A reader sent me this essay after I had written about midlife crises (and why we should want one)...
I think this piece helps encapsulate the need to continuously pick our head up, especially as we frequently go heads down into our different pursuits. A continuous cycle, back and forth.
I might add that a valuable process (at some point in here) isn't just recalibrating our activity with existing values, but recalibrating on the values themselves, too. i.e. "do we still believe what we used to believe?"
I appreciate the way you frame this as a habit and practice! And what you wrote about grief and perspective. I remember when my father died, I had such a seismic shift in what really mattered--but from the beginning I also knew that I would forget the feeling, and get angry about traffic and stressed over emails. And I have! But I like thinking about it on this small, iterative scale. Last year I bought a beautiful green half-hourglass for no reason, but I like the idea of using it to check in with what problem I'm solving and prioritizing my time with that level of micro- frequency.
The problem with this is the "should". Surely you "should" do with your life whatever you want to do with your life, and maybe this involves "wasting" time on the internet. IMHO a better "solution" would be an app that makes you fill in a questionaire after everything you watch. If you enjoyed it then it's hard to argue that you "should" be doing something else. If you didn't, as I suspect is usually the case with things like checking up on the news/politics, then ask yourself why you did it anyway because it sounds like a bad habit and you should probably be addressing the cause rather than just avoiding it by doing something that you "should" be doing.
Henrik, I love how you’ve highlighted the way our minds drift and offered a practical way to grab hold of them to redirect our actions. I’ve been doing something similar to try to understand why I drink alcohol. My experiment isn’t about mental drift, but habit changing.
The distant threat of increased chance of dementia worries me enough to think about lessening how much I drink, but not to completely stop. So, now I have to figure out what are my top priority reasons to drink and to stop drinking for lesser reasons. It’s been an odd exercise.
I still don’t know my priorities, but I do know that I turn to alcohol in mid-afternoon more times than I like to see on my spreadsheet. Studying the reasons for my column highlighted with blocks of bright red cells (my color code for drinking more than I think I want) seems to circle around either frustration with not being able to execute on a skill I’m trying to develop or a desire to celebrate.
You question is incredibly helpful because it points toward action. My tracking of my behavior shows that I have habits that lead to drinking more than I believe is good. The questions I now must ask myself when my habit for drinking is triggered are “Is this a good reason to drink?” “Are there good reasons to drink? “What would my best self do right now?”
Self-examination always reveals how much we can fine-tune who we are right now for an improved self in the moment. Why we don’t always choose the action that we are certain will lead us to a better self in the next moment is a real conundrum.
So much food for thought here. To restate your point: the only way to decide what to spend our time on is to be in touch with our values, which demands returning our attention to them again and again. Also, the world has reduced the friction of following certain distracting impulses and we must find ways to re-increase the friction between us and non-aligned choices.
But there are also values-aligned projects that may or may not bear the fruit we're looking for. I spent a long time working on a novel that I knew wasn't going to ever be good enough. I did it because I could learn the most about writing from pressing on rather than starting something else. Later, the opposite was true, so I stopped. Perhaps this is really just a flavor of the thing you described.
"Love is that which enabled choice." Love, attraction, resonance. We are resonant instruments and part of our work is to attune ourselves.
For the last ~6-12 months, I've been using two mental reminders to help me do, essentially, this essay.
One is a question: if I find I'm feeling resistant towards something I should do that I believe has value, I ask myself, "What else am I doing?" or "Is there something better I could be doing with my time?" For the latter, usually the answer is no; sometimes the answer is yes. For the former, the answers usually highlight how much better the thing I'm resisting would be for me to do than whatever unimportant thing I'm doing at the moment.
The other is a Buddhist mantra: "My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." This mantra reminds me that if I say I care about or am interested in xyz, then my actions should reflect that. If I say I care about being present, then actually listening to what my partner is saying is a better choice in the moment. If I say I value art, then engaging with art—any art—is a better use of my time than, say, scrolling mindlessly to find a vintage 90s concert tee.
Both of these reminders help me pause, reassess what I'm currently doing (or could be doing), and reframe my next choice based on my values/actual priorities. But I, too, forget all the time, and have to be reminded.
The manual upvote might not be such a bad idea! I find humour to be a great compass in general.
If I had to add reasons to everything that's on my to-do list, and half of them made me giggle, it would be pretty easy to sort the important stuff from the nonsense. Having said that, sometimes it's precisely the nonsense that reveals something important hidden in plain sight.
This practice reminded me of Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s teaching of continual awareness as a part of mindfulness practice. In particular, people are encouraged to periodically ask the simple question, “Am I aware?” even when out and about and off the mat and process their response.
In regards to Bieber's net worth, in one of my favorite group chats, a member will send a celebrity's name periodically, whether that be Sean Bean or 50 Cent or Carol Burnett, and then everyone guesses that person's net worth. Closest wins, no Price is Right rules. For me, this is now the only way to engage with celebrity net worths because it 1) reinforces the bonds with my friends, 2) shows me who in my circle is an out-of-touch moron, or perhaps spending their time much, much more wisely and 3) has some real delightful surprises.
This piece helped me get my priorities straight right away. Thank you for that. I also appreciate the reading list. (And keep up the good work!)
Johanna for the win
A reader sent me this essay after I had written about midlife crises (and why we should want one)...
I think this piece helps encapsulate the need to continuously pick our head up, especially as we frequently go heads down into our different pursuits. A continuous cycle, back and forth.
I might add that a valuable process (at some point in here) isn't just recalibrating our activity with existing values, but recalibrating on the values themselves, too. i.e. "do we still believe what we used to believe?"
