Hey hey!
Three things for today,
a post that was hard to hit publish on. Includes a bit of profanity, so if that’s not your thing, skip this one.
3 quotes, featuring Bruce Lee and Derek Sivers.
when do you rebel? And when do you follow the rules? And the golden rule that has served me rather well.
the villain and the hero
This was a hard post to hit publish on. The first hour after hitting publish, I had the most intense sense of discomfort. The kind that comes up when you know you are intolerant to gluten but just ate 7 parottas. But all over the body.
There’s a reasonable amount of profanity if that kinda stuff bothers you. And self-indulgence or opening up, however, you wanna see it.
I’ve had people check in on me, asking if I am okay, after reading this. (Thank you, and yes, I am.) I’ve had quite a few write back saying it resonated deeply.
An ass for a friend
Most of the time, I am an ass to myself. The amount of criticism, the self-doubt, the analysis paralysis - sheesh, it is overwhelming. If a friend did that to me, I would stop being friends with that ass****.
At other times, it seems I am busy deflecting blame away from me. Why didn't I do this chore on time? Or why did I not finish that project at work well? Oh, I was too busy with those 17 other things and it is not my fault. Yeah, not my fault for not planning my day well, or for figuring out the difference between urgent and important, or for figuring out what the deliverable is.
K-FKD radio
When I distance myself from the chatter or the K-FKD radio, as Anne Lamott calls it, I realise the obvious. My work is not as terrible as I make it out to be. I am not that terrible a human being as self-criticism says. At the same time, I am at fault for dropping the ball all those times.
When I am able to remove the nonsense, the chatter and deconstruct things, I make progress. I stop beating myself up, I make a plan for improvement and most times, proceed with the plan. And other times, I fuck up and don't follow the plan. Life comes and I forget that I need to follow the plan and I find myself swept away.
The villain
It never is as bad as it seems. It never is as good as it seems.
I am the villain in a lot of other people's stories. Deservedly so. I was an extra-ripe ass**** in my teens and early 20s. In most of these stories, I am oblivious I am the villain.
But to let that linger sucks. It is unhealthy. I know it. But yet, how do you shut up that annoying voice which is sometimes unfortunately true? Or at least knows to say the exact thing that cuts deep?
One rep at a time
I wish I knew. I don't.
So, I plod along. One rep at a time. Taking heart from good conversations, from good interactions, from positive vibes. From trying to make meaning in my life and other's lives. From purpose.
No real point to this post
I need to learn to move on from many past mistakes. It is a stone around my neck that I keep thinking I've cut the rope on but a week or a year later, there that fucker is. Still hanging on.
Kamal Ravikant had a neat ritual, which I am yet to try. Write a note and toss it away. Or burn it. Dump everything out.
It is already August. The stuff that I said I'd do in March is on top of my ever-growing Pending list. All this keeps adding up.
The advice is easy - treat yourself like you’d treat your best friend. Sure. Simple. But doing it is another matter altogether.
How do you draw the line between confidence and arrogance? How do you draw the line between pushing yourself and being an ass**** to yourself? And fooling yourself vs forgiving yourself?
The criticism about my work seems valid. I mean, is this a post that I should actually hit publish on?!?! What the f*** have I written?
One presumes everyone's similarly fucked in the head. Or is it only me?
3 quotes
On what is fear: Non-acceptance of uncertainty. If we accept that uncertainty, it becomes an adventure!
– Rumi
A lot of us get freaked out by ambiguity and uncertainty. But a lot of things will always be uncertain. Even the best-laid plans go awry. One can never account for all variables in the system, or expect variables to behave the expected way.
What are we losing out on when we try to replace ambiguity, just to feel comfortable?
Thanks to AR for sending this across!
One must not merely copy but try to convey the significance of what you see.
– Bruce Lee
This one is hard but rewarding. When I read something, my first instinct is to nod along or reject the idea. Nowadays, I try to calm myself. Remind me that I don't need to have an opinion. And that no one is waiting for me to pass judgment on it. Breaking that piece down - understanding the context it was created in, seeing the larger significance of it, understanding why it hits me that way, and then contextualising it for me.
