May was Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States. Although it seems to have been overshadowed by reopening from Covid-19, this was a good reminder to take stock of the human cost of mental health challenges.
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The Long Road To Loving Fate
How do you actually implement loving fate, the idea of “amor fati”? Slowly and with difficulty, sure. But the effort seems well worthwhile.
Read MoreMeditation on Meditations, IV
“How the hell do I deal with all…this?!?!?” Life can be cruel. The world can be brutal about doing what it wants, not what we want. We can work hard, plan well, have it all together…and still get squished like a bug.
So how do we deal with that?
Read MoreAccountability Check-In July 20-26
Sleep: Sunday 19-20 July 9hr 34min - 95% (10:00-7:35)
Monday 20 July: 6 Green, 2 Red (Strength, Meditation), 1 Yellow (Impulse - snacking), 1 x Alcohol
Sleep: Monday 20-21 July 8hr 25min - 88% (1115-740)
Tuesday 21 July: 7 Green, 1 Red (Strength), 1 Yellow (Affirmation)
Sleep: Tuesday 21-22 July 9hr 42min - 94% (850-635)
Wednesday 22 July: 5 Green, 2 Red (Strength, Writing), 2 Yellow (Task, Meditation), 1 x Alcohol
Sleep: Wednesday 22-23 July 8hr 32min - 90% (1030-700)
Thursday 23 July: 5 Green, 3 Red (Task, Writing, Impulse/snack), 1 Yellow (Procrastination), 1 x Alcohol
Sleep: Thursday 23-24 July 9hr 9min - 94% (1050-800)
Friday 24 July: 7 Green, 1 Yellow (Task)
Sleep: Friday 24-25 July 8hr 33min - 90% (830-500)
Saturday 25 July: 6 Green, 1 Red (Strength), 2 Yellow (Affirmation, Task), 1 x Alcohol
Sleep: Saturday 25-26 July 8hr 53min - 92% (1030-720)
Sunday 26 July: 4 Green, 1 Red (Strength), 4 Yellow (Task, Meditation, Impulse/snack, Procrastination)
Comments: So this week was a tough one in some spots. On the bright side, sleep was better than I had expected. On the not-bright side, I was generally having trouble getting up a lot of energy — I think it’s the semi-lockdown taking a tool again.
I had high hopes in the last check-in for following up with the strength item, but that largely didn’t happen. We are, however, waiting for a portable air-con/heating unit for the garage, ordered from Costco. My appetite for cycling and other alternative cross-training just didn’t materialize, so taking away the temperature as an excuse might make sense.
The three days when I noticed myself having trouble around the ‘impulsiveness’ item were all related to snacking. I think a lot of that was mood-related, although not necessarily correlated to sleep quality or volume. I am pleased that I didn’t let the mood-related stuff get out of hand.
Otherwise, things were okay, I suppose. I was bummed that I broke my writing streak, hitting neither journaling nor the websites. On the bright side, the tendency I have to procrastinate was also less prominent. I still have my life-long conflicted relationship with a task or to do list. This is something to look at more closely.
This was not a good picture.
Accountability Check-In July 13-19
Changing this up a bit now that it’s firmly cemented (I hope) as a habit, and starting to look for patterns and data. Or in the data, if you can call this “data”... The variable is a totally key one: Sleep: I already know that my subjective experience of a given day can be colored one way or the other by sleep, but it’ll be interesting to look at this and see if there are other patterns.
Sleep: Sunday 12-13 July 9hr 2min - 94% (10:00-7:00)
Monday 13 July: 7 Green, 2 Yellow (Task List and Meditate)
Sleep: Monday 13 July-14 July 7hr 58min - 84% (11:00-7:00)
Tuesday 14 July: 5 Green, 1 Red (Strength Training), 3 Yellow (Task List, Meditate, Procastinate)
Tuesday 14-15 July 7hr 31min - 79% (12:00-7:25)
Wednesday 15 July: 6 Green, 1 Red (Strength Training), 2 Yellow (Task List, Meditate)
Wednesday 15-16 July - No app data. Garmin estimated 7hr 5min.
Thursday 16 July: 6 Green, 1 Red ( Strength Training) 2 Yellow (Impulse /snacking/), Procrastination)
Thursday 16-17 July 9hr 14 min - 94% (10:00-7:15)
Friday 17 July: 6 Green, 3 Yellow (Impulse /snacking/ and /emotional/, Procrastination, Meditation)
Friday 18-19 July 7hr 48min - 82% (10:40-6:30)
Saturday 18 July: 7 Green, 2 Red (Strength Training, Impulse /snacking/)
Saturday 19-20 July 8hr 58min - 94% (10:45-7:30)
Sunday 19 July: 6 Green, 3 Yellow (Strength Training, Task List, Impulse /emotion/)
Sunday 20-21 July 9hr 34min - 95% (10:00-07:35)
Comments: I see an interesting possible pattern here. Towards the end of the week I ran into a couple of yellow and red impulse control items. These are canary in the coalmine items for me: they often signal turbulence ahead in terms of my enjoyment of life and how enjoyable I am to be around. Subjectively, I would say that was right: the end of the week was less, um, “fun” than the beginning.
Looking back in the week, three things stand out:
First is meditation: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were all yellow, meaning that I got less than the 20min minimum I’ve set as a goal.
Coupled to that, I skipped my secondary weight/strength/bodyweight/cross-training opportunities Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. I know from experience that there’s a definite mood-enhancing effect from slinging kettlebells around that’s above that from just running. (Which was very light at 20 scheduled miles plus walking the dog.)
Third, there is a gentle decline in sleep, from 9hrs to 8, 7 1/2, and then probably around 7hrs, with the quality index heading down with hours, sinking from 94% on the night of Sunday to Monday, to a low of 79%. Hours and quality jump back up heading into the new week.
So there is a lesson there. I already knew that exercise and sleep were important, but seeing them both decline and then seeing a dip in the measure that’s closest to a mood index was…interesting. Sleep should be well in hand this week.
The key for the remainder of this week is to not skip the “extra” work, cross-training or whatever. Since it is ungodly hot this week (right now it’s 94F on the front porch, with high humidity making it feel like a lovely, uh, 105F…) I think that instead of sweltering in the garage, maybe some time on the Peleton or yoga or something in the man cave might be on order. Will add that to the mix in a big way for the rest of the week…
This here is some of that empirical data I’ve been hearing about…
Accountability Check-In June 29-July 12
I didn’t post a check-in for last week, so this will be a double edition.
