Category Archives: Uncategorized

Desire for things you can control

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To continue on with Aurelius thoughts, the one today is related to things you can control. I have a post-it to remind me to focus on things that I can control. Aurelius goes one step further to say to only desire what you can control.

This makes more sense to me as life goes on. I used to, or still, crave money. I want to be rich. But the more I pursued it, the more I hated my life and what I’ve become. Now, I want to only really focus on what I can control, which is at the moment, what kind of work I want to do, what kind of person I want to become starting now.

Most things are out of our control. A friend of mine even thinks at an extreme that maybe there is no such thing as free will anymore. I can see his point of view now. Even our own thoughts and actions may have been driven from years of social constructs or our guardians or the drive for money. And those are all driven by others, who were subconsciously driven by other actions around them. I could fall into a total rabbit hole thinking about this driving myself nuts. But I will not, because if there’s one thing I can control, it’s my thoughts right now, this second.

I’m not saying I can control my thoughts. If anything, I can’t control it at all. It bounces from one thought to another, from one place to another, whether I like it or not. Even writing this short piece, I’ve already checked my email twice, and looked up 100 times as people, or some random piece of object, float by.

It’s something i need to work on. Not only that, but I need to focus and understand and love whatever happens to me. Which floats back to my current favorite saying, amor fati. Amor fati, my friends.

Shrug Off the Value Judgements

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For the past 100+ days, when I come to write a post, I sit and ponder what the title should be. This made sense when I was writing about my Southeast Asia trips since I knew exactly what I was going to write about: a specific day from two years ago.

Since then, I’ve struggled to write anything substantive. I randomly write down a thought hoping it’ll become something interesting. I’m trying something new today, where I’m ” not adding a title, and just writing. In the end, it could come to something?

Maybe something better would be to write about what I want to do, or have accomplished, or have moved the needle on. Something that popped to mind is to write about a quote or idea from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I’ve been wanting to start my mornings by reading and digesting from a passage of Meditations. I suppose I could do this by first actually reading Meditations. Or by first trying to read in the morning. I gave up that practice a few weeks ago. I couldn’t keep up that habit. Come to think of it, I’ve broken every habit I’ve been attempting to make since the beginning of the year. The only habit I’ve continued to “do” is to write this blog. I put that in quotations because there have been several days or even weeks where my posts were single sentences written just to say i’ve written something for the day. Pretty weaksauce in my opinion. A reader would feel the same in my humble opinion.

I don’t have Meditations on me since I’m in Utah. And the reason why this actually popped to mind is because I got Darius Fox’s email for the day. He talks about Marcus Aurelius and the three rules that he lives by. You can read it here. I’m taking a page from his book by writing about Aurelius. And I’m going to directly take from his page the first rule that Aurelius speaks of.

“Suppress the value-judgment, and the ‘I’ve been hurt’ is also suppressed. Suppress the ‘I’ve been hurt,’ and the harm is suppressed.” (Book IV, 7)

We all make judgements, whether we want to or not. What I take from this quote is that it’s up to us to react to the value-judgement that comes from the event. It seems to follow the latin phrase “amor fati”- we make the best out of our situation. Maybe the event was I got cut off by a LA driver. I can add value-judgement to that event by thinking it made me angry. But really, that does no good. What can I do with that thought? It’ll just drive me to be more angry, or even worse, maybe I retaliate and cut him off. Or cut someone else off because I’m upset. That judgement has taken control of me. Instead, I could suppress the value-judgement and just let it be “pure” as Darius Foroux says. It happened, and I’ll shrug it off. Amor Fati, my friend.

Get … In?

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Thinking back on yesterday’s title to “get out,” made me think. Maybe I’m thinking about this incorrectly. I shouldn’t be getting out of anything. It’s like when I decided to jump into an ice cold pool every morning for 31 days straight. I didn’t have a mentality to get out of anything. I just jumped in everyday no matter how cold it was or how much I didn’t want to do it. Ironically, during those 31 days, I didn’t get sick. Outside of that, I got sick all the time in LA.

So, to writing, I should take the same approach as I did to swimming. Just jump in and get it done. In fact, I think I’m actually really good at “just doing it.” Haha. I’ll just do it.

Get Out

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Ugh. I don’t know what to write. Again. I feel like I have such little purpose. Without purpose, it’s hard to do anything that drives towards any future. It’s hard to make myself sit here and type up something when I don’t think it’s worth anything. I’m stuck in a constant loop and I can’t get out. I’m spinning round and round a black hole. I want to escape it’s grasp, but I’m stuck. I’m not falling in, but I’m not getting out. It’s an eternal spin without an escape.

I’m told it’s a decision to escape. It’s a decision to get out. It’s a decision to break this loop, this cycle. It’s my decision. I want to decide to get out. I decide to get out. And somehow, the next minute, I’m in the same place again.

Part of me even wonders if I should keep writing. My posts have been so short, lame, lacking effort. It shows my effortless soul, my non-purpose life. I’m going to get out. I know it. I just don’t know how.

Secret Sauce

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The way to write first thing in the morning is to not check email! Don’t look at anything on the phone! Don’t turn on the TV! Don’t do this, don’t do that!

I find the real way to start anything in the morning, is to just simply start. I actually did check my email briefly this morning. I also did check my phone and I replied a simple text to a friend about making a fantasy baseball trade. Then I opened this page to write. I had to think about what to write, which made me think, which meant I wasn’t writing.

Hence, just simply do. I’m just typing without really thinking. I want these daily notes to have some meaning and sense of direction one day. I’ll get there eventually, is what I keep telling myself. In fact, I feel that I have similar type posts about starting to write or whatever. Which I actually then never start.

Right now, my mind is starting to wander about the things I have coming up on this day. I can feel my mind trying to force me away from writing. It actually feels physical, like my mind is physically making my fingers heavy so I stop typing. It physically makes my eyes wander, so it can have something else to think about. This has been a challenge, even to only write these short 4 paragraphs.

My secret sauce to writing… is to just simply start. Look down and just go. Stop wondering about the what if’s. What if my writing sucks, what if I write about nothing. Because honestly, right now, my writing does suck, and I really am writing about nothing. I’m going to embrace that, understand that feeling, and simply keep going.

Post Post Post

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In Seattle today writing this post at an Embassy Suites. It took me 5 minutes to log onto their network. I find it strange that it took me that long to access the internet. It’s 2019. Should it really be that hard? There should just be internet everywhere and it should be accessible for free for anyone. When’s that going to happen? Google, hurry up and do your thing.

Also, I’m super excited to be working with Jay at Qualtrics. Really blessed to have this opportunity and looking forward to learning!