Living This One Life, Not Cramming in Three Lives at the Same Time

Year 2016

This is related to not running away from this place, reality, thoughts, people, feelings, by occupying myself through frenetic activity.

I tend to be hyperactive, have many things to do, try to do many things in a short timespan, try to touch as many things as possible. The result of this is that I don't do anything properly, that I lose lots of time on context switching, that I forget a lot of small random details I randomly realize walking somewhere or doing something else because by the time I can implement them I am already on another task. And so I become dissatisfied with my low productivity and ramp up my eagerness to do as much as possible, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. It's like trying to live three lives while a day still has only 24 hours.

I think that there are three steps to being content and successful with living just this one life.

First, learning to do and manage tasks effectively. Second, having the will to give up some activities or wishes or preferences to make room for what matters. Third, learning to be at peace with whatever limited amount of things I manage to do, with the added consolation that by doing it so much more effectively than before I manage to do much more in less time, and with the consolation that by structuring my life like that I can have time to be with my loved ones and to not have too much stuff preventing happiness or relaxation.

As for the first step, I deem the books Getting Things Done by David Allen and The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande inspiring for creation of an all-encompassing system and set of habits of doing, completing, and tracking all things that have or have not have to be done, and having reference materials. (One day, I might also read Zen to Done.) In short, my task management system and habits allow me to have an empty head with the soothing knowledge that everything I will have to do (or at least consider) is noted and that I will find that note at the right time. It allows me to concentrate on one thing, safely forgetting everything else, and then come back and still manage my responsibilities.

The second step — having the will to give up some activities or wishes or preferences to make room for what matters — has the prerequisite of already knowing my priorities and my meaning of life and is related to the growth framework described in the next chapter. It seems really easy — just don't do those things that would prevent me from having a good balance between high-value activities and rest. But it is very difficult. I still can't put a finger on what exactly is necessary for a break-through, so there's not much I can write about. I consider the book The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck to be a good inspiration for this. Also, when an activity is suggested by someone else, my ability and courage to say "no" is important.

The third step (learning to be at peace with whatever limited amount of things I manage to do) might require additional work which at beginning might seem irrelevant. For me it is going through psychotherapy and much thinking about (and work on) how maladaptive emotional schemes from childhood shape my current emotions, reactions, relations, and activities.

All in all, learning to be at peace with this one life and with my limited abilities and time fits into a nice feedback loop with the search for a meaning of life — having found some meaning of life is necessary for me to be at peace with it and being at peace frees up energy to pursue meaningful activities.

Year 2020

So far, I like this path.

Staying for some time in the state of hyperactivity, yet purposefully witholding from any action, just observing emotions and mental constructs arise, seems torturous for a moment, and then an answer is unveiled: whatever there is, pushing me faster and faster, I can bring it under my conscious attention and work with it. Pain can be healed, not through unrelated activity, but by feeling the pain and going directly into it and through it, perhaps with a therapist for some parts of the way. Joy can be consciously realized, felt in the conscious awareness, and perhaps nurtured. Both intellectual desires and emotions, be them describable or not, can be integrated with a hierarchy of values, that with time and practice transcends the realm of concrete intellectual concepts and fuses into the whole act of being and feeling. (Still, it's good to think about it intellectually and with purpose from time to time.) Saying no is crucial — as that's a yes to something else. With enough nos comes a temporary emptiness that is creative and gives space to the truly important endeavors. With less yeses comes the power of a more resolute yes. An endeavor that is started and undertaken without interruptions and incursions, calmly if that is fitting, resolutely, and purposefully, can be meaninfgul, and sometimes even enjoyable, joyful, and safisfying. The lesser the pressure to find something, the easier it can be found.