Green = 1 pt, fully accomplished; yellow = 1/2 pt, partly accomplished; red = 0.
Affirmation: 7/7 both weeks
Sweat (cardio/walking): 6 1/2 and 7
Strength: 4 1/2 both weeks
Task list: 4 both weeks (relatively weak)
Meditation: 7 and 6
Writing: 6 and 7
Impulse control: 4 1/2 both weeks (lot of partials)
Procrastination: 5 1/2 and 5 (lots of partials)
Alcohol: 0 and 1 servings.
Comments: Results were remarkably similar across weeks, suggesting that either I’ve arrived at a natural equilibrium, or I’m repeating the same practice patterns on autopilot. Writing has not reflected posting, but does account for journaling, which I’ve adopted pretty consistently pretty fast.
Impulse control refers to either losing my temper or a similar emotional “event”, which had been an issue as lock down started to really wear on me, or snacking outside of schedule. This is an area to work on. I’m also starting to really delve down into why I procrastinate. Hoping to get some usable insights soon.
Meditation on Meditations, III
This is the third part of my "Meditations on Meditations" series. In this case, it started as a journaling prompt. I thought it would mostly be about blowing off steam and moaning to myself about my inability to just do the whole Stoic outlook thing better. A bit unexpectedly, it turned into something much more serious and gave me a useful insight.
"Hard work and persistence,
Self-reliance, always cheerful,
Strength, perseverance, self-control"
--From "Self Control", Akira the Don & Marcus Aurelius
This song is ringing in my head, and I'm enthused but also frustrated. Like so many part of Stoicism, it seems simple enough. But as Clausewitz mused about war, putting the simple things into effect is complex.
Hard work - I am certainly capable of this, at least in spurts and under the right circumstances. I have been struggling during the lock down with harnessing what was, sometimes is, and should reliably be in the future, capacity for hard work.
As an abstract idea, the case for hard work is an easy one. Our culture venerates it, almost to excess -- statistics on America's relationship with sleep, unused vacation days, and other metrics show that we, if anything, overwork. The opposite of hard work, being lazy, is vilified as an unbecoming trait.
So where to draw the line? As with all things, moderation, or at least a sense of balance is called for. In sports, heavy periods of effort alternate with rest to generate growth--in muscle, speed, endurance, or any other trait. The same is true for us. We should prize hard work, then, but perhaps view it less as something to be celebrated for its intrinsic benefits than as a means to hopefully worthy ends.
Persistence - This is another enduring cultural value. We celebrate it in its form as "grit", understanding that it is in an important tool. The ability to persevere, to persist in the face of difficulties, is closely tied as well to the condition of resilience -- another important and valued trait.
Like everything, there is a shadow side to persistence. Uninformed or untempered by wisdom, insight, or a solid sense of ultimate intent, persistence turns dark. We become fixated on goals which are no longer sensible, or not achievable, or actively harmful to us. At a far extreme, this can turn into an addiction or unhealthy fixation. But even in its milder forms it can be profoundly unhelpful.
Self-reliance - I have a mixed relationship with this virtue. On the one hand, I seek to cultivate it in the form of a detachment, trying to learn to avoid handing my happiness over to external events or people--things over which I have no control.
It seems to me this is incredibly essential in an age when social media has invested so much energy in making it possible to effortlessly and endlessly torture ourselves with a perfectly curated streams ranging from glossy snapshots of others' allegedly perfect lives to bite-sized chunks of atavistic sadism.
Taken too far, though, self-reliance can cut us off from healthy and needed relationships. This is a trap I know well. Even the most antisocial of us have at our core some form of social need, and if we do not feed that core and satiate that need, we suffer.
Always cheerful - When I was younger and had a fully-formed and perfect knowledge of the world, I was deeply suspicious of people who were too cheerful. This is coming from someone whose mother once told them they'd always been an "old soul." I originally took this as a compliment, and excess cheerfulness as proof that person was clearly missing something about the world as it is.
Today, I have a bit different view. I am older, and understand a little more of how little I knew then (and now, for that matter.) I've started to see cheerfulness with a little more nuance. It seems to me now that the ability to be cheerful--or at least on an even keel--in the face of hardship is a great virtue. It is something which, I think, speaks well of those who can pull it off.
That said, I reserve the right to react poorly if you're cheerful before I'm caffeinated. Just saying.
Strength - This is another quality I've come to see differently as I've gotten older. This applies to both physical and emotional or mental strength. Physically, I see staying strong as an important step towards a healthy and balanced life. And the idea of being strong, in one's beliefs, ethical positions, and in response to the vagaries of life...that is another trait which we often celebrate but spend too little time developing.
I think it is particularly important to pursue this in moderation. It is an end, not a means. The awful results of pursing strength as a goal in itself and losing sight of the our broader values are written all over history, and we continue to mint new examples with each year.
Perseverance - I was curious about what subtle differences might exist between this and persistence, and looked up the definition of each. Two things jumped out at me. Persistence has moral and physical aspects, implying continuation after a cause is removed. Perseverance, on the other hand, seems to imply a kind of steadiness in the face of adversity.
So we may wish to live in a way which leaves, at least for a time, a persistent imprint on the world. (Ideally positive...) To do so, we must be prepared to persevere in our actions and beliefs in the face of whatever life throws at us. We should not preserve, though, in ways which cause us or others a greater harm.
Self-control - This is in a class by itself in the list of qualities Marcus wanted to remind himself to cultivate. It is, for me, the closest to a inherently good thing of all the qualities in this refrain. The four key virtues for a Stoic are wisdom, justice, temperance and justice. None of these can be reached without self-control.
One may have strength, persistence, perseverance, have a tremendous work ethic--but without self-control, the virtuous life will always be just outside our reach. Looking around the world today, it's tempting to conclude this is perhaps the one quality in the list that can't be overdone.
There is, though, a hint of paradox here. Excessive self-control, that is to say taken to the point of rigidity or paralysis, does not serve us either. We must recognize what is and what is not under our control. Unless we can also adapt as circumstances change, we will miss the proverbial boat and be as badly off as if we were too slack.
How do I rate myself on these traits? Mixed. It occurs to me, though, that I shouldn't be too quick to be harsh about this. None of these qualities are inherently good or bad. Their value exists in relation to the extent to or purpose for which they are used or pursued. They are best understood, and used, as steps towards or components of larger purposes.
I started contemplating this with the mindset of exploring how I probably have too little of any given trait. Certainly, I have plenty of room to improve how I embody all of these traits. I had expected an epiphany perhaps, on the order of "Ah, so I should just double down on THIS one!"
