
Finding inner peace through simplicity, technology, perspective, and other means.
The amount of drama in your life is inversely proportional to your ability to handle that drama.
React poorly to it, and it will follow you everywhere.
Deal with it, and it will eventually subside.
Refuse to acknowledge it, and it will never find you in the first place.
If you enjoyed or benefitted from this article, please consider sharing it with the button below! Also, you should follow me on Twitter.
I like to start the week off with as clean a slate as possible. Mondays are tough, but a little preparation and perspective makes it a lot easier to get off to a good start.
For me, the Clean Slate Monday Theory consists of two components:
Both of these need to be completed in advance to ensure a smooth start to the week. Allow me to explain.
This is a matter of taking care of all the unfinished tasks that have accumulated over the course of the past week. For example, by the time Sunday rolls around, my living quarters are usually in disarray. My desk is cluttered, my bed is a mess, I should probably clean, and there’s a good chance I still haven’t put away my laundry.
Walking into this mess Monday morning is detrimental. We don’t realize it, but these little tasks weigh on us. A small part of your brain has to spend energy reminding you, “Oh, I still need to do this. Oh, I still need to do that…” The longer you have to remember to do something, the more mentally taxing that task becomes, which stresses us out.
I usually dedicate an hour to all these miscellaneous things on Sunday night. Clean the desk. Vacuum. Put the laundry away. Throw some new sheets on the bed. This helps me wake up Monday morning feeling calm because — quite literally — my slate is clean. It’s a much better feeling than waking up in the middle of a disaster area. “Happy Monday! Look at all this crap you still haven’t done.” That’s no good. The last thing I want is to have old stuff nagging at my attention at the start of a new week. Make it a fresh start.
Tying up loose ends also enables you to successfully execute step two, which is to make a plan of attack. Starting the week with a clean slate is great, but not having a plan makes it easy to squander all that potential for productivity. Sometimes, figuring out what needs to get done is more difficult than actually accomplishing it.
Thus, make a plan in advance. What do I need to do tomorrow, and when? What’s the week look like as a whole? Write it down. You can get as granular as you like with your to-do list, as long as it makes good use of the clean slate created by tying up the previous week’s loose ends.
Everybody hates Mondays, except for Shawn Blanc:
Mondays are my favorite day of the week for the same reason the morning is my favorite time of the day. The morning is when my mind is most clear — there is not yet the accumulation of “mental clutter” from the activities and worries of the day and the whole day looks like a blank canvas.
Shawn’s definitely got it right. Why is Monday so terrible, but New Year’s is so great? With the former, it’s “Ugh, another whole week of work.” Well, then on New Year’s it should be “Ugh, another whole year of work!”
The difference is that we see the new year as an opportunity for a fresh start, not as “back to the grind”. We should try to treat Monday the same way. Why not? Making an entire year bigger and better than all previous years is a lot of work, but making the next seven days as productive and enjoyable as possible? Much more manageable.
Mondays can be a source of stress if met unprepared. However, a clean slate — literally and mentally — can help start the week on a calm and productive note.
If you enjoyed or benefitted from this article, please consider sharing it with the button below! Also, you should follow me on Twitter.
I teach karate, for those of you who don’t know.
The chief instructors work out for two hours Monday and Wednesday, followed by a meeting that can last up to an hour. While I’m not a chief instructor, I was invited to these workouts, and subsequently have been participating for some time.
While I consider it a great privilege to attend these workouts, they put a significant strain on my Monday and Wednesday schedules. I get up at 9am, drive twenty-five minutes to Windsor, do the workout and meeting, and get home around 1:30. I need to be at my studio by 3pm to get ready for the day’s classes, which last until 9pm. That means I have a 90-minute window with which to take care of my entire non-karate life. Between showering, eating lunch, and posting something here, — not to mention my thesis — these twelve-hour days are pretty hectic.
Now, this schedule was counteracted by the fact that I didn’t teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which meant I’d have twelve-hour Mondays and Wednesdays, interspersed with leisurely Tuesdays and Thursdays. It sounds doable, but over time, the weight of Monday and Wednesday drove me to the point where I couldn’t find the motivation to do much of anything on my off days. All I wanted to do was rest.
This continued for many months, until, during a conversation about my thesis, my instructor reminded me that my attending the workouts and meetings was completely optional. If I wanted to spend a morning getting a chunk of writing done, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I was conflicted, because I value the workouts themselves, but I could feel myself getting burnt out with my current schedule. One day, I decided to take the morning off to work on my thesis. That was probably three weeks ago, and I haven’t been up to Windsor since.
Cutting out those Monday/Wednesday workouts has had a profoundly positive impact on my mood and attitude. Here’s why:
I save gas. It may not seem like much, but twenty highway miles each way twice a week burns a decent amount of fuel. It’s only a few miles to the studio where I teach, so without the Windsor trips, my gas tank lasts exponentially longer. I don’t get paid to attend the workouts or meetings, so I also save a bit of money on gas.
I save time. Understandably, sometimes the workout is intense and worth the trip, and sometimes we’re off our game and it’s pretty unproductive. Including travel, workout, and meeting, I might use up to four hours of my day, hours that might be used more effectively elsewhere. That ninety-minute window gives me only enough time to get a handful of things done. With the morning free, I get much more done and go into work feeling accomplished, rather than frazzled.
