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Looking back at the first five months of the year, what didn’t work?

One of my goals when taking the classes was to engage and to find community— unfortunately, none of the classes led directly to finding a new community. All of the literature classes I took were online, which is super convenient, but not a great way to meet people. I found myself frustrated with how some of the technology was managed, and am going to be a lot more selective about what I’ll sign up to do online. This is also just reflective of what I mentioned in the prior post— I’m ready to direct my own energy. I found myself itching to read certain books, but not having time to do it because my reading time was already committed to the classes. That doesn’t feel like the right way to nurture my own intellectual growth and activity.

The yoga toxicity book club is part of why I’ve shifted more toward solidcore— while I did like the teachers who led that specific class, and the people who attended the course also seemed great, it really brought up more questions for me about why or how I should be engaging in that community and tradition. I’m not sure of the answers right now, but it seems best to focus on fitness in a setting that is less potentially problematic. I will probably explore more about what I learned, and need to still learn, here at a later date.

The other thing that only sort of worked was the not-shopping choice. On the one hand, it did last a while— I’d say through April, I didn’t buy much. But I made up for it in May, when spring weather led me to do a bunch of online shopping. I’m really happy with the things I added to my wardrobe, but it’s definitely more than I need in an strict sense of the word.

There was also at least a little re-organizing that happened, but I do think I’ve gotten better at limiting that as an all-encompassing activity. It’s much more likely to be something I do with ‘extra’ time, right before we leave for an appointment, or while I’m on a large conference call at work.

Lastly, why did posting here not happen? I’m not 100% sure— partially it was that it is such a new and different activity. I’m not used to sharing much publicly; I’ve never participated in social media in a meaningful way. I’m also not 100% sure what I want to share, what formats, what topics, etc. But I think I’ve realized that if I don’t start, I won’t figure out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve started working through the exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way as a method to better understand what is holding me back, and learn what works for me.

So far this year, a lot of learning about what works, what doesn’t, and how to keep growing.

Well, that didn’t go as planned.

The problem with choosing too many troubles at once is that eventually, you’ll be asked to choose between them. So I did, and the blog lost the battle.

An update on the original troubles chosen (other than the blog which was, obviously, cast aside):

The health and fitness focus is still going well. I started the year doing yoga, solidcore, and taking lots of long walks. Now, I’ve now shifted to focusing on solidcore plus gardening/weeding (more on that later!). Longer walks happen on occasion, but it’s driven by activities I want to do, rather than walking for its own sake.

Combined with dietary improvements like heavier protein intake, I’m feeling pretty good about my fitness progress. I can now do at least part of the solidcore class using full-body planks, not kneeling planks, and I use the handlebars much less for support in lunges. Also, thanks to supplements that my doctor prescribed, my cholesterol has improved significantly, and my blood sugar is much less prone to spiking. I’ve got an annual check-up coming up in July, and then in August I’ll be having a minor surgery to remove a lipoma. I also had my first mammogram in the spring. Exciting stuff! Mostly invisible to outside observers, as I haven’t lost any weight or anything, but I feel much better, which was the main goal.

On the classes— these took up a lot of time and mental energy in the early spring. Am I glad I did them? Yes. Will I write about them here? Also yes. But am I glad they are over? Definitely. By the end, as I looked at the future available classes, I was glad there weren’t more that I wanted to take. I am ready to direct my own intellectual activity more, and less interested in letting others lead the way.

More on what that will look like soon, stay tuned…

One would think that, having chosen a course of action, having then researched, planned, and committed to particular execution steps, that now would be the easy part. Execute, execute, execute. I am very good at executing at work. Or I was in the past. I may be overestimating my current skill level.

Regardless, the issues I’m facing now, the troubles that I need to overcome, are a combination of distraction and needing to form new habits.

Starting with distraction: It is much harder to focus on history books than romance novels, harder to commit to reading a description of 9/11 than a NYT article on habits. I find myself picking up my phone ‘just to check’ something a million times, needing tea, or a bathroom break, or to add or remove a blanket.

Yesterday, I tried using the QualityTime app on my phone, but got freaked out when I couldn’t find any emergency settings to stop a phone break if I genuinely needed to use the phone. So that’s uninstalled. I just signed up for a month’s free trial of Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. I’ve meditated in the past, and used the free Insight Timer app, so I’m not sure if I’ll want a subscription when the trial period ends. But, either way, returning to a meditation practice might help with my current inability to focus.

