It’s not about content, it’s about consistent content.
It’s not about running, it’s about repeated running.
It’s not about meditating, it’s about many moments of meditating.@
It’s about repeated rehearsal, until you finally get it.
In the pursuit of our ambitions, we often create intricate plans, detailed routines, and exhaustive checklists.
But when these complexities start to feel more like obstacles than aids, it might be time to strip things back.
Where are you overcomplicating? Is it in the planning, the execution, or perhaps the goal itself?
Seeking the simplest way is not always the easiest. But more often than not, it’s the most effective.
Learning a foreign language is both a frustrating and liberating experience.
We can focus on the frustration of not understanding the words the way we understand our mother tongue. Or we can realize that without the words, we are free to fall back on other ways of capturing and understanding meaning.
A crying baby can be soothed by words it does not yet understand, because she senses what’s behind the sounds, lets the meaningless melody cradle her to sleep…
Similarly, we don’t always have to know what’s behind the words, as long as we make an effort to understand the meaning behind the sounds.
Hearing a foreign language brings us back to that wordless world the way we experienced it as a newborn, before we tried so hard to put everything within and around us into language.
It makes us remember, there’s more to life than our words will ever allow us to express. And somehow, that’s a soothing thought.
Am I running to get in better shape or to get distracting thoughts out of my head?
Am I going out to enjoy being with friends or to forget my worries?
Am I writing to grow an audience or to process my own emotions?
What am I striving for?
Your answers may vary from day to day. There are no right or wrong answers anyway.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to understand why you behave the way you do.
Maybe it even makes you curious about why others behave the way they do, too.
The article I publish today may be worse than one I wrote 2 months ago.
I may struggle today with a guitar piece I played effortlessly last week.
And when I meditate today, my mind may be all over the place, even though last week it was calm as water.
On any given day, I may feel that I’m making progress, that I’ve reached a plateau, or even that I’m going backwards.
But it doesn’t matter.
Progress isn’t always visible in daily practice. But without daily practice, there is no progress.
If I stick to daily practice, on average, I’ll get better. I’ll start having more good days than bad. And slowly but surely, my ‘bad days’ will start being better than what I consider a ‘good day’ right now.
Progress, averaged out is what it’s all about.
First, you practice doing the process every day – because if you don’t do the process consistently, you’ll never move towards an outcome in the first place. Tiny Trust Builders always come first.
Then, you practice becoming good at the process – because the better you are at the process, the more likely you’ll reach an outcome.
But, unfortunately, even if you become excellent at the process, you still won’t be able to predict an exact outcome.
Outcomes are fickle.
Even progress is fickle.
But the process is predictable.
And who knows, maybe the process IS the outcome.
Which conclusions did I draw from past experiences?
Have I overreacted to petty events, and ignored beautiful moments?
Have I deleted memories? Maybe invented some?
Have I built stories based on generalizations?
Most importantly: how does the past I still feel affect my actions today?
And if I know a lot of it was my own interpretation… could I change my past, or at least what it means to me?
Would that set me free?
I was undoubtedly in a pensive mood when writing this.
I guess, given the daily letters I send you, you might conclude I’m in a pensive mood every day.
And you wouldn’t be wrong.
But pensive moods can be useful – when they’re coupled with conclusions and insights. Maybe even with Tiny Trust Builders.
And if any of these questions help you re-interpret your past and set you free, too, I’ll be a happy man.
A wistful win-win.