Instead, I come away from writing this with a renewed appreciation that none of these traits are wholly good or bad inherently. They are instruments, tools, to serve larger ends. As such, they can all be taken too far. I suppose in a way this has been a lesson in threading the needle between too much and too little of good things.
This is so timely for me, since I have been grappling with all of these things--but especially self-control. The lockdown and forced absence from work have been hard, and my instinct has been to press hard on my self-control buttons. Perhaps a better way to approach this is to take this as an axiom: all things in their time, and all in good measure.
Meditation on Meditations, II
Another day, another musical tribute to our favorite dead Roman emperor.
"Concentrate every minute like a Roman- like a man- on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can- if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you." (Meditations, using the translation here.)
"Concentrating every minute like a Roman, like a man."
I can imagine what he felt writing "like a Roman". Not a “Roman” style of concentration as such, but a world view. Being Roman meant he was heir to a very serious tradition and a set of responsibilities. The ideal might be from some external source but the gaze, the effect which is sought, is clearly an interior one.
Marcus, at least as I understand what he is saying, touches on something Viktor Frankel would have understood well. We always have the choice to live according to our values, to celebrate and uplift the virtues in our thoughts and, hopefully, also our acts.
As to thinking like a man, I think this has nothing to do with gender. I take it to speak of values which make an ideal person. Universal ones, not bound by gender. I’d render it as “like a whole person.”
"Doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness"
I love how these words sound. "Precise and genuine seriousness." This is not just working hard, it is working with a purpose and perhaps passion. And not things we enjoy or want--no, whatever happens to be in front of us. There is value inherent in treating everything thoughtfully if we can.
”...As if it were the last thing you were doing in your life”
Now Marcus gets demanding. "[D]o everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable." Well, alright then.
At the moment, I am concentrating on the first part this admonition but the whole thing resonates with me. God knows there's enough to work on.
There will always be space between our intentions, set out in the abstract, and what we actually do in the real world. If that is the case, let it be from weakness, or lack of awareness, or accident--and not from purposely setting what would be good aside.
Our actions could be the last record of ourselves which we leave behind. What should that record tell others about us? Being well thought of does us no good after our deaths, after all. But acting well leaves traces in life, traces in the hearts and on the minds of those who knew us.
We should be striving to set an example--living out our values in the sight of others. Leaving nothing behind for which we would want to apologize or make amends after we are gone, no harm left unhealed behind us.
No, it’s super-easy. Really.
How few are the things we need to live a satisfying and reverent life, Marcus? Easier said than done, as he knew--after all, if it had been easy, he'd not have left pages of notes reminding himself to be the things he professed. I suppose what he means here are the four virtues which his philosophy espouses. In that sense it is simple.
So what simple things could I do to come closer to a satisfying and reverent life?
First, I suppose, stop embracing things which are bad for us and for those around us. The passage gives us some interior work to start with: not being self-centered, irritable or hypocritical.
Enact that precise and genuine seriousness in all things, not just those which are easy.
And to remember, as well, to ask and honestly reflect on this: if today was my last day, would I have lived it in a way which leaves harm behind in my relationship with anyone else?
That would be truly a worthy monument for a life.
Accountability Check-In, June 22-28
The Beat Goes On…
Green = 1 pt, fully accomplished; yellow = 1/2 pt, partly accomplished; red = 0
The Good
Affirmations: 7/7
Meditate: 7/7
Write: 6/7
Sweat: 6 1/2
Procrastinate: 5.5/7
Alcohol: 0 servings (3-5 target)
The Bad
Impulse control: 4.5/7
Strength: 4/7
Task list: 4/7
The Ugly
None this week.
Comments:
Further refined the accountability calendar this week. For “Sweat” it will now read “Cardio” meaning either completing a run or breaking 10,000 steps for the day. PU/BW/KB changed to “Strength” in the middle of the week, but still means 80 x push ups or a body-weight workout or kettle bells/strength training.
Very little red this week, and I was gratified to see so much green. I felt there was some good progress. On the yellow front, “Impulse” control is losing my temper/spontaneous snark/unplanned snacking. Lots of yellow there. Emotionally this wasn’t a bad week, but it could have edged that way. Procrastination remains a problem, but improving. That may get a stand-along post of its own. And I’m in a no-alcohol mode on MD orders, at least for the time being.
Ruined Roman arch in modern Austria, near the site of Marcus’ campaigns. SJR photo, 2011.
Meditation on Meditations, I
Inspiration Can Come From Unlikely Places
I’m a super-unlikely fan for someone like Akira the Don. (If nothing else, I’m probably the oldest, crankiest and gotta be the least cool, by way far…) Before listening to his music--which I blame for nurturing a taste for lo-fi--I would’ve guessed we pretty much had zero in common. (Leaving out that I do really appreciate that beard...)
One of the things we share, though, is an interest in Marcus Aurelius. Over the last few years I’ve come back to the Roman emperor for inspiration during the turmoil. Akira the Don’s stylized take on them, which came out in early 2020 give the Meditations a fresh, quirky treatment.
I really like his Grateful to the Gods. Pre-COVID, it was a frequent AM play, as a way of trying to set a mental tone for the day. But I really started to appreciate it during the lock-down.
Give both Marcus and Akira a listen…
When I listen to it now, I mentally add “So don’t be that jackass” after the opening list of calumnies we visit on each other and periodically throughout Marcus’ warnings to himself.
The song is based on the first four passages in Meditations book 2. My copy is the 2020 edition with Donald Robertson’s introduction, which is based on an public domain 1862 translation by George Long. Akira uses a more colloquial and much more lyrical rephrasing, but the gist is the same.
Below are passages from this particular section, from the 2020 edition, with some thoughts for each.
“Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.”
This is a great example of the Stoic idea of premeditatio malorum. “This is a means,” Seneca says, “for ensuring that nothing ever takes us by surprise.”
It’s easy to not want to have others foist their bad news or graceless behavior on us. At least for me, it has been harder to remember not to be that person to others, especially when I’m surprised.
“All these things happen to them because of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I...have seen that the nature of good is beautiful, and that the bad is ugly, and that the nature of they who does wrong is akin to me...it participates in the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity...”
We should not let being armored against the slings and arrows of the world make us arrogant. That which is good is beautiful, but we and those who may offend us are, after all, much the same. Can someone be ugly to us, when we are brothers or sisters on the most basic level?
“I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the tows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against on another then is contrary to nature and it is acting against one another to become frustrated and to turn away.”