Sort of relatedly, forming habits that will enable focus and completion of the work I need to do is a challenge! When I’ve been accustomed to letting my attention be driven by my devices and whatever is going on in the world, consciously choosing to do particular activities at particular times is difficult. I sit here and don’t know if right now I should focus on doing my reading and critiquing for my writing group on Thursday, or my reading for the Mikhail Bulgakov class, or my reading for the American Detox reading group. I guess this is where time block planning comes in. I need to figure out how much I can read in a particular amount of time, probably specified by subject/topic, and then allocate accordingly. As it is, I have no idea how long any of this will take, so I’m flying completely blind. Last weekend, my reading for the first American Detox session took most of Saturday, and the reading was not that long. But it was hard to read, from an emotional standpoint, and so I let my mind wander repeatedly.

At least for this evening, I’m not going to plan things out too much. I’m going to work on some focused rituals — tea, candles, a comfortable seat with lots of pillows and a heated blanket— and see if that helps to stay present with the MB reading. Maybe I’ll at least time myself to see how much progress I make on pages too.

So, what trouble am I choosing? What direction am I headed, what do I want to become?

First, I’m choosing the trouble of writing this blog. I would like to become a person who has a wide network of people to talk to about areas that interest me, and one way to signal what kind of things I’d like to think about is to publicly share my ideas and questions.

Second, I’m focusing more on my health and fitness. I’ve started seeing doctors who focus on functional medicine— not just curing disease, but actually working toward better health and prevention— and returned to group class exercise after an almost complete hiatus during the pandemic.

Third, I’ve signed up for a number of classes. Two are on Eastern European/Russian literature, one is on the toxicity of the wellness industry, particularly within the yoga community, and another is on a novel related to the environment/climate change. My goal with these classes is not just to provide some rigor and structure to my reading, but also I’m trying to engage more actively, to be part of a community of learning. It’s always on my ‘someday, maybe’ list to get another degree, but I’m not sure if that’s necessary, or if I should just be more active within less formal learning environments.

Perhaps more importantly, there are a number of things that I often trouble myself about that I’m working to actively ignore. I’m not purchasing anything new for my wardrobe— I have tons of clothing, much of which admittedly doesn’t currently fit, but I’m not working to optimize, improve, replace, etc. We’ll see how long I can hold out— I caught myself the other day going through a favorite website’s clothing and filling up a cart. But instead of hitting purchase at the end, I just abandoned it. It’s key for me to remember that I have plenty of stuff to wear, and I was never a particularly ‘trendy’ dresser anyway, so it’s not like the style fluctuations matter all that much.

Second, I’m limiting the time I spend optimizing organization. This is a FAVORITE activity of mine to feel productive, and it’s highly satisfying to look at a cleaned up space when I’m done! But the truth is that doing that often crowds out higher value activities, activities that admittedly take more energy. So I’m doing my best to limit organization work to time that would otherwise be completely wasted— the 15 minutes before we have to leave to go somewhere, for example, when there’s no point in starting any deep work, but I do have things I can do that are more useful than scrolling on my phone.

Finally, I’m also avoiding buying stuff for the house as much as possible, too. I’m contemplating publishing a list of everything I do buy, to hold myself accountable for the expenses and make sure I feel like I need a thing enough to tell others about it.

“The secret to fulfillment is ”to choose trouble for oneself in the direction of what one would like to become.“ This is a quote from Winifred Gallagher’s book Rapt of the psychologist Nicholas Hobbs.

I love the phrase “choose trouble.” It doesn’t sugarcoat the process of becoming with imagery of passion, love, or joy. Becoming something other than what we are today may be unpleasant, uncomfortable, or even, at times, misery-inducing. But perhaps it will only be boring, or take longer than we’d like. It’s important here that the key word is trouble: not anguish, suffering, torture. We may experience discomfort, but it’s unlikely that we’ll die along the way.

Trouble is a codeword for the process of becoming. It is a process, and there is no guarantee that you’ll be able to complete it. You can aim in a particular direction, but you may not get there. You may stop along the way- due to insurmountable roadblocks, or because a turn in the road looks appealing. If the road branches, which route will you choose? Does it matter? You may not know until you get there.

You also may not enjoy the process, which leads to a key question: do I not enjoy it because it is new and I am uncomfortable not being an expert? Or do I not enjoy it and that means I should rethink my idea of what I’d like to become?

Choosing trouble is a choice regarding what types of problems we’d like to solve. We are essentially saying “I’d like to become a person who knows how to do this sort of thing or who is undeterred by this kind of issue.” What kind of problems do we want to build expertise in?

I have spent many years solving particular problems at work, but they don’t represent all the things I want to become. I’ll spend my time here choosing different trouble, in the hope of becoming something more.