A risk inherent in the perform-better-each-day (PBED) mentality is that one may well be tempted to coast upon realizing he’s massively outperforming at, say, the halfway mark. The temptation is two-fold:

1. Trying hard is hard, so if giving anything less than will keep PBEB intact, comfort AND success can be achieved with easy effort.
2. Outperforming too greatly jeopardizes the entire PBED enterprise. Marginal improvements are absorbable, Carl Lewis-leaps are not.

—

PBED tends to ignore the non-linear nature of progress. When detached from the tidy narrative society tells itself about a neat work-in-work-out process of progress, a reality is revealed where seemingly no progress, despite great practice, is made for long stretches. Then, as if by magic, massive gains are suddenly achieved. Of course, we will still fight to cram this genre of progress into a narrative … and this will be a mistake. The lesson: randomness plays a larger role in progress than any of us feel comfortable admitting.

—

Your 100% is absolutely contingent on the context, some of which you can comprehend, most of which you cannot.

—

(more…)

is not telling people that you are fasting.

Sharing your willingness to either be (a) very kind (think volunteer work) or (b) do challenging things (i.e., fasting) are bankable ways to gain “social credibility.” While it’s completely natural to covet esteem, being overly driven by this desire is to remove a pureness in the activity. Are you doing this because you want to do it, or because you think other people will be impressed?

The less external validation you need, the greater the inner peace you will have.

is that you may have to live a truly different life, not merely reside as a fascinating outlier on the inside (which is probably superior).

You’ll both cherish your uniqueness, but also still long for normal things; your uniqueness will leave that longing unrequited. Or so you’ll think. Is this thinking an honest assessment or a self-pitying excuse?

Or perhaps the longing itself is the false, manufactured result of existing in a world where the insider ethic is broadcast with great force and regularity such that it’s easy to think you want things you don’t truly want.

Regardless, you’ll at once craft the ability to live in a fundamentally different way AND leave open the possibility that it doesn’t have to be this way. If that possibility is treated as an option, nothing more, then it’s fine. If veers too strongly into “preference,” the tranquility of alternate existence will be corrupted. Then again, if it’s not at least a little corrupted, who would ever opt in to possibility if and when possibility emerges?

is the smuggest way to say, “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

in witnessing a runner with an impressive pace suddenly stop. This halting reveals that the speed was not, in fact, an impressive pace, but rather a weak finishing kick.

There is something also quite pleasing in seeing a runner needlessly pause at a crosswalk. They’ll posture like they were forced to stop by the bad luck of the oncoming traffic; they may even jog in place trying to prove the cosmic unfairness of it all. We are not fooled. You needed to rest.

I guess these pleasures stem from being reminded of one’s own “goodness” in comparison. Maybe running isn’t your thing and so these examples escape you. That’s fine. Just think of where you do excel and what happens when others don’t measure up. There’s some relatable delight to be found in this exploration. More universally, this pleasant sensation drives the consumption of “Fall from Grace” stories, blooper reels, and reality TV (when people behave stupidly).

Equinox, since any girl wearing an Equinox hat is guaranteed to be fine.

1. Rarely, if ever, offer your own ideas
2. Aggressively point out mistakes the powerful make
   • The powerful may only be wrong a small percentage of the time, but given the demands of their position, so much material will be pumped out that even a small error rate is enough to feast on
3. If you are wrong, bunker with the logic of I’m no worse than the powerful

“I do understand it: I am right, they are wrong.”

at the beginning of Trump’s reign. But now? Come on.

Just look at the people you know in your own life. Surely you’ve observed that people’s cores rarely change. Why would Trump be any different?

Be pleasantly surprised when people “evolve,” sure, but expecting it is a recipe for a lifetime of frustration as people will repeatedly fail to behave in the exact ways you think they should.

I can’t believe he did that. Yes, you can.

Are you really all that different from the person out-of-work for a year?

Are you really immune to suffering for years without progress?

We say we are thankful, but we can’t really mean it in the truest sense, because we can’t really believe what’s needed for that truest sense of thankfulness: our lives could, with a few bad bounces here and there, be astonishingly terrible by comparison … and this alternate path is always lurking.

It’s probably a good thing that comfort and adaptability shield us from constantly pondering these subjects.