Thanks for a great essay.
I always think to myself "What's the one thing I need to do right now?" An arrow cannot hit two targets.
I appreciate the way you frame this as a habit and practice! And what you wrote about grief and perspective. I remember when my father died, I had such a seismic shift in what really mattered--but from the beginning I also knew that I would forget the feeling, and get angry about traffic and stressed over emails. And I have! But I like thinking about it on this small, iterative scale. Last year I bought a beautiful green half-hourglass for no reason, but I like the idea of using it to check in with what problem I'm solving and prioritizing my time with that level of micro- frequency.
The problem with this is the "should". Surely you "should" do with your life whatever you want to do with your life, and maybe this involves "wasting" time on the internet. IMHO a better "solution" would be an app that makes you fill in a questionaire after everything you watch. If you enjoyed it then it's hard to argue that you "should" be doing something else. If you didn't, as I suspect is usually the case with things like checking up on the news/politics, then ask yourself why you did it anyway because it sounds like a bad habit and you should probably be addressing the cause rather than just avoiding it by doing something that you "should" be doing.
Loved Johanna’s second question. It’s such a good compass.
It reminds me how letting the right problems guide us can help cut through the noise and reconnect with what really matters.
And at the same time, asking if there’s an alternative becomes a guardrail, a way to check in with ourselves and stay grounded.
Henrik, I love how you’ve highlighted the way our minds drift and offered a practical way to grab hold of them to redirect our actions. I’ve been doing something similar to try to understand why I drink alcohol. My experiment isn’t about mental drift, but habit changing.
The distant threat of increased chance of dementia worries me enough to think about lessening how much I drink, but not to completely stop. So, now I have to figure out what are my top priority reasons to drink and to stop drinking for lesser reasons. It’s been an odd exercise.
I still don’t know my priorities, but I do know that I turn to alcohol in mid-afternoon more times than I like to see on my spreadsheet. Studying the reasons for my column highlighted with blocks of bright red cells (my color code for drinking more than I think I want) seems to circle around either frustration with not being able to execute on a skill I’m trying to develop or a desire to celebrate.
You question is incredibly helpful because it points toward action. My tracking of my behavior shows that I have habits that lead to drinking more than I believe is good. The questions I now must ask myself when my habit for drinking is triggered are “Is this a good reason to drink?” “Are there good reasons to drink? “What would my best self do right now?”
Self-examination always reveals how much we can fine-tune who we are right now for an improved self in the moment. Why we don’t always choose the action that we are certain will lead us to a better self in the next moment is a real conundrum.
Yours in self-experimentation!
So good
Wrote down "What problem should you be solving right now" on a sticky note on every desk I work on!
- deep admirer of your writing <3
So much food for thought here. To restate your point: the only way to decide what to spend our time on is to be in touch with our values, which demands returning our attention to them again and again. Also, the world has reduced the friction of following certain distracting impulses and we must find ways to re-increase the friction between us and non-aligned choices.
But there are also values-aligned projects that may or may not bear the fruit we're looking for. I spent a long time working on a novel that I knew wasn't going to ever be good enough. I did it because I could learn the most about writing from pressing on rather than starting something else. Later, the opposite was true, so I stopped. Perhaps this is really just a flavor of the thing you described.
"Love is that which enabled choice." Love, attraction, resonance. We are resonant instruments and part of our work is to attune ourselves.
For the last ~6-12 months, I've been using two mental reminders to help me do, essentially, this essay.
One is a question: if I find I'm feeling resistant towards something I should do that I believe has value, I ask myself, "What else am I doing?" or "Is there something better I could be doing with my time?" For the latter, usually the answer is no; sometimes the answer is yes. For the former, the answers usually highlight how much better the thing I'm resisting would be for me to do than whatever unimportant thing I'm doing at the moment.
The other is a Buddhist mantra: "My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." This mantra reminds me that if I say I care about or am interested in xyz, then my actions should reflect that. If I say I care about being present, then actually listening to what my partner is saying is a better choice in the moment. If I say I value art, then engaging with art—any art—is a better use of my time than, say, scrolling mindlessly to find a vintage 90s concert tee.
Both of these reminders help me pause, reassess what I'm currently doing (or could be doing), and reframe my next choice based on my values/actual priorities. But I, too, forget all the time, and have to be reminded.
The manual upvote might not be such a bad idea! I find humour to be a great compass in general.
If I had to add reasons to everything that's on my to-do list, and half of them made me giggle, it would be pretty easy to sort the important stuff from the nonsense. Having said that, sometimes it's precisely the nonsense that reveals something important hidden in plain sight.
So I guess the trick is to zoom out either way.
Thank you for taking the time! :)
This practice reminded me of Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s teaching of continual awareness as a part of mindfulness practice. In particular, people are encouraged to periodically ask the simple question, “Am I aware?” even when out and about and off the mat and process their response.
I don’t actually love this write up because it is a bit more prescriptive and “Buddhist” than it needs to be, but it’s an acceptable overview https://www.lionsroar.com/awareness-from-the-moment-you-wake-up/ (his books are short and good) https://ashintejaniya.org/
If anyone makes this app, let me know.
In regards to Bieber's net worth, in one of my favorite group chats, a member will send a celebrity's name periodically, whether that be Sean Bean or 50 Cent or Carol Burnett, and then everyone guesses that person's net worth. Closest wins, no Price is Right rules. For me, this is now the only way to engage with celebrity net worths because it 1) reinforces the bonds with my friends, 2) shows me who in my circle is an out-of-touch moron, or perhaps spending their time much, much more wisely and 3) has some real delightful surprises.
But agree: why google without that added joy.