organisation – untitled atm

091b – want to work on reactivity and patience

Last four days have been a lot.

How much time should we be spending with people whose values don’t align with us? Is love ever enough? If values don’t align and the people aren’t open to open, honest conversations about these things I’m starting to think that’s very high incompatibility. I’m talking about people related to family, of course. With friends or peers, (personally) it’s easier to put distance between the connection in such cases. In that case we also naturally tend to gravitate towards people with similar values. At least as adults.

I guess I’m recognising a set of people with whom my values don’t really align much and so I must now actually take some action to not put myself through the trials and tribulations of attempting to find middle ground on a regular basis. Maybe once a month meetings are enough.

Self-awareness is also key, I think. Only through self-awareness can one know what their values are and whether their actions, expression and behaviour are aligning with them or not. It’s okay if they don’t, it’s a difficult task, but I think it should be okay to talk about the gaps.

At the end of the day, talking about the gaps is what I often like to do but most people don’t want to talk about them. I don’t know. Need to find better framing and articulation for this.

I find myself getting reactive in debates and discussions, still, and I’d like to not be that way. EVEN IF the other person is the one who gets reactive first, I’d like to patient, slow, and I’d like to take my time to respond. I know this is a long journey but I’d like to try to be better with reactivity.

I don’t know if I have enough for 500 words today. I thought I did, but I spent a lot of time talking to my sister today morning which now leaves me with not much to process. Things are pretty okay, I suppose.

Pretty happy with my social circle and setup here, also happy with some of the routines that are not setup and have become somewhat automated. In terms of systems, I do want to work on things like organisation, cleanliness, decluttering (especially electronic and digital decluttering), but these are just vague ideas, I’m not sure what it is exactly that I’m trying to fix. Is it even broken? I don’t know.

I’m also happy with the kind of work, goals, wishes and plans I have for the next few months. Everything that I’m working towards are things I’m passionate about, and that feels quite amazing actually. I realise that I actually don’t mind doing the 10-20% of the “not so exciting” parts of a thing, when the thing itself is good enough.

“(How) can we teach inclusivity” is something that someone asked me the other day and I have a very strong belief that we can. This person was coming from a space of “we can’t, really” and that was our primary point of disagreement. Maybe I’ll think / write more about this.

Alright, that’s it from me today. Happy February, folks!

065b – building virtues

I often talk in detail about my vices on here. But the other path to self-improvement is (of course) also building virtues. And that’s understandable, some of my vices were bigger (or more important for me to look at) than these “lacking” virtues. I also felt like reducing certain vices might automatically help me be better at certain things.

And maybe, to an extent, that’s true.

But I really want to list down some of the qualities I really want to keep in my conscious realm so that I can regularly work on them in small or big ways.

Patience (and Curiosity)

This is the more urgent, most important one for me. I think I have improved on this a lot already, but there’s so much more work to be done here.

I find myself getting really antsy whenever I feel misunderstood, or understood but “not fast enough”. I even want to be calmer during discussions that are important for me. I want to use more “I” statements as much as I can. I want to approach conversations from a place of curiosity and understanding, and not just attempt to disagree and talk about what “I” think.

I think some of the other things that I’m doing will also help with this a lot (and will feed into them as well). For example, getting better at instruments, getting better at my “worldly” desires not being met (right away, or at all).

(Heated) group discussions or arguments with people I care about is where this bothers me the most because I just end up feeling bad about both the aspects— 1. That I lost my cool and 2. That I might have hurt or made someone else feel bad.

I know it’s okay to “feel” strongly about certain things, but overall I really want to get better at hanging around in the space between the feeling and the response. That’s where all the magic lies, I think.

Discipline

I’m actually not very sure about this yet. I am certain this is important and can play a big role on my overall productivity, satisfaction and general health (physical and mental).

When I say discipline I primarily mean sleep. Everything else I’m still okay around.

