Sometimes you just have to buy a book so you can write in it, highlight passages, and set it aside for the future.
Learning From Others
Frightful Thought
From The Art of Manliness,
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'” –Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
TAoM asks: How would you live if you were to repeat this life, as it is lived this time, over and over again for eternity?
This is frightful. How does the prospect strike you?
Resolution: Tracking
Jerry Seinfeld is attributed with popularizing the “don’t break the chain” method of developing habits/stopping procrastination/personal motivation. He denies doing or inventing this. (Choose your own reference.) No matter, his name is attached and people are marking calendars. Me too, kinda.
So what is this? There’s something you want to do, to get better at. You want to do this whatever every day. Get a wall calendar. On the days you do it, mark the day with a red X. After a few days you’ll be motivated to keep growing that chain of Xs. That’s how it was described to me.
Therefore my (only) resolution for 2018 is to track ten activities I wish to develop into daily habits.
At the start of 2017 there were eight daily habits I wanted to develop. I adapted the practice. In a sketchbook journal I ruled out a grid on the last page, fitting a full month to the page. On days the activity was performed, an X was entered. Of the eight, four have become daily habits. Two are more than once a week habits. Two still need attention.
It worked well. So my only resolution for 2018 is to track the ten activities I’ve identified as desirable habits to strengthen. I am not resolving, for example, to exercise each day. I am resolving to note every day whether or not I did exercise.
A daily review of “did I …” is a motivator to do. Especially on days when most of the items merit a check mark. There’s an impulse to “do them all.” Tracking induces action.
This photo shows the tracking sheet for part of last February. Yes, the third from the right needs some attention. It’s on this year’s list.
Should
Time to write! It will go badly, and there is so much I SHOULD be doing around the house and there are 2 distracting 8 yo boys + 2 dogs in the living room and I need some exercise, but am going to write, because shoulds are shit.
~ Anne Lamott
Don’t should on yourself.
Tamales!
Throughout Latin America it is high tamal season. Remezcla has an article featuring ten diverse examples, A Journey Through Latin America’s Diverse and Delicious Tamales. Only ten? As you might expect the comments are filled with questions, Here are the first few:
I’m hoping some of those people will visit here an brag on their favorites. If we’re lucky…