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Tag: Analogies

Building Bridges Takes Two

Published on February 20, 2022

Worth noting about bridges: it takes effort from two sides.

You can construct a bridge a majority of the way from one side towards the other—but, without the consent from the other side—the bridge will remain incomplete.

And an incomplete bridge isn’t a bridge at all.

It’s an untravellable construction site.

How hopeful or desperate you might be for the bridge to be completed is irrelevant.

What’s relevant is the other side’s reciprocated response.

Without that, we might as well build our bridge(s) elsewhere.

Because untravellable construction sites don’t do anybody any good.

Especially not those who commit all of their resources to doing the constructing.

Unlocking Productivity

Published on February 18, 2022

Speeding up when you’re busy is like:

  • Flooring it on a car that’s overheating
  • Trying to push mudded pond sediments to the pond floor
  • Opening more applications on an overwhelmed computer

When you’re busy, unlocking productivity happens from slowing down.

Not the opposite.

Stale Relationships

Published on February 17, 2022

It can be easy to take our loved ones for granted.

Especially when they seamlessly become a part of our daily lives.

Like running water, our internet connection, and the roof over our heads—we soon enough just expect them to be there when we wake up in the morning.

And the more that becomes the expectation—the less gratitude we’re likely to show.

Until eventually, we show no gratitude at all.

Until suddenly, we start letting stupid small things take control of our minds and turn what was once gratitude for wonderful miracles into generally misguided feelings of spite, frustration, and disregard.

And for no other reason than because we forgot.

  • We forgot to see our loved ones with fresh eyes.
  • We forgot to hear our loved ones with fresh ears.
  • We forgot to deliberately prioritize the miracles over the minutiae.

And slowly, slowly—our forgetfulness becomes the very reason that fresh love turns stale.

Just as surely as the fresh fruit that sits in our fridge for too long will go stale—so too will the unattended relationships.

We must learn to keep breathing fresh life into what’s at risk of expiring.

Because love, no matter how strong it starts out, can always become stale with time.

The Marathon Of Your Life

Published on February 16, 2022

Running a marathon is hard.

Taking one stride, however, is easy.

The reason marathons are hard is because they are composed of around 39,733 consecutive strides.

Taking that many strides in a row will take an incredible toll on even the most fit amongst us.

And to those who aren’t fit, prepared, or mentally calloused enough (as David Goggins would say)—taking that many strides in a row simply isn’t possibly.

Until it is.

See, most of us are smack in the middle of marathons right now.

They are the marathons of our life. For example:

  • We’re on day 47 of our 2022 goal streaks.
  • We’re on day 707 of managing our mental health amidst a global pandemic.
  • We’re on day _____ of our careers/educations (I’m on day ~6,022 of being a professional Martial Arts Instructor).

And we have a lifetime of strides ahead of us.

If we start running too fast on any of these days, we’ll impact our performance on the following days.

If we succumb to distraction and comfort and stop taking strides at all, we’ll never finish our marathons.

And while cheering other people on from the sidelines can be fun and rewarding—it pales in comparison to the joy and reward that comes from crossing the finish line ourselves.

The average person lives 25,915 days.

This is your marathon.

Once you identify what you want your strides to represent—your life’s task becomes easy.

Just one stride each day to contribute to the beautiful accumulation of strides that is your marathon.

And no sense in rushing to this ending (your death).

Better would be to find ways to maximally align with and enjoy each stride.

Godspeed.

Optimization Happens Last

Published on February 14, 2022

Optimization is the last step of any process.

Be it building a house, starting a business, creating a new habit etc.—the fine tuning should never happen first.

  • When it comes to building a house, who cares about auto-timed lighting as a means to optimizing the house’s energy efficiency—if there are no walls.
  • When it comes to starting a business, who cares about the color of the checkout button as a means to optimizing clicks—if there is no marketing plan in place to drive visitors to the business’ website.
  • When it comes to creating a new exercising habit, who cares about the exact rest time allowed in-between sets as a means to optimizing workout pace—if you don’t even have the habit of showing up to the gym.

In today’s world, optimization is an obsession.

Many of us are constantly on the hunt for (and are being bombarded with) optimization “hacks,” fine-tuning tricks, and hot trends that can produce any kind of measurable result.

But, without the foundation set—without the “big” things already in place—it’s ultimately just wasted time.

It’s like trying to optimize a lump of coal. You can try to clean, cut, and polish it all you want—it’ll still end up mostly as it started—coal.

If, however, you subjected that lump of coal to enough time under pressure, it’ll eventually transform into a diamond.

And diamond is what gets optimized.

Ego vs. Self

Published on February 12, 2022

Underneath all of the loud, invasive, and pushy mental chatter is a voice that’s quiet, subtle, and powerful beyond measure.

That quiet voice is our authentic, “capital S” Self.

The loud, obnoxious voice is our Ego.

The Ego is hyper-comparative, is easily manipulated by outside influences, and desperately seeks control over the mind.

The Self is comparison-resistant, requires a deep impression for change from an outside source, and (fundamentally speaking) is the mind underneath all of the noise from the Ego.

It is as though the Self is the news of the world and the Ego is the news network that reports primarily for ratings.

Let the Ego take control and you get never ending BREAKING NEWS cycles, short-lived (and quickly irrelevant) urgent stories, and “if it bleeds it leads.”

Let the Self guide you and you get deeply insightful stories, long-lived “evergreen” type content, and “the truth will set you free.”

The interplay between these two forces is ever-present and plays a significant role in how we experience daily life.

The Ego, when left unattended, will operate exclusively for ratings. And all ratings without a depth of content makes for a very superficial, flaky news network.

The Self, without the presence of an Ego, will operate exclusively for depth and truth. Which has its own drawbacks. Because all depth and no ratings (appeal to an audience) makes for a very small time news network.

The ideal is a type of harmonious relationship between the two.

We start by building a solid foundation of truth, identity, and understanding of the Self and then use the Ego (without letting it use us) to serve those truths in powerful, appealing ways.

Chugging Books

Published on February 1, 2022

Unpopular opinion: Read slower.

Forget 2x/3x-ing your speed.

Blasting through someone’s deep work is like dumping a gallon of water into your mouth all at once.

Drink deeply from the words that were carefully chosen for each page of any given book.

Finish each drop.