But there is also this very real thing that I really am naturally more productive post noon. Earlier, I used to think this is a circadian rhythm thing but here in India there’s also very real practical factors around it all. There’s definitely a lot more distractions during the day-time (especially noise and domestic workers coming in and out sometimes). I get a good amount of work done from 10pm-2am.

The only way productivity would remain the same if I were to shift my sleep schedule is if I were able to wake up by 8 am latest. This would mean sleeping by midnight latest. Don’t think that’s something I can do at the moment. But I suppose I can still set a limit of 3 am on the “when should I sleep by?” question. This involves getting enough of writing, music and reading done in the day for me to feel satisfied.

Time-Management

Since I’m not yet ready to cut out some of the things I’m wanting to fit into my day, the only other option I have is to get better at “managing” my time. I know that I need at least one (ideally two) focus blocks of 2-3 hours in a day. This means no people, no texts, no social media, etc. I get one block from around 2-5pm on most days and I get another from 10-2am. These two blocks, ideally, can be enough.

Okay, just updated my calendar. I think I need to get stricter with keeping this updated.

Organisation

This I suppose is the sister virtue to time-management. Here’s what’s been working so far:

I’m satisfied with my “noting down” ideas pipeline.

When it’s thoughts I just drop them in my Notes app (mostly on my phone) OR sometimes if I’m not using my phone I’ll use my journal. And I regularly scan my journal for any leftover ideas and transfer them to my Notes app.

When it’s music stuff or if I don’t feel like writing I simply use voice memos. This works fine too.

Also sufficiently satisfied with tracking my expenses.

Only other thing that eats up some time and bandwidth is planning for social outings. I do of course like to spend a good amount of time with friends and family and planning for that sometimes gets to me. But I don’t think I can change this TOO much right now, so maybe it’s fine. Maybe working on time-management might just suffice.

055b – quietening voices

I spend half of my time trying to quieten the voice in my head. My self-talk isn’t too negative (ie I have worked hard on this and at least that’s good), but there is still a lot of talking happening, I don’t think it’s very helpful. However, it’s a little tough to keep yourself engaged with something all the time. I wish doing nothing wasn’t so effortful.

I was working on a painting today but it didn’t turn out very well, so that bummed me out for quite a bit. But then I was going through an old sketchbook (not super old, maybe from a few months ago) and I discovered a painting that I really liked. In theory I know that making a lot of “bad” art is the only way I’ll also be able to make some good art, and all that’s fine, but it’s still a bummer when you don’t like the end result.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to focus enough on a single form of creative expression for long enough that I can consider monetising it. This could just be the anxiety talking, or maybe I genuinely need some help with this.

Feeling more and more settled in my new place with each passing day though, and that feels good. I’m hosting a housewarming thing over the weekend and definitely looking forward to it.

I finally finished reading “Normal People” (having seen the show before made the read a little slow) but needless to say it was a great book. Sally Rooney’s definitely getting added to my favourite-authors list.

Having time to myself (ie time for emotions and art) has been great, but I do think I need to increase my chores/errands output a little bit too. Not very sure about how to go about doing this. Maybe I need to get more organised in some ways.

When I consume great content (ie content that impacts me in a unique way), it’s always accompanied by a desire to be making great content, but I’m not able to follow-through on execution, not much. I wish the line between self-compassion and complacency was not as fine.

Despite me having having moved out, the presence of my grandmother is just too strong. I feel bad for her mental state, but I also know I don’t have any solutions for her. She calls me once every 2-3 days and I try to talk to her but it’s just incredibly frustrating. I think knowing that she affects both my mom and dad so negatively makes me additionally unaccommodating of her.

Anyway, despite all this, I think I feel sufficiently grounded on a day-to-day basis. I’m about to turn 28 soon! I did some yearly reflection the other day but I want to make some more time for it. Might share that next post.

Good week ahead!

(Wrote this last night but forgot to hit publish, so here I go)