I save stress. To be blunt, meetings usually put me in a bad mood, depending on the dynamic. In this case, even though the meetings are tailored for the chief instructors and not me specifically, I still felt obligated to participate and share the criticism when it came to discussing business areas we needed to improve. Long story short, I rarely felt energized or motivated after meetings, and more likely would feel pressured and stressed out. No longer.
I save energy. Two hours is a long workout, and teaching four classes afterward — which itself is respectable exercise — is pretty demanding. I like to work out hard, so being exhausted when teaching my own students decreased the quality of their classes. I’d have low energy, be more impatient, and more likely to get annoyed with a snarky eleven-year-old. Now, I’m working out in other ways, which leave me invigorated instead of exhausted. Instead of showing up at work fried, I can have a productive morning writing or getting things done, which leaves more energy for teaching stronger and more enjoyable classes.
I save sanity. The result of all this is that my mood is tremendously improved. I’m not exhausted from overtraining. I’m not stressed because I feel like I got nothing done. I’m not depressed about spending my entire day off being tired instead of productive. I’m not cranky when I teach my students. I come to work after a productive morning excited to teach class. Overall, I’m much better equipped to deal with life that day.
My point is this: sometimes you don’t realize the effect something has on you — for better or worse — until it’s not there anymore. It could be a meeting, a commute, or some other time-suck. It could be an object on your desk, or a pile of paperwork. It could be a relationship.
I didn’t fully understand how negatively my trips to Windsor were affecting me until I eliminated them. Only then did I realize how much better I felt. Sometimes the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.
Now, there are some things — most things — you can’t control. You can’t just stop doing your job, no matter how stressed out it makes you. (Although, you could quit.) But, it’s important that we remain aware of and examine the things we can control and change them when necessary.
If your commute involves a two-mile stretch of lights and stop-and-go traffic, then find a different way to get to work. I’ll always take a scenic, enjoyable route over a direct, but infuriating, one.
Have you been using a broken umbrella for months because you’re too lazy to buy a new one? BUY a new umbrella! You’re soaking wet all the time.
Are you sick and tired of tripping over the office garbage can every time you get up from your desk? Then MOVE the garbage can!
It sounds silly and obvious, but sometimes we become so acclimated to these annoyances, we don’t even notice them anymore. We just feel their effects. We don’t realize how little effort it would take to improve our lives in some small way. And usually it’s the little things that make a big difference.
If you enjoyed or benefitted from this article, please consider sharing it with the button below! Also, you should follow me on Twitter.
Note: This is a long post. However, I think it's worth your time because it will help you decide whether you should stay or leave and never come back. You can't lose.
The other day, I had dinner with my mom, and we got to talking about my website. (This one.) She loves me, as moms do, so she was interested in what I had been up to, how the site was going, and what it all sort of... meant. So, I talked my way through my vision for the site, what I'm trying to do, who it's for, and several other questions that felt good to answer out loud.
During this conversation, it occurred to me that I haven't really provided you, dear reader, with an in-depth explanation of what's actually going on here. I wrote a post called What Is Inner Peace?, which sheds a little light on things, but I treat the site as an organic endeavor. It might not mean the same thing in three years as it does now. The focus will most likely grow and change as I do.
I'm pretty proud of what the site has become in its first seven months. It feels like a real thing now. The first six months saw me testing the waters. Would I like blogging every day? Is this worth my time? Can I actually do this? I'm thrilled to answer "yes" to all of the above. It's been a challenge, but I want and am trying to kick things into high gear around here. I'm writing more stuff, pushing the site more than I used to, and starting to introduce myself to other writers, all of whom I admire and respect a great deal. It's slow, but steady, and also really exciting.
2012 is barely a month old, but QLE is already occupying much of my time and attention. I'm writing more than I ever have before — probably even more than I did in college — and it's all stuff I want to write and share with people. The site is taking up more space in my brain. Thinking about QLE is starting to become a habit. I'm thinking of what I want to write next, and even when I'm doing other things, I can feel it in the back of my head somewhere. It feels really good. The site is still young, but I'm beginning to get the sense that I can do this. It's been seven months; why stop now? As long as you don't give up, you can do anything, right? So they say.
I think I'm also starting to look outward a bit more. I'm starting to think about my readers: what you might want to read, and what might help you get through your day. I'm getting a better idea of what I want QLE to mean and do for people — at least, in its current incarnation. When someone visits the site for the first time, they're going to see an article on who knows what, so I want to take a few minute to really dig into what I want this site to be. And what better question to start with than:
Quarter-Life Enlightenment is the answer to the quarter-life crisis.
What's a "quarter-life crisis"?
A quarter-life crisis is just like a midlife crisis, except it happens in your twenties instead of on your fiftieth birthday. Upon turning fifty, some people — and I mean this is the most compassionate possible way — freak out a little bit. When you turn fifty, your life is probably at least half over! When you realize this, you start second guessing your entire life.
What have I accomplished so far? What do I have to show for myself? There are still so many things I want to do. I'm running out of time. Who am I?! AHHHHH!
To put it bluntly, the ultimate source of the mid-life crisis is (the fear of) death. We realize we've already used up half of our allotted time on Earth, and that's terrifying. No doubt about it.
