About Life

Time Elasticity

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It’s even cliché to talk about it since it’s so common, time flies by when you’re having fun or when a deadline is looming, time crawls slowly when you’re bored or are waiting for something.

Or rather, we perceive time differently depending on our mood, this is not a universal phenomenon, it’s caused by our unreliable perception of reality. This is good because anything that’s caused by our brain, can be controlled by us to an extent.

I used to think that I couldn’t achieve anything useful if I didn’t have a block of two or three hours free for it. I have been changing that and taking advantage of even 5 minutes in between tasks to move forward at least a little bit. It makes a difference in how I perceive both how much time I need for tasks and how fast/slow time goes by.

Changing our attitudes in a simple way can help us alter our perception of time to our advantage.

About Life

Gearing Up

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I have been working through all the courses in Zwift, trying to complete all of them. I have completed a lot of them already but some of the later ones are hardcore and it’s probably going to take a few attempts and some more training to be able to finish it. It doesn’t matter though, I don’t have a deadline and every time I fail, I will gain fitness and insight for the next try.

I don’t recognize myself, the person who just wrote the paragraph above, the person who did extra time on the trainer today, who is this guy? If you asked me a year ago that I would be training at 5am 6 days a week and doing extra, on purpose, I would have told you to seek help for your delusions. Something has been clicking ;ate;y and definitely clicked more today when I finished my goal for the session and decided to not only go on, but to double it. I am enjoying this pedaling pain and it’s so strange.

MusicUncategorized

Secret Passage

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Week 2 of my challenge to release one track per week.

If you like this you can save it and listen to it on your favorite streaming service, click here for more info.

About Life

The Past Doesn’t Exist

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The past doesn’t exist anymore. It was a fleeting moment that for a second was the now. It turns into a story we tell ourselves through the lens of our imperfect memory and our biased feelings.

Does it make sense to keep reliving it? to keep replaying the suffering that is no longer there? I don’t think it does and even though it’s difficult, the practice of letting the past be is one of the best things we can do for ourselves. Accept and move on.

About Life

The Future Doesn’t Exist

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We spend a lot of our time worrying about the future, anticipating what’s going to happen and pre-reacting to imaginary scenarios. The problem is that when we do this we feel all of the stress, anxiety and dread. We feel all of this in advance, because of something that hasn’t even happened yet.

Think about this for a minute, we suffer because of things that do not exist. The future hasn’t happened yet, it literally doesn’t exist.

What’s the point of feeling all of these negative emotions and their tangible effects on our bodies, for something that is just a phantom?

About Life

Saying Goodbye To Inanimate Objects

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Someone broke my favorite kitchen knife today. I had been using this knife for years, almost every day. Seems silly but it is one of my prized possessions because of how much value it has brought to my life. It’s just a knife thought. I bought it at the store as part of a set and it doesn’t have a history. It’s just a knife that I bought.

It was an accident and the person who broke it was very apologetic. I told them that it’s ok and I would try to fix it later, after all it’s just a common knife. This got me thinking about how I would have reacted to this a few years ago, I would have been angry, would have probably had lots of negative thoughts about this person for being careless and this simple event would have ruined my day. But it’s just a knife, and I can probably repair it.

It’s strange to think about how our reactions to loss, however trivial, can change dramatically if we reframe our outlook. It was nobody’s fault that this happened, even if they could have been more careful, it’s not a huge deal and using a different knife won’t change my life in any significant way.

But I would have reacted with anger in the past, not only about this but about many things that used to fill me with rage but now don’t phase me, because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter, we will survive and overcome.

About Life

Three Questions

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It is very important to look back. Not to beat yourself up about what went wrong, but to recognize what went right.

This doesn’t mean that we should ignore what went wrong, on the contrary, we should always review it and extract learning opportunities. Don’t dwell on what you messed up, not the lessons and move forward.

At the same time, we need to recognize all the things that we did right and figure out how to continue doing them well while correcting with the lessons learned from the mistakes.

The three questions that will help us reset and rebalance our perspective:

  • What went well?
  • What went wrong?
  • What will I do differently this time?

Do this regularly, at least weekly, and you will notice a gradual but consistent improvement in everything you do.

About Life

Listening To Your Own Advice

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Helping people is a very good way to help yourself. If you are giving and willing to support the people around you, it does wonders for your mood and your outlook.

I have been reading a lot about motivation, mindset and focus in the last year and have amassed a huge arsenal of ideas, techniques and advice. I am able to help people with these topics but have found myself in a strange situation: I am not listening to myself.

Many times I come out from a session where I’m helping someone with their focus problems, and then after the session waste an hour or two being unfocused for no reason. Why? If I have the tools to help myself get back on track, why do I let myself be sidetracked like this?

It’s very interesting to think about how we kind of assume that the rules apply to everyone else but us. This is incorrect most of the time and we should trust ourselves and trust the process.

About Life

The Problem With Comfort

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A year or so ago I started meditating. I had always dismissed the practice as some mystical nonsense and never gave it a chance. I later read about some of it’s benefits and scientific studies about it and decided to give it a chance.

I started slowly with 3 minute sessions that were extremely difficult for me, it’s amazing how uncomfortable it is to be alone with your thoughts some times. I have always “needed” some sort of background noise at all times, slept with the radio or TV on and always carried a portable music player of some kind. Silence has always made me uncomfortable so that was more of a challenge than I expected.

Eventually I was able to move on to 5 minute sessions and finally settled with 10 minute sessions. I currently have a 388 day streak in Headspace, but that’s not really reflective of how I have been doing the practice for the past few weeks.

I got too comfortable. I decided that spending the 10 minutes in the morning was no longer necessary, I thought I maybe didn’t need it anymore at all, but decided to move the meditation to right before bed. I technically kept meditating every day but not really, because I would fall asleep before finishing it. It became background noise.

Coincidentally, I’ve been experiencing unusual anxiety for the past couple of weeks and it took me many days to put two and two together and realize that the increased anxiety was related to my half-assed pseudo meditation.

I got too comfortable and took the benefits of consistency and mindfulness for granted, and have been paying the price for weeks. After returning to my daily proper morning meditation sessions, it has been night and day. I no longer have the augmented anxiety that I was experiencing.

The comfort zone is dangerous and it can make you dismiss and underestimate the actual practices and habits that got you there, then it can set you back a few steps. It is a lesson to be learned many times.

MusicUncategorized

Abandoned Hospital

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Week 1 of my challenge to release one track per week.

I have been working on music making for a few years, mostly on short streaks and without a system. A few months ago I discovered Mike Monday and found that his systems and coaching are extremely useful and the process he teaches just clicked for me. After a few weeks I have a dozen tracks ready for release and a sustainable system to continue releasing this.

Mike and some of the other coaches are going to do a project to release one track a week next year, and I decided that I will do the same, but I won’t even wait until next year, so I will be releasing a piece of music here every Sunday.

If you like this you can save it and listen to it on your favorite streaming service, click here for more info.