When frustrated my first instinct is to turn away, literally and figuratively. Marcus’ reminder is that this, itself, is antisocial. If the situation does not let us cooperate in the literal sense, we should at least not be responsible for torpedoing the possibility of cooperation ourselves.
“Throw away your books; no longer distract yourself; it is not allowed.”
“But cast away your thirst for books, so that you may not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly and from your heart thankful to the gods.”
Throwing or casting away books is not a natural idea for me, and I struggled with these. These verses are not anti-knowledge. Elsewhere in Meditations, Marcus talks about avoiding sophistry, and I think this is the same warning. Don’t over-intellectualize and get lost in things which pull us away from the real heart of things.
“Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it. You must now at last perceive of what universe you are a part...and that a limit of time is fixed for you, and if you do not use it for clearing away the clouds from your mind, it will go and you will go with it, and it will never return.”
I identify with this passage intensely. There is such potential, whether life lasts another day or another hundred years. But none of it will be realized without meaningful, sincere and persistent effort.
Coincidentally
Thanks to ever-helpful YouTube, I caught a random part of a live-stream by Krisha Das while looking for the You Tube address for Grateful to the Gods.
He was talking about how easy it is to miss the opportunity to cultivate a real bliss that transcends our everyday strivings and superficial experiences. I don’t know if cultivating bliss is part of, or could be part of, my life -- but I was struck about his suggestion that when we’re dissatisfied, we need to let go of whatever it is we’re dissatisfied with lest it essentially drag us down and away from more transcendent goals.
This fits, I think, with the idea Marcus talks about here -- although from a very different point of view. It’s fascinating to see how some ideas recur time and again, widely separated in space and time. There must be something universal in the tendency to get wrapped up in the moment and lose sight of the larger or bigger or more important goals.
I swung back by for a few minutes at the end of the live-stream, and caught another reminder of the universal nature of these things: Das, American devotee of Hindu spirituality noting that we all benefit when we can walk in the footsteps of the greats who have gone before us.
Truer words never said.
Whatever the tradition, whatever our origins, that is something to treasure and remember.
Accountability Check-In June 15-21
Published-on-time edition!
Green = 1 pt, fully accomplished; yellow = 1/2 pt, partly accomplished; red = 0.
The Good:
Affirmations: 6 / 7
Sweat: 6 / 7
Meditation: 5 1/2 / 7
Task list: 5 / 7 (three full, four partial days)
Procrastination: 5 1/2 / 7
Alcohol: 3 servings over the week (3-5 goal)
The Bad:
Impulse control: 4.5/7 (three full, three partial, one what’s-a-diet?)
Procrastination: 3.75/7 (six partial, one partial-plus)
The Ugly:
Writing: 2 1/2 / 7
Push-ups/bodyweight/kettlebell work: 2/7 (2 full, 1 cancellation for soreness, 4 not-there-yet)
Write 1000 words: 1/7 (one full, six not even in the ballpark)
Comments: I thought this was an improvement over the previous one--certainly subjectively--and it improved remarkably towards the weekend. The big task for the coming week will be tackling writing.
I’m off alcohol for at least the coming week, but have restarted the push-up/bodyweight/kettlebell mania from last week. I didn’t feel up to it the first part of the week. Physically and mentally fatigued. Jumped back into the kettlebells on Friday, doing 500 swings (10x50 @ lowest weight) which still murdered my hamstrings for back to back 60 minute runs Saturday and Sunday. Overall, though, it felt great to be back at it.
I’m not sure how much of an improvement this looks like over the previous week, but it felt like a much, much better one--particularly for the second half. This is good evidence for the power of pushing through when the goal is a good, solid one.
Accountability Check-In June 8-14
(The delayed-accountability-is-just-as-good-right? edition...)
Green = 1 pt, fully accomplished; yellow = 1/2 pt, partly accomplished; red = 0.
The Good:
Affirmations: 7/7
Sweat: 7/7
Meditation: 7/7
Alcohol: 4 servings over the week (3-5 goal)
The Bad:
Task list: 4.5/7 (two full, five partial days)
Impulse control: 4.25/7 (two full, three partial, one partial-plus, one null effort)
The Ugly:
Procrastination: 3.75/7 (six partial, one partial-plus)
Write 1000 words: 1/7 (one full, six not even in the ballpark)
Comments: The changes I made after the week of June 1 seem to have stuck. I think that the new “impulse” item is a much better reflection of the sort of things I would like to do less of daily. I played with the idea of adding a tracker or item for sleep, but deferred doing that.
Overall, this was a tough week. My energy was very low, emotional state was not positive, concentration was hard and my motivation was such that it was a struggle to meet my goals.
I took three learning points out of this:
first, to meet these things as opportunities to learn and grow, rather than as “setbacks, full stop”;
second, to be keep the overall circumstances and situation I’m in mind while assessing what happened or didn’t happen--this is hard, because self-compassion is a tough sell for me and I’m prone to falling into blame;
third, remembering that just because something wasn’t going well doesn’t invalidate the goal and is to be met with acceptance and then pushing on.
Accountability Check-In June 1-7
No procrastination to see here, please move on…
Green = 1 pt, fully accomplished; yellow = 1/2 pt, partly accomplished; red = 0.
The Good:
It was largely all good.
Affirmations: 7
Sweat: 5 1/2
80 push-ups: not applicable this week
20 minutes meditation: 6
Write 1000 words: 5
Beer/wine: 3 servings (missing two from the calendar)
The Bad:
Impulse control: 4 (avoided 4 of 7 days)
The Ugly:
Procrastination: 4
Comments: I made a few changes this week. The 80 push up routine is on hiatus for a week or two, but will return. I dropped the “AM routine” item and replaced it starting Wednesday with an entry for “task list”, which is the day’s top items, including the things I wanted to do in the morning.
The rating for 1000 words is deceptive, because a lot of it was circular editing but there was very little posting.
I changed the previous “snacking” item to “impulse control” to reflect either snacking or losing my equanimity for whatever reason.
Accountability Check-In, May 25-31st
The effort continues.
Green = 1 pt, fully accomplished; yellow = 1/2 pt, partly accomplished; red = 0.
The Good:
It was largely all good.
Affirmations: 6 1/2
AM routine: 5 1/2
Sweat: 6
80 push-ups: 6
20 minutes meditation: 5 1/2
Write 1000 words: 5
Snacking: 5 (avoided 5 of 7 days)
Beer/wine: 3 servings (missing one from the calendar)
The Bad:
Eh, nothing really.