Now, if you're paying close attention, you may be asking, "But twenty-somethings don't really think about death like that, so how is a quarter-life crisis 'just like a mid-life crisis?'" A fine question befitting an attractive reader like yourself.
The quarter-life crisis is not caused by a fear of death so much as it is driven by a fear of adulthood and The Real World (not the reality television show).
In my experience, the quarter-life crisis tends to come crashing down right after graduating from college. College, of course, is often — and accurately — described as "the best years of your life". Whomever said that about high school should get checked out.
When the blissful bubble of college bursts (two English degrees at work right there), we find ourselves on the doorstep of cold, hard reality facing real world pressures. And there are a lot of them.
"What do you want to do?"
"When are you going to get a job?"
"When are you going to get your own place?"
"When are you going to start paying off the thousands and thousands of dollars you spent on a degree (or two) that so far has only rendered you unemployed and in egregious debt?"
"When are you going to meet the love of your life?"
"When are you going to hurry up and be the adult the world expects you to be?"
The only thing worse than being bombarded with huge life questions is being unable to answer them. And what's more, now you start asking yourself questions:
What have I accomplished so far? A degree like everyone else. What do I have to show for myself? Thousands of dollars in debt. There are so many things I want to do, but I don't know how to do them or where to start. What am I going to do for the rest of my life? Who the hell am I?! AHHHH!
It's rough. Your friends aren't down the hall anymore. Your responsibilities don't fit in a backpack. The job market is as terrifying as everyone said it would be. It's a drastic departure from the best years of your life.
Now, I'm not trying to paint an inescapably bleak picture here. Plenty of people (I'm told) get great jobs right after college and go on to lead perfectly normal existences. But even these twenty-somethings are not without fears and doubts about their future. And, there's an even bigger issue.
What if you're not content with normal?
What if you don't want to work in a cubicle, or wear a tie, or do the same damn thing in the same damn building for eight hours every single day?
What if you want to find fulfillment elsewhere?
What if you want to be exceptional and lead a life befitting your awesomeness?
Well, then I applaud you, sir or madam. You've probably made things even more challenging for yourself, but I applaud you all the same.
We stick together!
No, but seriously. I'm not in a position to help you become an entrepreneur, or travel the globe, or invent something better than Facebook (it's called Twitter, AMIRIGHT) because frankly, I need just as much help as you do. That's why I've repeatedly said that my writing here is advice to myself just as much as it is advise to you. I do not claim to be an expert in your happiness. I am merely here to share what works for me in the hopes that maybe it will work for you too, and vice-versa. We think, we learn, and we work through it.
"Finding inner peace through simplicity, technology, and other means."
Right. Inner peace is the solution to any crisis. Mine happens to be of the quarter-life variety. To quote my own personal definition of inner peace:
It’s the goal. The ideal state of being. It’s what everyone wants. Inner peace means being perfectly content, mentally, physically, emotionally. You have no fears. No worries. You have no wants, needs, or desires. No stress. No anxiety. No troubles. No fear. You just are. It can perhaps be considered an enlightened state.
I write about how I achieve inner peace so that you can too.
The ways I reach a state of inner peace are numerous and varied:
I could write another thousand words about each of those things, but it's late, and you probably have things to do.
It's a way of beating the quarter-life crisis through inner peace and self-discovery. It's about introspection, figuring out who you are, and learning how to deal with life through trial and error. It's about being mindful. It's about making sure you know the answers to those questions on your fiftieth birthday. It's about tweaking your brain so that life isn't so damn stressful and hard all the time. It's about having a healthy outlook on life during good times and crappy times. It's about this quote:
You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy.
Quarter-Life Enlightenment is about being who you really are.
If you want to beat the quarter-life crisis; if you want to beat any crisis; if you want to have inner peace; if you want to be calmer, more productive, and happier; if you want to learn how to not be miserable all the time; if you just want some company; I invite you to read Quarter-Life Enlightenment. I would love to have you.
Most certainly not. That's the perspective I'm writing from, of course, but anyone who deals with stress and worry is more than welcome to read QLE. That is, any and all members of the human race.
I do not know.
No, it's whatever you want it to be. Here's a quick dictionary definition of "enlightened": "having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook". Sounds good to me.
Awesome! Ping me on Twitter, or send an email to inbox@andrewmarvin.net.
I am so sorry. Yes, absolutely. Get in touch with me, and we'll sort things out.
That's a story best told in person, but the short version is: I gave a presentation at Southern Connecticut State University about simplicity, and people really seemed to like it. I have two English degrees, and I love to write, so I thought I'd start writing about things I care about and that also seem to help other people.
Yes; it would be a genuine honor. I'll be working out more details about this sort of thing later in the year, so in the meantime, get in touch.
I'd start with the About page. If that doesn't completely stultify you, feel free to send me an email.
I can't promise anything. Sorry to lose you as a reader. Also, shame on you.
That's not a question, but alright.
I can't imagine, no.
My sincerest thanks.
Randy Murray’s simple productivity tip of the day is to collect your thoughts:
Try this: sit down, take a deep breath, and write out everything on your mind. If it’s something to do, fine, you can transfer that to its proper place later. Now keep going. Write down everything you’ve been thinking about this day. Be honest. Don’t censor yourself. Write it ALL out, everything you’ve been thinking about at this moment, in this day.
An empty mind is a peaceful mind.