The problem is taking any one person’s advice too seriously. Ideally, asking advice should be like echolocation. Bounce ideas off of all of your surroundings, and listen to all the echoes to get the whole picture.
Ultimately, only you know what to do, based on all the feedback you’ve received and all your personal nuances that no one else knows.
– Derek Sivers
As someone who makes a living guiding people, this is something I probably need to add as a postscript. As a coach, maybe you expect me to carry you from here to there. But I think I can merely point the way and maybe sit on the bus with you. And occasionally jolt you awake or whatever the correct way to continue that analogy is.
You can read the entire article here.
break the rules aka rebels are awesome
But why?
Asking why was a life-changing moment for me. As I am sure it was for you. Until my first 'why?', I did what my elders said. But as the constant "Don't do this" started to cramp my style, I erupted.
"Don't play in the afternoon" was probably the first why. I get it, today. Spending a few hours under the sun drains me but as a kid, we were invincible. But the adult mentality cramps the kid and enforces a rule (yes yes, heat and all that. Shut up, oldie!).
Sitting in the house beyond a point got too boring. I loved to read. I had a computer to play games on (a big deal in the early 90s). But nothing could beat playing outside. And so, out popped my first why.
The rebel
I questioned everything. I rebelled against anything I can think of. Out of a combination of laziness, sheer obstinacy, and not wanting to do anything I did not want to do.
Unfortunately, the power got to me. I rebelled too much. I didn't understand anything. But asking why and being a dick got me out of going to the temple (time spent away from playing), from eating vegetables (uggghhh), from bathing (time spent away from playing, plus I am gonna get dirty within minutes). It also made me a poor student as I lost sight of learning vs the game of school where you score marks.
You could've gotten me to do anything by applying a bit of reverse psychology. You tell me not to do something and sure as hell, that's what I would do.
Rebelling and breaking the rules, it seems, brought only good things. Plus, words like "thinking out of the box" get thrown about which further massage the ego.
No constraints, no rules
Unfortunately, I started to pay the price only after I got a bit older. I had not grasped the rules of the game to keep breaking them. Being disrespectful to the game is very different from breaking/bending the rules after understanding them. To quote someone who says this a lot better here's Jordan Peterson
... the careless demolition of tradition is the invitation to the (re)emergence of chaos. When ignorance destroys culture, monsters will emerge.
Ignorance - check. Careless - check. I bulldozed my way across many things without paying heed to them. Without constraints, I had no map. When everything is an option, nothing is an option.
But hey, if it meant I could get to do whatever short-sighted bauble I had in my sights, it was great.
Eventually
I saw the error of my ways. And I veered quite a bit to the other side. Not that I had ever completely gone away from it. There was a part of me that was all for rules. And a part of me that kept trying to get out of or break all of them.
For example, in the world of strength & conditioning, I am the guy who follows the textbook. To the letter. The hardest part, which I got right, was to identify people and philosophies that touched something deep in me. After that, an even smarter thing I did was to follow the words, even if I did not understand them.
For example, it took me three attempts following Coach Dan John's Easy Strength programme to get it more or less right. Three attempts at the 10,000 swing challenge as well. Pavel's training plans are a tad easier to follow - they have a lot more of "Do This!" where I try to do just that.
Along the way, by not trying to outsmart what's written down, by not following any shortcuts, by putting in the effort while navigating through life - that's when the lightbulbs started going off.
Even today, there are quite a few things that I re-learn when I re-read my favourite authors. The golden rule I have which serves me well is to "do now, understand later."
follow the rules until you are capable of being a shining exemplar of what they represent, but break them when those very rules now constitute the most dire impediment to the embodiment of their central virtues.
And after about 10 years of this, I have started to think about breaking a rule here or there. But then, this assumes I've understood the rules.
An exercise for you
What rules do you follow which you should contemplate breaking?
What rules are you breaking without understanding them?
Thanks for reading/listening. I’ll see you next week.