The Ugly:
Procrastination: 4 1/2
Comments: Although I got most of what I wanted to done, I’m not sure I was particularly effective this week. This may be the downside of trying to quantify schedules or habit-building, I’m not sure. I think what I’m starting to do is work towards the list, rather than using the list as a jumping-off point for the things I want to get done every day before moving on to other things.Will watch that to make sure it doesn’t hijack my days.
I streamlined the list of things I wanted to do under “morning routine” which has made it easier to follow.
In general, finding I really like the Seinfeld-style calendar. For the week of June 1 I’m making some small changes to encourage greater productivity. Will see how that works out in a week…
Accountability Check-In May 18th-24th
This week’s update.
The Good
Affirmations: 7 days out of 7
Meditate 20mins: 6.5 days out of 7 (partial)
Exercise (sweat): 5.5 days out of 7 (partial)
80 Push-ups: 5.5 days out of 7
Beer/wine: 4 servings (goal 3-5)
Write 1000 words: 5 days out of 7
Stoic coursework: 4.5 days out of 7
Snacking: Avoided 4.5 days out of 7
The Bad
Wake-up routine: 4 days out of 7 (2 full, 4 partial, 1 missed day)
The Ugly
Procrastination: Fully met goals 1 day out of 7; partially 3 days out of 7; missed 3 days out 7)
Notes and comments: Looking at the tracker, it was clear Friday was the toughest day, probably because of an unrelated issue the same day. Thursday was a struggle, though, as well. So on Saturday and Sunday I went a little lighter on myself. The overall goal of more structure is in place and hasn’t changed, but those weren’t the days to push.
The wake up routine I think was unachievable in part because it required me to do like six things—probably a little much for first thing. Will revisit it this week in a simplified form and see if that works better.
On the whole, this has been a very useful exercise and I look forward to see how it evolves!
Accountability Check-In May 11-17th
A quick status check on the tracker I wrote about here, spaghetti western-style:
The good
Affirmations: 100% - 7 days out of 7
Sweat: 100% - 7/7
20min Meditation: 100% - 7/7
SMRT: 100% - 7/7
Alcohol: 3 servings (limit 5)
The bad:
Unplanned snacks: 71% - pre-dinner snackage 2 nights
Push-ups: 57% - completed 60 4 days out of 7
The ugly:
Write 1000 words: 50% - 3.5 days out of 7 (partial credit)
No procrastination: 43% - 3 days out of 7 (partial credit days)
Notes and comments: The biggest problem area is procrastination, which I define as days when I slack off to the point that I don’t get things I’d planned on doing finished. This showed up as major fails on 2 days, and partial fails on four days. This means I blasted through all of my work on one day, Thursday the 14th. Meeting my 1,000 word goal was also tough, although slightly less so. I am adjusting my approach for the coming week to see if tweaking things helps.
Adulting @ 50
Main section: 1064 words (4-5min read)
Challenges in the time of the virus
Author Joshua Wolf Shenk, writing about Abraham Lincoln, draws on epic imagery in describing three stages of growth (emphasis added):
“In mythical stories, a character undertakes a journey, receiving at every step totems that, at the time, have no clear value but at the end turn out to provide the essential tools for a final struggle. We can see this in Lincoln’s journey. In the first stage, he asked the big questions. ... Without the sense of essential purpose he learned by asking these questions, he may not have had the bedrock vision to governed his great work. In the second stage, he developed diligence and discipline, working for the sake of work, learning how to survive and engage. ... In the third stage, he was...living for a vital purpose.”
I was brought to think about this abruptly over the last few weeks. Stranded at home by Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders, I found myself abruptly stripped of the largely unseen arrangements and systems which had guided much of my adult life.
Far from cruising along in Shenk’s third stage, I suddenly feeling I was falling backwards to the second, or even the first and most basic level. This post is about dealing with that dislocation.
Forced Introspection
The first week or two of staying at home were marvelous. I started sleeping more, got all my runs in on time, and began a new workout program. We had a brand-new dog, so there were opportunities for training. I had books and videos and other light things to fill my days, and felt fortunate indeed.
And yet...there was something that started gnawing at me, at first gradually and then with increasing urgency. It came to me over the course of a week or so that what was bothering me came not from the lock down as such--the company’s pleasant and the days easy--but from the lack of structure.
I didn’t think binge watching the John Wick franchise is going to fix this. What seemed to be needed was a greater sense of order.
Maker vs. Manager vs. None of the Above
For many of us, “structure” means “a calendar” means “scheduling.” I have an uneasy relationship with all of those words. Some structure helps, too much scheduling is soul-destroying. Finding a balance is hard.
I’ve had both a manager’s and a maker’s schedule at various points. The Cliff Notes version is that a manager schedule is largely driven by meetings and obligations, so their calendars tend to be packed. A maker’s schedule has relatively long blocks of unstructured time, permitting longer uninterrupted stretches of work.
In my experience, in manager mode my schedule directed my energy outwards: mostly towards other people in general, and specifically towards meetings. The maker schedule is the opposite, channeling energy inwards, and if I’m really lucky, to a flow state. Both are satisfying in different ways, but importantly, both channel energy.
So what did this have to do with Covid-19? Like probably millions of others, I was suddenly neither a manager nor a maker in the sense I was used to. I was...none of the above. My calendar was suddenly empty. And that energy was just bouncing around. This really threw me for a loop.
Late-Onset Teenage Syndrome?
This sense of being unsettled went much deeper than a depopulated calendar. It reached into Shenk’s first stage of big questions. In contemplating why I was feeling like I was drifting and surly, an idea came: This is like being a teenager again.
Was the sudden lack of structure undermining my sense of being, you know, an actual adult? That’s not good. My adolescence and I had some good times, sure, but we really hadn’t been sorry to see each other go. Revisiting that mind-frame is not on my bucket list.
Seriously, the positive role of having some kind of structure in your life for productivity and a sense of fulfillment is well-established.
There was one problem with the idea that my unstructured slacking off on my responsibilities was eroding my ability to function as an adult: I didn’t have a lot of them. The challenge: populate the calendar first, then follow-up.
Identity = Work?
So part of the solution to this issue was going to be getting myself new responsibilities. That is, finding productive things to commit to doing and building some structure for myself around them. In other words, preparing to move to the second stage.
This led to an insight about just how closely my identity as a person is still tied in to working. By that I mean not a career as such, but having specific things to do at a specific place for specified times. I realized a lot of my sense of self and well-being is deeply tied to working.