The problem with holidays is that they always end.
I don’t know about you, but as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I start looking forward to Christmas. Each December day brings more houses decorated with Christmas lights, more gift ideas, and more excitement for the big day: December 25.
All that excitement culminates on Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day arrives at last! Presents are opened, pictures are taken, food is eaten, and everything is merry and wonderful. We go to bed feeling thankful, smiling and basking in the holiday spirit. Then, we wake up…
…and it’s December 26. Hooray.
Let’s not lie to ourselves: compared to the day before, December 26 is pretty dull. Especially when it falls on a Monday (ahem, way to go, 2011). Christmas is over. 364 shopping days left. Sigh.
I always feel a little bummed when a day I’ve been looking forward to comes to an end. There’s a feeling that the magic is over. Now it’s just another regular day. Back to reality.
I’m not here to make the case that Christmas should be a year-round event. But there’s no reason why the joy associated with Christmas isn’t something we should be able to experience all the time.
Attaching our happiness to a transitory event like Christmas is a recipe for disappointment. The fact that Christmas will come and go is inevitable, and depending on it to give us joy makes our disappointment inevitable as well. Such is the case with any anticipated event: vacations, birthdays, holidays, etc.
As I was thinking about this issue, a friend of mine tweeted about something called Gradual Christmas. When I asked her about it, she explained:
I’ve just been doing Christmas-y things for the past few days and plan to keep doing so into the weekend.
And I thought, “Well there’s the solution!” While Christmas does bring joy, who says it’s only allowed to last for one day? Who says it’s only allowed to last for one month? Why can’t we wish someone a nice day with the same enthusiasm as when we say, “Merry Christmas!”?
Being excited for the holidays is great fun, but we should not rely on them to make us feel good. Rather, we must look within ourselves to find our own sources of happiness that last no matter what day of the year it is. That way, we free ourselves from depending on temporary external events to make us happy. Those days, joyous as they may be, are fleeting. Eventually, it will always be December 26. When that day comes, we don’t want to find ourselves with low spirits.
The turn of the calendar is beyond our control, but our ability to treat every day as a special one is not. The love we feel on Christmas is something we should emanate year-round. In doing so, we’ll be able to experience bliss that lasts not just for one day, but for 365.
Leo Babauta has a big post on quashing the self-improvement urge.
I don’t love it.
So what’s the problem? You could say it’s great that people are constantly trying to improve themselves, but where does it end? When is anyone ever content with who they are? We are taught that we are not good enough yet, that we must improve, and so … we always feel a little inadequate.
I do say it’s great that people are constantly trying to improve themselves. It’s what I’m doing, and I think it’s what most self-aware people are doing. But, while I do strive to get better, I also feel proud of who I am at the same time. That varies from day to day, but overall I’m a self-confident person. I wasn’t always, but luckily my parents dragged me to a karate class when I was nine, and I was able to develop a sense of self-worth. I found a drive within myself to get better, but it didn’t come from being told “You suck!” all the time; it came from a desire to be awesome. So while I suppose I did feel “inadequate”, it inspired me to grow into a better, stronger person. Why would I want to be content with being a shy little dork? (Part of me remains a shy little dork, of course.)
We are never adequate, never perfect, never self-confident, never good enough, never comfortable with ourselves, never satisfied, never there, never content.
While I’m sure some people feel that way, I think it’s a sweeping generalization. There’s a big difference between wanting to get better and thinking you’re a worthless human being with nothing to offer anyone. I hope the latter are a minority.
And it becomes the reason we buy self-help products, fitness products, gadgets to make us cooler, nicer clothes, nicer cars and homes, nicer bags and boots, plastic surgery and drugs, courses and classes and coaches and retreats. It will never stop, because we will never be good enough.
I agree that much consumerism is driven by a feeling of lack, and that many people attach their self-worth to their possessions. It’s a tenet of eastern philosophy, and that line of thinking is obviously incorrect.
I think there are two levels to this “self-improvement is bad” argument:
I agree with number one. Advertising that suggests, “You need to eat this! You need to wear this! You need to buy this!” scares people into spending money. It’s like when the news tells us to stock up on bottled water, canned food, and generators because there’s snow in the forecast. “Self-help” as an industry is in fact probably unhealthy. Everyone has issues, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to buy XYZ product. That’s just about the money.
I disagree with number two. If self-improvement consumes your existence, then yeah, that’s bad. But it’s not difficult to see how people can aspire to be better without becoming debilitated in the process.
We must improve. We must read every self-improvement book. When we read a blog, we must try that method, because it will make us better. When we read someone else’s account of his achievements, his goal system, his entrepreneurial lifestyle, her yoga routine, her journaling method, her reading list, we must try it. We will always read what others are doing, in case it will help us get better. We will always try what others are doing, try every diet and every system, because it helped them get better, so maybe it will help us too.
I suppose that would be the case for an individual incapable of thinking for themselves — and perhaps that’s the majority of the population — but not everyone looking for self-improvement lives that way. The way to self-improvement lies in introspection. But that’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t learn from others.
New information must be considered before being implemented. We must evaluate new information before deciding if it’s applicable to us.
Would that be horrible, if we were just content and didn’t need to better ourselves every minute of every week? Would we be lazy slobs, or would we instead be happy, and in being happy do things that make us happy rather than make us better?
