Three Things #10: Mar. 20, 2022
On toothaches (and lack thereof), perfection, and the stories we tell ourselves
This was a rough week, as I ended up in bed sick half the week and all of my plans (including what I planned to write about) changed as a result. This issue is going to be a bit messier than usual…
Thing #1: A Non-toothache is Very Pleasant
“When we’re having a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. Yet when we don’t have a toothache, we’re still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice
I try to start every day with a gratitude exercise. It’s become a pleasant habit and it seems to start the day off right. It’s very, very easy to feel overwhelmed by tasks that need doing, to drown in negativity, and to become anxious as a result (see Thing #3). Channeling gratitude seems to be a partial antidote for this.
I typically find myself expressing gratitude at the same things over and over: my family, my home, my work, my health. As Thich Nhat Hanh suggests in the famous quote above, it’s very easy to notice these things, these day-to-day pleasantries, in the absence but not in the presence. I try to take a moment each day to appreciate my non-toothache.
I felt 100% healthy the first part of the week. Then I suddenly woke up on Wednesday morning with a high fever and spent the next four days in bed. I’m relatively young, healthy, and not particularly at risk for anything (for which I am grateful). But even I am not invincible—which means that, sometimes, I go from 100% health to 10% in a matter of hours. It’s not a pleasant experience, but it’s a useful reminder of my own mortality and, as someone who tends to really push the limits, my limitations.
Find some time every day to appreciate your non-toothache—whatever that means for you. The wonderful people in your life. Your comfortable home, your access to modern medicine and technology, and the fact that you live in a relatively peaceful place and time. It really changes your outlook on life. Rather than feeling like you need to strive to accomplish something, with all the accompanying feelings of insecurity and anxiety, you begin to feel like you’re already in a pretty good place, and things can only get better from here, so we might as well enjoy the ride.
For more: Daily gratitude exercise! :)
Speaking of getting back to normal…
Thing #2: There Is No Steady State
At the beginning of every week I decide the number of miles I want to run that week. It varies based on the season, my overall health and fitness level, the demands of travel, etc., but there’s always an overarching goal in mind. I do manage to achieve my goal of a “perfect 10” week of running, from time to time, but inevitably every time I do I fail to maintain it for more than a couple of weeks. The reason varies. Sometimes I just get too busy to run for so many hours. Sometimes I get sick or just don’t feel up to it, or the weather doesn’t permit it. Most often, travel intervenes.
I was reflecting on this situation recently and I realized there’s a life lesson in it. I tend to think of my running as striving towards some perfect steady state, or end state: there will be peaks and valleys, wins and losses, but over time, gradually, momentum will build and I will one day achieve my peak running potential. I feel subconsciously that this is the case even though I’ve never even stopped to consider what that “peak potential” would consist of, how I’d measure it, or even how I’d recognize it when I got there!
In some sense this is sort of true: over the past few years, I have gradually, over the long run, increased distance and pace, and most importantly how I feel during and after a run. But as I’ve made progress, the goals have also changed, both in response to the running itself as well as to various external factors in my life. There are times when, in relative terms, running is very important to me, one of the most important things I do—so the goals increase. There are other times when, while still important, it’s simply not in the top three or even top five—so the goals decrease.
In my mind my target is some perfect month, year, or other arbitrary period of time. But in reality no such things exists, nor can such a thing ever exist. It’s ephemeral, it’s chimeric, it’s quixotic. Because no achievement is a steady state. After a perfect week of running, the natural question becomes, well, what next? You can’t keep adding hours and miles indefinitely. There is a limit.
And so it is for everything we try to achieve in our lives. No achievement is ever perfect or complete. We intend to but in reality never really reach a point where we can shrug and walk away from some pursuit, totally satisfied, and never think about it again. There is no end of history. No lasting peace. Everything is a series of connected dots and the line they form isn’t straight for long in any direction.
I’m still working on fully integrating this idea and its implications into my life, but I find the idea very reassuring. It allows me to be much more present in the moment of a task, rather than worrying about how it fits into some bigger picture. The reality is the here and now; the rest will take care of itself.
And the greatest irony of all? It’s only by being totally unconcerned with perfection, and thus totally and perfectly in the moment, that true perfection can be achieved.
For more: Reflect on your short, medium, and long-term goals, past and present. How often have you actually accomplished your past goals? How does that make you feel? What are you trying to achieve now, and would it be better served by being less concerned about perfection?
While we’re on the topic of being in the moment…
Thing #3: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
I had a realization the other day. It’s one of those ideas that’s very simple but has profound implications. The stories we tell ourselves about the challenges we face are often bigger than the challenges themselves. By the same token, we construct stories about the tasks we need to accomplish that are much bigger than the tasks themselves. This is such a basic and universal idea that I’m sure every culture and every religion has a parable encapsulating it, but none come to mind and I’m out of time to do research this week.
This happens to me every single day. I start each day with a glance at a massive to do list, knowing I won’t get through even half of the things I want to do, feeling frustrated and daunted even to start work—and the first story, one of inadequacy and lack of time, has already started before the work has even begun. How much better to just pick a task, any task, dive in joyfully, completely, and with abandon, and then celebrate when it’s done, no matter how long it takes!
For me, I think the challenge is one of being hyper-conscientious and wanting to plan and structure every moment and every task. On the face of it, those are good qualities and should map well to productivity, but in practice I find that this “maximization” mindset inevitably leads to disappointment, frustration, and anxiety when I don’t accomplish as much as I wanted, or when things take longer than planned.
There’s something much, much deeper going on here, something (surprise surprise) also related to the lessons of Buddhism, but I’ll save that exploration for a future issue.
For more: Try taking the “random walk” approach to your task list for one day, or one week, rather than constantly trying to optimize everything.