Fair enough. I focused on work-like “projects” I could reasonably do in isolation. This blog is one of them. It’s helping me hone--I hope--the ability to weave a story around concepts I love but which are hard to communicate. Running by myself and with the dog was another. An insane 10,000 kettlebell challenge. Helping clean the house for 15 minutes most nights. Looking to getting more coaching knowledge and opportunities.
All of these things serve to provide outlets for all that energy. And, hopefully, they’re training for various parts of my future, for the pivot back to “vital purpose.”
And Back To Adulting, Again
And to tie them together, I’ve gone back to the idea of a schedule. In this case, it’s more of a loose routine than regimented calendar entries.
The goals and priorities I set are:
Priority areas for the week of May 11th:
Daily reaffirmation of values and goals;
60 pushups;
Sweat once (run or workout);
20 minutes of meditation;
Write 1000 words;
Work on material from a free Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training course;
General goals:
Keep beer/wine intake to 3-5 servings/week, maximum;
Avoid uncontrolled snacking;
Minimize procrastination.
Other weekly goals as needed.
A rhythm and cadence have started to emerge most days which I find...reassuring. Because I’ve tried to treat my “project work” as responsibilities--that is, things with a future payoff--and not just stuff to fill the day, some sort of accountability is needed.
For that, I’ve turned to a block calendar and the Seinfeld method.
[Edit: 5/21/2020 3:50pm -
The ever-thoughtful Ryan Holiday offers two thoughts, expressed much better than I have, on what I was groping at expressing above:
One is the idea of “Alive Time vs. Dead Time” — a construction he borrowed from author Robert Greene, and which neatly encapsulates what I was striving for here.
Second is a post on the Daily Stoic website titled “Routine Is Everything” which lays out a neat, compact case for the power of building routines.
Please check them out!]
So far, it’s working surprisingly well. What works for you?
What Is Your “No Trade” Declaration?
Being careful about accumulating regrets.
https://www.becomingminimalist.com/the-no-trade-declaration/
Length: 650 words (3-4 minute read)
For most of my life, Uncle Sam has been my built-in Marie Kondo. I was a military kid, and we PCSed all the time. That led to a nomadic adulthood. Every few years for most of my life I’ve been forced to decide what things I do and don’t want.
What do you do when the clutter’s not physical? This is the question asked by Rachel Macy Stafford in “The ‘No Trade’ Declaration Offers Instant Clarity and More Joy to Your Life,” a thoughtful reflection on how we can make trade-offs we may wind up regretting.
Stafford sounds like a recovering Type A personality, which was enough to make me start reading her piece with a hefty dose of suspicion. I used to trade loving goodbyes for on-time morning departures, she writes. “Uh oh,” I thought.
But there is a kernel in the story she tells which might be especially valuable for busy people.
As often seems to be the case, the death of a loved one prompted reflection. Rather than dwelling on things left undone and regretted at the end of life, Stafford focuses on how her father-in-law’s last days were filled instead with love and family. How fortunate!
An unexpected declaration from her husband that he wants to “have more fun” prompts more reflection. It brings out a practical side to Stafford which I found very relatable:
“I desperately wanted to have more fun, too, but how? What does that even look like in a life of non-negotiable duties, responsibilities and obligations?”
She’s speaking my language: Responsibility. Obligation. Duty.
What Stafford did was to look at the trade-offs which had become sources of clutter in pursuit of a balanced and healthy life. She didn’t abandon her ambitions, but she definitely is putting out boundaries.
This is her challenge to us:
Take a moment to think about how your work, your technology, and your life might bleed into each other to the point that there are no longer any protected areas. While it is not always possible to trade productivity and efficiency for human connection or inner peace, it is always worthwhile when we can.
This is practical advice. No, it’s not always possible to wall off the things we’d like from the things we have to do. But it seems like a decent idea to always be trying to think about it.
The idea from the piece’s title that it’s “instant” whatever is b.s. This is not easy stuff--it’s thinking about good vs. good--trade-offs that have to made at the most basic level of our lives. Playing for keeps in the game of memories and emotions.
I’ve been on the wrong side of enough life trade-offs to know nothing about that is instant or easy. Trust me on this.
But...
We can learn.
Lean that when we do need to sacrifice something we’d love to do so we can appease the gods of the late night at the office, or travel for work, or whatever the distraction of the moment is, that we can be selective about it.
Learn to make it a conscious choice, done after consideration.
Learn to make sure that it’s never done on autopilot.
Learn to not clutter things up with needless regrets.
Regret is poisonous. Love or ambition thwarted or denied is bad enough, but at least they hold out the hope that one day we might get what we want.
Regret may be the ultimate in unproductive mental and emotional clutter: it’s a ship that’s sailed, and it’s never going to come back. Because it can’t.
Time only runs in one direction, and we only get so much of it. Instead of cluttering it up with bad choices and empty feelings, let’s choose to live strongly.
Choose to live, as far as we can, without accumulating things we’ll regret.
Choose to live intentionally.
Choose to live well.
(h/t: becomingminimalist.com)
Lead, Follow, Or Run For Office?
Untangling Colin Powell’s leadership
I recently came across a review (here) by Elizabeth Spaulding of Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot, by Jeffrey Matthews.
Up front, I haven’t read the book itself--among other reasons, I’m on a hiatus from book purchases until at least June while I work on my tsundoku problem. But I think, based on what I read, that the book is probably worth pursuing.
Beyond having admired Powell, I had only a fuzzy appreciation for his career. But my eye was caught by this passage as I scanned the review (my emphasis):
Matthews does not always elaborate on the tension arising from Powell’s attempt to be both a good leader and a good follower. He implies but never outright says that ultimately Powell may have been comfortable with his status as exalted follower.
The second sentence is a curious one. What’s wrong with being an “exalted follower”? And what does that phrase mean in the context of a career like Powell’s?
Where We Sit Is Where We Judge Our Leaders
One clue comes from an offhand comment a few sentences later. The reviewer seems disappointed that (my emphasis again):
Powell—who...enjoyed remarkably high approval ratings for over a decade—chose not to run for and was never elected to any office. In some senses, Powell’s career is a story of what might have been. We are left wanting to know why.
This seems like a variant of the “Great Person” theory of history or leadership: if we hold that the Great People of highest repute in democracies are the most senior elected representatives, then Powell may be something of an underachiever.
It makes sense. Spaulding is a political scientist who has written on the Presidency (Truman’s) and the mythic-scale interaction of policy and the real world known as the Cold War. So this may put him into a relatable context for her.