But doesn’t getting better make people happy? Again, there’s a difference between wanting to get better and being obsessed with your own inadequacy. Too much of any thing isn’t good for you. If the quest for self-improvement causes you to neglect other aspects of your life, then yes, it’s probably time to reevaluate. But self-improvement is not inherently bad, so long as it’s done in moderation, like anything else.
Think of how [being content] might simplify your life. Think of how many self-improvement books you read, or listen to in the car. Think of how many products you buy to make yourself better. Think of how many things you read online, in the hopes of being better. Think of how many things you do because you feel inadequate. Think of how much time this would free up, how much mental energy.
Yes, it would help many people who are consumed by their feelings of inadequacy. While books and audio tapes may contain valuable information, looking for magic bullets in them is futile.
Realize that you are already perfect. You are there. You can breathe a sigh of relief.
Striving to get better is not the same as striving for perfection. If you were perfect, you’d never make a mistake, and that’s unhealthy.
You are not perfect. But you’re probably awesome anyway.
Quash the urge to improve, to be better. It only makes you feel inadequate.
But a feeling of inadequacy often inspires us to get better, to learn new things, and to grow. You can’t grow if you think you’ve nothing left to learn. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get better as long as it’s not hurting you or someone else.
Ultimately, I see what Leo is saying, but to suggest that all self-improvement is bad doesn’t make sense. Striving for contentment is itself a form of self-improvement. Growing is what life is about.
I can think of nothing more valuable than having an unconditional love for yourself. That love should be for your strengths and your weaknesses. You should be happy with who you are while recognizing your flaws, and yes, striving to improve them. These flaws do not render you a broken or worthless human being. On the contrary, they are as much a part of who you are as your best qualities.
I agree that people shouldn’t beat themselves up over their inadequacies. Don’t feel bad about not being perfect; no one is, and you’re awesome. But still try to be the best person you can be. Why wouldn’t you?
I say love yourself right now, and get better all the time; it’ll only give you more reasons to love yourself.
And then explore the world of contentment. It’s a place of wonderment.
Well, that’s true.
I talk about inner peace a lot on this website. It’s in the tagline, after all. The concept seems self-explanatory, but I thought I’d take the time to detail what my definition of inner peace is, because understanding it will help us achieve it.
My college philosophy professor first introduced me to the concept of inner peace years ago. He called it “perfect peace”. It’s the goal. The ideal state of being. It’s what everyone wants. Inner peace means being perfectly content, mentally, physically, emotionally. You have no fears. No worries. You have no wants, needs, or desires. No stress. No anxiety. No troubles. No fear. You just are. It can perhaps be considered an enlightened state.
Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But the unfortunate truth is that perfect peace is very difficult to attain — or more accurately, very difficult to maintain. If there is even the slightest splinter in your mind, you are not experiencing true inner peace. The slightest concern — even if it’s just a thought — can sneak its way inside your mind and disrupt your contentment.
Think of it in terms of percentages. True perfect peace is 100%. Every day, that number fluctuates up and down in correlation with our thoughts and emotions. Bad things cause it to go down, while good things cause it to go up. The thing is, even if you get up to 99%, all it takes is a single thought to disrupt your inner peace. Sometimes you may actually get up to 100% for a moment or two before you think of something — something you need to do, something you’re anxious about, something you fear — that makes your number drop. Even worse, that thought often pops into your head without warning and takes root there, growing until it becomes the central focus in your mind and causing your peace percentage to plummet. Because of this, perfect peace is very difficult to maintain for long periods of time.
My objective, therefore, is to learn how to first achieve inner peace, and then maintain it for as long as possible. This is a constant and never-ending process. Having 100% perfect peace all the time is a sign of true enlightenment, so the best we mortals can do is practice as frequently as possible. Much of this practice involves being mindful. We must be self-aware enough to recognize when we feel a moment of perfect peace, and then reflect on what led to that moment.
Inner peace is achieved through innumerable sources. QLE focuses particularly on simplicity, technology, and perspective, among others. That’s what this website is about: finding inner peace through different means. The more columns that support our inner peace, the more frequently we can achieve that blissful state.
Of course, what gives me inner peace may not work for you, and vice-versa. But as I’ve said before, my goal is to document my experience with inner peace in the hopes that you may find my successes and failures useful in your own search. Plus, it’s nice to have company.
There’s this thing called the Sunday Night Blues, which is loosely defined as “a bad mood caused by Monday’s imminence”. The weekend magic is over, and a new workweek is only a few hours’ sleep away. Back to reality. Back to the grind. Case of the Mondays. Clichés abound.
It’s a total drag, but lately my Sunday Night Blues has been replaced with a profound sense of inner peace. A feeling of contentment, and maybe even excitement. This hasn’t exactly been a conscious decision, so I took the long way home to try and figure out what causes my Sunday night mood to vary so drastically.
On this particular Sunday, the answer was confidence.
A lack of confidence often causes Imperfect peace. When we don’t feel confident about something, we fear it. Public speaking. Math tests. Competition. When we do feel confident, much of that fear subsides.
Confidence begets inner peace.
It seems to me that there are three areas in which we must feel confident if we are to avoid the Sunday Night Blues:
The crux of all this, of course, is that the only difference between having or avoiding the Sunday Night Blues is our perspective. The past, future, and present are the same either way. They cannot be altered. What can be altered is the mind: how you think of and perceive your past, future, and present self.
