discipline – untitled atm

107b – reflections (i am decently happy with my life)

I suppose I’m happy— even content— with life lately. There is something precious about solving life problems in your own way and at your own pace. I’ve been stuck with work stuff over the last couple months and although it was weighing pretty heavily on me, today feels different. Of course, in therapy yesterday, we discovered that I do need more structure and discipline to get on with the things that I want to get on with.

That is, I have a sufficient amount of freedom, but perhaps enjoying it would require me to work towards sustaining it. I’ve been worried, but only today I what it’s been about— I like my life so much that I don’t want it to change too much. I don’t want to go back to a 9-5. I don’t want to go back to coding for a living, not yet.

I’d prefer to continue to grow as a musician and a writer. Yes, that’s what I really want. And of course, I want that to continue, I’ll need to think about the financials of it all. But perhaps the way to do it is not— like I thought— to find part-time work right away, but to complete the things that I think I need to complete— before I can accept that I absolutely need to focus on the financials.

I’ve been struggling with sleep too but the last two days have been better. I’m up before sunrise today, but somewhat rested, and that’s progress too. Sleep has been a major issue for the majority of my life, but this time the “problematic phase” came after a much longer stable phase. I suppose, that’s progress too.

I turned 29 a few months ago and I don’t know if I got much time to reflect on it all. I feel the age, I do. There are aches in my body that persist for much longer than they probably should, without any real cause. But there is also a stability to my nervous system that I haven’t experienced for so long before. Of course, there are probably other factors involved in both of these things, but I think part of it is related to age. I don’t feel old though— I feel younger than I felt at, say, 26.

Anyway, reflections are fun, though my inner critic says it’s probably another way for me to procrastinate on the things I must be doing instead. But to my inner critic, I’ll say: my days generally go better when I begin them with some kind of writing, so that’s what I’m trying to manifest. A decent day.

As I think about ending this, worries start to pop up again. But I don’t want to get on that thought-train. I want to stay here. Here, in this reflective space. I suppose making a task list for the day would help. Yeah, so that’s what I’m going to go and work on, next.

061a – training

Training hard, training myself to live in the present more and more. Yesterday was a very packed day, I chose action and activity a lot more over “sitting and thinking and doing nothing”. Tiring, but satisfying, in most ways. It’s a little scary to realise that most people might already be living this way, naturally. That they might be so well-adjusted that they don’t have to “do” this? Deliberately? Eh, I know this line of thinking isn’t very helpful, but it’s alright.

This week and the previous week has been more action-oriented, for sure, and I think it’s been good that way. Making stuff can be addictive though, and I do have a tendency to go all in, even at the cost of food, health, sleep, social needs and/or other healthy habits. Don’t want that for myself. Want to maintain balance even when I’m inspired and active with “work”.

I’ve had a couple of really crazy nights, I think I had “trips” without any intoxicants, I’ve experienced some new feelings (mostly positive) over the last couple days, I don’t know whether I just thunk myself into this new territory or whether they were real, only time can tell, but it was interesting, at the least.

Two conflicts remain though:

Can I (and how) spare 3-4 hours a week for social work? I really want to, but how much do I want to? It’s draining for sure, but it’s also an opportunity, and it’s work that’s aligned with my values, I think if I set a schedule it shouldn’t be tough. Let’s figure this out this week.
Do “good” work and share it is the advice Austin Kleon gives in his book “Steal Like An Artist”. I’ve always believed you get good at something only by doing a ton of it. But even after that (let’s say after a certain units of said thing), how do you differentiate between work and “good” work? I’ve been focused on action, and I’m going to continue to do that for the next couple months, see how much capacity I have for even just “doing the work”, but at some point I’m also going to have to start thinking about how to focus on doing “good” work, I guess.
Of course, would need to think more about what “good” even means. (To me, to him, to the world). Okay, it’s a fair concern, but a concern for future-me.

Anyway, as I was going over this book again, two of my other worries were somewhat addressed. People, other people I mean, people who haven’t engaged enough with “multiple passions” I suppose, always keep telling me I need to focus on something if I want to “get somewhere”. But Austin says you don’t need to cut out any of your interests. In fact, it’s futile and counterproductive to do so. So, I’m going to trust him on that.

The other thing which I’d been worried about (like I’ve mentioned in previous few posts as well) is the sharing aspect of creation. It’s tough not only because of the pipelines but also because sometimes the things you make/share don’t get enough engagement etc. But again, Austin (bless him lol) says that in the beginning, obscurity can be good. It keeps you free from pressure and expectations. You can experiment without thinking about it too much. So, yeah, I’m going to try to make the most of obscurity. If it ever lifts, great, if not, I still have everything I want.

Will end this with beautiful thoughts by John Kim: Give less fucks on what people think about you and where you should be in life and more (real) fucks on what you can do and how you can be present and be of service to yourself and the world. (I’ve modified these for myself but I’ve added a link to the post in case anyone’s look for motivation!)

056a – discipline and work-ethic

Four months of being in India. And a month of being in my new place. I think the place isn’t very good, like vibes are great, but the amount of dust in the house is definitely a major issue. Might need to get a deep cleaning done. But now I’ve committed to being here for a year, so let’s see how that goes.

Music stuff is top priority for September, I’m tired of just saying this to myself over and over. Really need to get on with it. But my throat’s been hurting for the last couple days so I can’t really be too hard on myself.

Going through a mini-heartbreak, but all said and done, it could have been much worse, so I think I’ll bounce back quickly enough from this.

Trying to get some movement on my todo list which has been pretty static for the last couple weeks. If I can get even a couple tasks done a day, I’ll be good. But so far I’ve not been able to manage that.

I was feeling a little sad today at the realisation that I might have a decent amount of talent and passion, but I seriously lack discipline and work-ethic. I don’t know, I think I used to be better (on this vertical) even until grad school and first year of work, it’s all been downhill since then. Of course, I’ve also made other developments, like with more anxiety and stress, my “need” (or want) to be disciplined etc had gone down as well. ie I remember a strong decline in “wanting” traditional forms of success and achievement and in general a decline in ambition which I thought I was fine with. But maybe at some point the pendulum swung too far.

Yeah, if I rate my work ethic as an 8/10 until early 2020, I’d say it declined quite a bit during the pandemic, and then a harsh breakup, followed by a long anxiety-depression period. I’d say it was down to a 6/10 during most of 2022. And then of course a major part of 2023 has been an attempt to just be absent from this evaluation altogether, so I think I can safely ignore these thoughts around inadequacy ie if they’re stemming from evidence collected only over the last few months. I was literally on a break.

If I think I’ve had enough of a break, and I want to work towards building my work-ethic again, I can try that. I can try being “serious” in September and see if that feels better.

Started reading attached because my anxious attachment symptoms have been showing up a lot lately. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the book (ie too pop-culture-y etc) but so far I’ve been liking it. It’s also quite affirming in some ways.

Things are mostly okay otherwise. Hope September is better than August!