This mirrors a very common point of view. How far someone’s gone in a competitive environment is a simple, common shorthand for achievement. It’s a very personalized measure of success.
How To Judge?
Having introduced this theme, Spaulding doesn’t pull the thread very far. She does compare Powell and General George C. Marshall, somewhat to Powell’s detriment:
When one considers [Marshall’s] term as Secretary of State on top of [World War 2], it becomes clear that he belongs in the pantheon of American statesmen.
Will Powell’s contributions to the Reagan and first Bush administrations, loyal service to presidents of both parties, and impressive professional accomplishments earn him a place in that pantheon? Still lacking history’s long view, it is too soon to say. [Long section on Matthews’ treatment of the Iraq War omitted.] From today’s vantage, though, it is unlikely that Powell will join Marshall—and Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt—in the company of America’s greatest statesmen.
It seems to me this begs the question of how we judge leaders--what are the mental yardsticks by which we measure their accomplishments? Do we even have a theory about what a leader should be?
If Marshall is to be judged less harshly, is it because he was inherently a better leader than Powell?
Or is it that he had the advantage of better timing or better luck, or some other intangible advantage?
Can we balance an oversized accomplishment (the Second World War and after for Marshall) or an oversized demerit (the second Iraq War for Powell) against the totality of someone’s record?
This is tricky--and Spaulding doesn’t give much of a sense of what guidelines or rules of thumb were being applied. This makes is very hard to argue with the conclusion.
Thinking about this sparked me to consider how I’d assess the aspects of Powell’s career highlighted in the review--what, basically, is my theory of what we can learn about leadership from Colin Powell’s career from the facts outlined in the review?
Personal or Institutional Success?
First, I think we should step back from the personalized type of measure of success described (caricatured?) just above. It’s close to the default setting in our culture, especially in politics. It has a huge drawback, unfortunately: history is full of senior figures no one wanted to follow in a crisis.
Rank and position don’t describe performance the way outcomes and impact do, particularly when dealing with those at the helm of large organizations. This requires us to assess their institutional impact. This is a subtle, tricky thing to gauge but is a better long-term measure of a leader. I don’t think it scales well, though, and it’s inherent very subjective.
This might be in part because it involves judging what someone did for someone else. Mistakes in the run-up to the Iraq War are things I can relate to. Powell’s managerial qualities at State or the profound impact he apparently had as Chief of the Joint Staff are not. Unless you were there, they’re just anecdotes.
Tentative conclusion: History may judge Powell harshly for the UN speech, but his leadership in key institutions may well be more significant for the institutions he led and the nation as a whole. Are they comparable in impact? Hard to say.
Context Is Underrated
Second, our celebrity-driven culture celebrates Great People, often rightly. We forget, though, that they’re often made or broken by mundane aspects of daily life in the institutions they came from.
Powell excelled at advancing through the military, and by all accounts was capable in his policy roles. In both cases, he did an excellent job of working the system to get support for himself and his positions:
While advancing in the Army, Powell benefited from direct interventions by career guides[.] If not for them and others...Powell might have plateau at the level of either Brigadier General or Lieutenant General. [A]nother essential influence: Powell’s wife, Alma. For Powell, part of “leadership is all about followership” means that his family, especially his wife, supported and enabled his successful career.
His career seems to demonstrate that skill in using the system and finding support networks, whether they’re institutional or personal, can scale with increased seniority. It is an open question whether they would have supported him as fully or successfully in other areas of effort, at still more senior (or simply more prominent) levels.
There’s good research on how superstars in the private sector often struggle when they move between companies that gives reason to actively doubt this. If history judges him harshly for his legacy as Secretary of State, which in many ways was the culmination of his whole career arc, what might have happened if he’d wound up in an office with less structure and support?
Tentative conclusion: Powell’s success in the Army and in cabinet positions would not automatically mean he would have had as much--or any--success in electoral politics.
Domain Competency Is Important
Another aspect think was critical for Powell’s success: each of his positions was built on his success in the previous one. This may sound obvious, but it helped position Powell for success in his more senior assignments. Powell did not go into being SECSTATE cold--he knew the policy arena from his time as CJCS and the National Security Advisor.
These roles in turn were built on previous jobs, going back to Powell’s initial experiences as junior officer in Vietnam. This no doubt influenced him later--consider the Powell-Weinburger Doctrine on when and how the US should fight wars.
Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett talk about the critical importance of knowing where your circle of competence is. It’s interesting to speculate about whether it’s coincidental that Powell’s most bruising experience, his tenure as SECSTATE was also the one least directly connected to his formative experiences in the military.
Tentative conclusion: With the caveat that I don’t know enough to have a real opinion about this, Powell’s struggle with the Iraq war run-up may have been a result of his operating, if not outside then at least on the margins of his talents and experience.
Conclusions
If my earlier points are true (or at least close to it, or somewhat realistic) it follows that the “exalted follower” comment at the beginning of the review is misplaced. I believe this is the case; from the information presented in the review and what I know of the man, it’s hard for me to make the case that he was in some way complacent or lacking in judgment.
I would not have expected to ever spend so much effort on a book review. But, my reactions to it forced me to consider things I wouldn’t have otherwise, for which I’m grateful--even if this post may err on the side of being critical.
Having tried to tease out some conclusions from the book review, the next step is to try to either validate or refute them. For this, I look forward to the opportunity to read further on Powell at some point in the near future.
Lessons From The Arches 50
Or, The Happiest I’ve Been To Be Almost Dead Last
06:17am - What began in the cold and dark ended in the cold and dark…
I found myself in the Utah desert on a cold, dark evening in late January 2020, bone-tired and cold after a hard day on my feet. I was buoyed by a quiet surge of profound elation that cut through the exhaustion. I was running through the cold darkness, exchanging encouragement and support with a total stranger I’d met a few miles earlier.
A small but lively crowd welcomed us, the rear guard of the back of the pack, as we ran into the glare of portable lights in a field alongside a highway, semis screaming past in the murky darkness. The goal: a portable arch decorated with a cheesy plastic banner. I crossed the sensor mat about 15 minutes ahead of the 12 hour cutoff time, placing 88th in a field of 94 finishers. My first fifty mile ultramarathon was over.
I had picked the race and the distance to celebrate turning 50 and to mark my planned retirement earlier in the month. Only one of those happened, but I was psyched to measure myself against the longest distance I’d ever run.