Invariably, this peace is fleeting. I often go to bed feeling content only to wake up miserable at the sound of my alarm clock. But the pursuit of inner peace is a constant, never ending process. The slightest interruption threatens to take it away from us, and so we must work to maintain it.
Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about what inner peace is, why it’s so hard to attain, and how we can experience it more often.
I bought a white legal pad from Office Depot the other day, and it’s taken up residence next to my MacBook Pro, along with a black Pilot G-2 0.38mm gel ink pen.
Despite being used to the 0.7mm, I switched to the 0.38 upon Shawn Blanc’s recommendation, thinking the finer point might help my atrocious handwriting. It doesn’t. But I like it, and while I’m not sure if it’s better than the 0.7, I think the finer point gives me slightly better control. The 0.38 has a scratchier feel to it, which is foreign, yet satisfying. Time will tell which prevails.
I bought the legal pad because I’ve been having the urge to write things down while I’m at my computer: to-dos, thoughts, ideas, outlines, etc. I try to use my iPhone and iPad to take notes and capture things because it cuts down on clutter, but sometimes it feels better to scrawl something on paper. So now I have a legal pad here on my right. I like it.
The scratch space has already proven itself to be very practical, particularly since I’ve started using it to plan out my day. I was getting depressed because I started falling into the habit of completely wasting my days off. My Mondays, for example, are twelve-hour affairs, but my Tuesdays are mostly free. Amidst the nonstop Monday action, I always found myself wishing I had time to do this and that. I’d tell myself, “Oh, I can do that tomorrow.” But when tomorrow showed up, I usually had no idea where to start or what to do first, so I ended up getting distracted by something. Suddenly it’s dinnertime, and I’ve gotten nothing accomplished. Not good for morale.
So I started planning out my day the night before, like so. It works. Instead of wondering what I should be doing with myself when I wake up, it’s right there in front of me. The list inspires me to action. At the end of the day, I can see what I accomplished. And it’s damn satisfying to cross things off with my shiny new Pilot G-2 0.38mm.
We’ll see how the scratch space evolves, but I plan on covering every inch of the page with ink before throwing the sheet out. There’s a kind of romanticism to filling a page with your brain’s miscellanea. I can write down anything I want, no matter how trivial or earth-shattering. Getting things out of your head and onto paper is good. It keeps your brain from getting overwhelmed and you from having a breakdown. That’s worth adding a third item to my desk.
Video: An out-of-character Stephen Colbert interviews astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Here’s Tyson around the 24 minute mark:
Atoms and molecules in your body are traceable to the crucibles in the centers of stars that manufactured these elements over its lifespan, went unstable on death, exploding its enriched guts across the galaxy, scattering it into gas clouds that would ultimately collapse and make a star and have the right ingredients to make planets and people. Which means we are a part of this universe… not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us.
[…]
We knew that we are star stuff. We knew that we are star dust at the middle of the 20th century. That connects us to the universe like no other fact. That’s beautiful.
Tyler Tervooren, writing for The Art of Manliness, asks what man hasn’t squandered a life-changing event?
Without a doubt, a truly life-changing event can take a man’s dreams and make them a reality in rather short order. The problem, of course, is that you get no control over these things. You have no say in when an event like this will come, so instead, you wait impatiently for one to arrive, all the while praying that it never actually occurs.
But in the meantime while we wait for these life-changing events, we’re squandering many smaller ones every day.
Definitely warrants multiple readings.
I don’t love November.
Traditionally, it’s a busy month for me, one laden with stress and anxiety. 2011’s version is proving to be no different.
This year’s November started off with a freak Halloween snowstorm, which left us without power for five days and nineteen hours. Let me tell you, no suburban plight brings you closer to moral collapse than sitting in the dark for six days with nothing but your thoughts, particularly when those thoughts center on the fact that you broke up with your girlfriend a week before your one-year anniversary. That sucks no matter who you are.
November also happens to be NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I’ve completed NaNoWriMo twice, but this year I find myself languishing with little time, energy, or motivation to produce anything other than emotional brain vomit: a nonsensical stream-of-consciousness rant largely concerning the aforementioned romance issue. At this point, I’m many thousands of words behind schedule, and there’s a good chance it’s not going to get done, which disappoints me. I’m not one to half-ass something.
I also haven’t felt like much of a writer lately regarding this website, which has resulted in increased link posting and far fewer long-form articles than I’d like. This is my fourth month writing QLE, so I guess a little slump is inevitable once the initial novelty wears off, but it still disappoints me that the site isn’t operating at a level I’m happy with.
November is also the month of our annual tournament in Old Sturbridge, Massachusetts, which attracts over 500 competitors every year. I’ve never loved competing. It stresses out my shy and introverted side, and my heart rate increases just thinking about it. I’m much more used to competing now than when I was younger, and I have to do it to set a good example for the students, but it remains a source of dread nevertheless.
And of course, underlying these issues are the usual drags: student loans are looming, the days are growing shorter and colder, and my thesis has taken a back seat to the above grievances.
However.
Times like these are when our perspective becomes most important. We may not be able to control the things that happen to us, or the obligations we have to go through, but we can control how our mind deals with them. Making it through to the other side comes down to two things: focusing on the positive, and reframing the negative so it doesn’t seem so bad.
