July 12 edition
The three things for today are:
on the Irish Lion, and playing the San Francisco Rec League
on re-learning lessons learned
on procrastination
on the Irish Lion
I used to live in SF, before I moved back to Madras in 2011 to start The Quad. One of my favourite things over there was playing Ultimate frisbee. The San Francisco Rec League is amongst the most fun I've had in my life, and here's the story of how I contrived to make it less fun and miss out on a valuable life lesson. But hey, nothing's permanent and I am happy to report that I am smarter because of it.
The Rec League happens 3 times a year. The parks are shut in the winter, and so every other season - spring, summer, and fall - we'd have 8 weeks of glorious Ultimate.
After playing every Tuesday evening, we'd head to the Irish Lion just bordering Golden Gate Park to get a beer and food. Initially, I'd do this after every game and have a great time with my teammates. And every 3 months, the teams would change. But we'd all crowd in at the Lion and I realised that's how everyone knew everyone - everyone was everyone's teammate at some season.
Around this time, I was getting into my idiot phase with fitness and nutrition. We all go through that, when we take it a bit too seriously.
I stopped going to the Lion after rec league because I was not drinking, and I was "eating healthy".
While playing Ultimate was still brilliant fun, and I had a blast, I was missing out on the icing on the cake by not spending time with my teammates, in not getting to know them.
I took the easy option, although one could say having a beer is the easy option. But given my introversion, my fitness/nutrition trajectory - I took a call.
It was not a clean break i.e. I'd go once in 2-3 weeks, and definitely after the final game of the season. But I learned a valuable lesson - if your fitness/nutrition does not allow you to have a beer when you are chilling with your friends, that's just silly.
on re-learning lessons learned
When context changes, it sometimes becomes hard to apply the same lessons that hold true.
Showing up, and breaking a task down into bite-sized chunks has always worked wonders. For example, show up to the parking lot of our weekly run was all it took to snowball into running 21k. And on the run, just telling myself to put one step in front of the other was all it took!
Yesterday, I did not feel like cooking. Now, my cooking is simply part of the prep work. My wife does the cooking, and I try to do as much around it to help. But I just was not up to it yesterday. But she gently coaxed me into cutting a few veggies, and that led to me doing more of the prep work. And we also mindfully made the menu for the day simpler.
By simplifying the problem, and just showing up and getting started, dinner happened. And I enjoyed the process too! I enjoyed the mental victory of doing something that I was not up for as well. And the delicious dinner too!
on procrastination
This one's a bonus. I wrote about it as its own post, and if you are someone who procrastinates, I just want to tell you - there's hope.
Whenever you have the time, do give this a read. If you find audio easier, do check it out as I did speak about it today.
I'll post my insights alone.
The pressure we put on ourselves is, most times, unnecessary.
If you want to write, just write. You don't need to publish it. You can show it to just close friends and family, whenever you are ready. You don't need to worry about where it is going, and when you will sign a book deal.
If you want to get fitter and healthier, find a legitimate place that can help you with it. And just show up. Feeling grumpy because you had a bad day - show up, do what you can. Feeling awesome - show up, and do what you can. It is your birthday and you wanna drink 20 beers - show up, lift weights, and then go drink your beers.
Slowly, you change your mental definition of yourself.