Along the long path of the late January day in the Canyonland scrub, I diverted myself from my tiredness and the accumulating physical misery by making a list of what I’d learned getting to the finish line. I had thought, and learned, a lot about performance during the journey to that day.
Thanks Where They Are Due
Several people helped make this possible and shout out are due to, among others my running coach, strength trainer, and physiotherapist. But helpful as they were, nothing mattered more than Wendy’s constant love, support and encouragement. Thank you!
And what I learned:
Don’t Go Alone If You Don’t Have To
“You got this!” is a popular greeting among trail runners, particularly when it looks like the other person actually doesn’t so much have it. We’re a surprisingly positive and social group, particularly on long runs. People routinely offer apparently sincere congratulations for doing better than they are. The first time someone gave me a shout-out for the great job I’d done passing them at the end of an off-road half-marathon, I almost ran into a tree.
The last five miles of the Arches 50 were...mentally challenging. The course crested a hill which gave a view of the finish line on the other side of a highway. Runners had to watch the lights get bigger and bigger, and then run past them for a good mile or so, looking for a craftily hidden pedestrian tunnel, cross under the highway, and then run back to the finish line they’d already passed once. It was dark again, it was cold, the road was covered with ice: ingredients for misery. But I had company, spending the last five exchanging support and encouragement with a total stranger. But for that hour or so, we were besties.
08:20am - The snow stopped and a stunning landscape emerged.
Slow Down To Go Further
In general in running, there’s a steep trade off between endurance and speed. A classic rookie mistake in races (been there!) is to go out too quickly, only to find a few or many miles later that you’re out of energy. What’s true tactically is also the case for strategy. Being in too much of a hurry to get to a big goal is a great way to burn out and practically an invitation to injury. So, maybe paradoxically, slowing down can speed your ultimate arrival at a goal.
I spent a couple of years building up to the 50 miler after my first marathon. If I go out of my mind and decide to do a century, it’ll probably be another year or two of training before I hit a start line. It can be an ego hit, to be sure--but ultimately, you have to be realistic about things. What’s a bigger hit: going slow, or a DNF from under-training?
Smile. Seriously.
People who know me will doubt this actually happened, or blame it on dehydration or some sort of hallucination induced by stress. But it’s true: I made a point of trying to smile during moments of pain. And at other runners, both passing me and who I was passing, while saying hello and offering canned encouragment. It really did, I think, help break up the monotony, not to mention the anger, stress, pain and other, similarly helpful emotions which took up most of the last, oh, 80-85% of the run. (Kidding. It was more like the last half.)
Seriously, though: endurance sports offer tons of opportunity to marinate in self-imposed mental and physical suffering. And if you let them, those things will undermine your effort in no time flat. So while I’m unlikely to mistaken for a mobile fountain of sunshine in regular life, I took every opportunity I could during the race to find something to smile at. It was really simple, and it worked super well. I may even try it during regular life, too.
Pick Your Battles
10:32am - One challenge turns into another one. The snow is starting to melt.
I started the day with three goals, agreed upon with my coach in the warmth of an Arlington, Virginia Starbucks—which seemed improbably far away in both time and space. I had a pace goal, a fuel and hydration plan, but above all was one imperative: “Finish.” Like all plans, mine tarted to collapse almost immediately when it came in contact with reality and I had to pick which parts to keep.
Keeping to the food and water plan was relatively easy. Adhering to it was a key to finishing, no question. “Finish” was harder to do than I’d expected, but it got dug into my brain and while I wavered, I never let go of it. The pace goal, though, disappeared in a swirl of pre-dawn snow. It was very quickly clear what had worked on the C&O Canal towpath was not going to hack it in a snow-covered desert that turned alternately muddy and then icy.
You Can Do More Than You Think
This entire venture was an experiment in pushing my boundaries. It took me probably the best part of thirty years of 5K/10K/13.1s to get to 26.2, but “only” two years and change to get to 50 miles. In 2015, I would have never thought I could have finished that distance, and it wouldn’t have occured to me to try. (Reasonable people may disagree about whether I’d have been better off if it hadn’t.)
And here’s the thing: success builds on itself. Overcoming small challenges leaders to the confidence to confront larger ones. This provides resilience when, inevitably, things also go wrong.
Listen To Your Body
12:10pm - Alleged dinosaur footprint on the slick rock.
There is incredible power in being aware of what’s going on around and inside you, without becoming too attached to it. Paying attention to the body’s messages and understanding them was critical. For instance, you can run through a lot of discomfort. But, you need to be able to tell the difference between merely routine pain and the early signs something is seriously wrong.
For example, several hours into the run my left IT band flared up where it joins the knee. This is really unpleasant--but I knew that it was something I could run through as long as I didn’t stop for too long or sit down. My mental dialog was “This is what it feels like when my ITB flares up. It’s painful, but I understand it.” On the other hand, when a searing bolt of pain shot up something that had never bothered me before, I recognized it as a signal to slow down. (I walked it out, and it went away.)
Your Emotions Will Trick You
The run was a roller-coaster. There were moments of euphoria (very short and not common, at least until the finish line) and moments of almost despair. The thing is, both were lies. They were, I’m sure, true enough in the moment I felt them. But neither extreme was a good guide to what I could or should do to finish the race. And following either of them would have been a disaster.
The truth for me was that for the most part, the run was a slog. I approached it with as much positivity and determination as I could--I remember standing on a bluff looking out over a spectacular landscape thinking, “I get to do this...wow...” What got me through was not either the high or low points, though, but in a sense the average of what I felt the entire time--
2:20pm - The weather starts to close back in.
It’s Worth Trying
We doubt ourselves for good reasons, and bad ones. The trick, I suppose, is in being able to tell the difference between them. That takes practice. I started this journey because, in a sense, I wasn’t sure I could do it. One of the things which helped bring me along was realizing that at some point, things had switched from “win or lose” to “win or learn”. If I hadn’t finished this run, I would have taken away from it lessons that would have still made it worth having tried.
The indelible part of this won’t be how I placed or any of the details. It’ll be that I tried, and I overcame my doubts.
If anyone takes just one lesson from this, I hope it’s that.
Annex: Elements of Performance
03:59pm - Still majestic.
On a technical level, these are the “other” set of things I learned. I’ll write about them more in future, and perhaps for different audiences. But all of them came together to help get me to the two finish lines: the one on the ground, and the one in my mind.
1. Mindful effort
2. Deliberate practice
3. Cross-train
4. Realism
5. Mindset
6. Train for the event
7. Respect limits
06:47pm - Dirty, tired, and very happy.