For every stressor, annoyance, and bummer November throws at me, there are many, if not more, things to be thankful for and happy about. It is the month of Thanksgiving, after all.
For example, I love my Kindle. Thanks to this little $79 guy (and said power outage), I was able to rip through all 656 pages of the Steve Jobs biography in about two weeks. Finishing a big book like that was tremendously satisfying and gave me a feeling of accomplishment I haven’t had in a long time. I’ve now moved on to Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, and I’m really enjoying it. The Kindle makes me want to find time to read. I do, and that feels fantastic.
I also love my yoga class. My dad had been going to our local yoga center for a while, so to get my mind off things, I decided to stop in and try it out. I had taken a men’s yoga class while working on my master’s degree and loved it, but it only lasted eight weeks. I tried doing P90X’s yoga video once a week at home, but at ninety minutes, Tony Horton quickly fell out of favor with me. Taking a class is so much more satisfying and rewarding. Yoga people tend to be very warm, calm, and inviting, so meeting them is a pleasure. You get to sweat like hell and forget about everything else bouncing around in your head for a while. Plus, the strength and flexibility training has been an invaluable asset to my martial arts ability. I’m going three times a week now, and I absolutely love it. Having something to look forward to on your schedule is always great for lifting your spirits.
As a nerd, I’m psyched that Apple finally released iTunes Match, which enables you to upload your entire music collection iCloud and access it on all of your devices. It took more than 24 hours for iTunes to match and/or upload my 13,000 song library, but now all of my music is only a tap away wherever I go. I don’t have to haul my dinosauric iPod Classic around anymore or deal with picking only 32GB worth of music for my iPhone. That makes my life easier and simpler, so of course I’m all about it.
My friend Rich has also been teaching me how to play chess. I’m terrible, but I still find the game very enjoyable, and it’s a good brain workout. A new hobby is a great distraction from what ails you.
Despite all these new sources of joy, the negative things can still find a way to overwhelm and get you down. The only way to overcome these pains in the ass is to reframe the way your mind thinks about them. I could stress out about not finishing my NaNoWriMo novel this month, or I could simply tell myself that it’s just for fun anyway. Whether I write 50,000 words or 5,000, that’s still more than I would have written otherwise. Something that’s supposed to be a fun creative endeavor shouldn’t stress me out.
As much as I can already feel the nervousness and anxiety of this weekend’s tournament, I can just as easily envision the feeling of relief when it’s all over. It’s just one day. One day of nerves and excitement, and it will inevitably come to an end. Those feelings aren’t going to last forever. When I wake up Saturday morning, every minute that goes by brings me closer to the end of the day, when I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and relax, win or lose. It’s going to be a big day, but when it’s over I can enjoy a long drive home listening to my favorite music, and then it’s smooth sailing to the holidays.
As for the breakup, I can’t have any regrets about my performance or the person I was for the past year. When you look at the big picture, it was really, really great. My expectations were a little mismanaged, but what can you do other than remember that for next time? If something doesn’t work out, something else will.
Sometimes there’s so much going on in our heads that it can be impossible to think straight, and that’s when we get overwhelmed. As I’ve said here before, there’s only a finite amount of space between our ears; keeping everything locked up and bouncing around in there is a recipe for a mental breakdown. That’s where the brain dump comes in: writing down every single thing on your mind in one huge list. Every phone call you have to make, assignment you have to do, errand you have to run, person you have to talk to, thought you need to capture, anything and everything. Once it’s down on paper, you can stop worrying about it. You don’t have to think about it, and you won’t forget it because it’s written down. It’s out of your head. Emptying your brain frees and calms your mind, which makes it much easier to breathe.
I still don’t love November, but emptying my mind out here helps me put things in perspective. The good things will last forever; the bad feelings are temporary. November is just a bump in a very long road, and it’s only a matter of time before December 1.
Leo Babauta talks about the many reasons we rely upon our clutter:
A book isn’t just an object with words on it. A jewelry box isn’t just a container. Clothes aren’t just protection from the elements.
Each of these inanimate objects means so much more to us.
We put our emotions into them. We rely upon these objects to fulfill needs in us.
They are our crutches.
Minimalism/Buddhism/attachment/fear 101.
Dave Caolo has a new sacred time rule:
It sure is a different time. When I was a kid, my father came home from work at 5:30 and that was that. No more work until the next morning. Today, the opportunity to “log on” and “check just one more thing” is ever present, and we must make a concerted effort to punch out and stop. Even if it’s just for four hours. Stop.
Speaking of busy:
Courtney Carver, writing for Zen Habits, on the silliness of busyness:
If you are anything like me, you are busy because you want to be or because you don’t know how to be un-busy. You are busy out of misdirected guilt because you think if you do enough, you will be enough. When you decide that it is ok to live life your way, you can stop being busy and start doing things that matter. You can talk about your meaningful day instead of ranting about your busy schedule. Decide today that you are enough, even if you never do anything, accomplish anything or produce anything ever again. You are enough.
Seth Godin on worrying:
Worrying is not a useful output. Worrying doesn’t change outcomes. Worrying ruins your day. Worrying distracts you from the work at hand. You may have fooled yourself into thinking that it’s useful or unavoidable, but it’s not. Now you’ve got one more thing to worry about.
Crucial. Focus on what you can control.
Mike Tyson reveals a tech secret to making yourself happier: take lots of photos.
As far as the types of pictures you should take? Anything. It doesn’t have to be artistic or taken with any grand purpose. But you should use photography as a way to simply document even the most slightly unique things you see in your world whether they’re visual curiosities, a funny moment, you eating somewhere new, the arrangement of clouds in the sky… anything. And what you’ll find when you start sorting through your photographs, you actually will have an opportunity to recount all of these minor fleeting moments which you may would otherwise have forgotten.
I fully endorse this advice. Any camera will do.
Ever since I got my iPhone 3G a few years ago, I’ve been snapping photos whenever the urge strikes. The quality of the iPhone 4’s camera has turned picture-taking into an easy and enjoyable hobby, and the iPhone 4S’s camera is even better. People often say, “The best device is the one you have with you”, and that’s certainly true for cameras. My iPhone 4 is always in my pocket, so I can capture a quality photo whenever and wherever I want.
But rather than make this another OMG-the-iPhone-is-so-great post, I want to emphasize Mike’s point about documenting your life. That’s exactly the way I treat the camera roll on my iPhone: it’s like one big photo album of my life. I have pictures dating back to right after I graduated college, and I have pictures of the pork and mushrooms I ate for dinner tonight. Calm down; just one. I like food photography.
The point is, I can flick through these photos and remember exactly what I was thinking or feeling when I took them, and that makes me happy. Like Mike says, these are moments I probably would have forgotten. Instead, I’ve documented in pictures the past three years of my life. The 1,814 pictures I have on my iPhone are really 1,814 memories I can revisit whenever I please.
Note: This post is equal parts facetious and serious.
I was eating food with a friend earlier this evening, and three quarters of a quesadilla into the meal, we concluded that relationships are a lot like smartphones.
I know. Hear me out.
Most people (read: non-nerds) are uneducated about the smartphone market. They’ve heard of the iPhone, but they don’t know anything about operating systems, RAM, or megapixels. As such, when they go into the phone store, they’re vulnerable to this: “Here. This is an Android phone. It’s pretty much the same thing as the iPhone, but it has a bigger touchscreen. And it’s only [a cheaper price than the iPhone].”
But, as most iPhone owners know, it’s not pretty much the same thing as an iPhone.
This scenario comes down to one thing: not knowing any better.
Sure, there are some solid Android phones out there. Maybe they only have a few annoyances. Maybe the scrolling isn’t perfectly smooth, or an app crashes here or there, or the email application is kind of a pain. But it’s totally useable. It’s good enough.
Most people are like Android phones. There are a ton of them out there.
Similarly, there are over six billion people on the planet. That means it’s impossible to know everybody. Since the human brain can only manage a finite amount of relationships at one time, making sure each one counts is essential. Each relationship should contribute something positive and amazing to your life.
Those people, who you love and keep closest to you, are like iPhones. These relationships don’t cause you stress or anxiety. They’re loyal and reliable, and they provide nothing but love and support. They are awesome.
Now, the iPhone only has 5% of the mobile phone market. That figure is analogous to the amount of awesome people on Earth. Most people are not awesome. I mean, they’re fine. They’re good enough. But, you’re not going to gain much from having relationships with them. And that’s OK. You can’t know everybody.
This is going to sound dumb, but listen, because this article isn’t about cellphones.
Making the switch from an Android phone to an iPhone is like meeting your future wife/husband after years of tried-and-failed relationships. When you meet that person, you realize how much better they are than anything you’ve ever had before. All that fighting and compromising and struggling fades away with a tremendous sigh of relief. A feeling of “Finally! This is how it should be.” A feeling of “Why didn’t I find you sooner?” A feeling of “This just feels right.” The relationship just works.
Up until that point, we often settle because we don’t know for certain that someone better is out there. We’re comfortable with what we have now, and even though it’s not perfect, we fight for it because it’s all we know. We’re afraid that maybe this is the best we can do.
We don’t know any better.
I’m assuming that you, being a reader of this site, are like an iPhone: awesome. The problem with being awesome, though, is that we’re outnumbered. There are way more dumb people out there than awesome people. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the tradeoff for not being average.
Dumb people are a dime-a-dozen. You can walk down the street and bump into fifty dumb people. That’s why that guy (“THAT guy?!”) is happy and you’re still single. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just easy for one dumb person to find another dumb person. It takes a lot more effort and luck for two awesome people to meet because there are fewer of us out there. It takes longer for us to find one another.
Again, this is not about cellphones or which one is better. If you think the iPhone is stupid, that’s fine. Just replace “iPhone” with something else you love.
The lesson here is simple: “Keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Using your phone does not have to be a pain in the ass, and you don’t have to bend over backwards to make a relationship work. Don’t waste your time and energy fighting for something that’s flawed just because it’s familiar.
You can find something better if you have the confidence and the courage to look for it. There is someone out there who is as awesome as you are. Finding them requires patience, and it takes having faith in the fact that it’s only a matter of time.
Hello. I’m Andrew Marvin. This is my website.
The Flowdown is a thrice-semesterly podcast featuring conversations with Three Rivers students, faculty, and staff.
Listen to and follow the show for free in your favorite podcast app: