Self Improvement

Decisions

Some decisions aren’t important.

Should you wear a blue tie or a red tie. Should you get McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Should you watch Masked Singer or The Voice.

Other decisions are of the utmost importance.

Who should you marry. What should you study in school. When/if you should have kids.

Then there are those in the middle.

Should you exercise today. Should you buy a new or used car. Where should you go on vacation.

So you need to be able to identify the importance, or weight, of the decisions, and use that to inform the time dedicated to making them.

For simple decisions maybe automate them, or just make the choice so easy as to be trivial, like rolling a dice or flipping a coin.

For slightly more important decisions come up with a quick decision framework, or pre-choose based on some criteria.

For important, but not life altering, decisions, spend time digging into the options, doing research, building out pro/con lists, but give yourself a deadline to make the decision.

For life altering decisions take all the time you need to truly understand what the effects of your choices are. Forecast how the decision could affect your future. Do everything you can to play out different scenarios.

Being a good decision maker, at every level, is a super power.

stepping-stone

spiral-carved stumps
stretch like so many lined
stepping-stone paths

All the moments

The Diamondbacks finished their end of the season collapse yesterday when the Mets and Braves split their doubleheader, knocking the Dbacks out of the playoffs.

Over the next few days pundits will look over the last few games and try to find the moment that cost them the post season. Most might even agree that it was the last game against the Brewers in which they squandered an 8 run lead.

But the reality is that there isn’t one moment that cost them. It’s a culmination of all the moments of the season, when added up and taken as a whole, just wasn’t good enough.

The same happens when a team loses a game. Even if it’s just one play, one pitch, or one penalty, that costs them. The reality is that every moment of the game counts, and if any one of them had gone differently, then the game might have ended differently.

The same is true for our lives. There’s never just one moment that costs us something. It’s always a culmination of all the moments we have lived. All the interactions.

Realizing this helps us be better. When we realize that each moment matters, we take each moment more seriously.

east

signs of directions
direct travelers into or
away from east lands

Who to become

On a day to day basis you should think about who you want to become, and what actions you can take to get there.

This doesn’t mean thinking about your career (though that is important) but on a more personal level. Think about the type of person you want to become, and how you can achieve that with your actions today.

This is how you focus on the future by working in the present.

gloom

twin candles reflect
against a rain speckled pane
vainly fighting gloom

Planting – 04.15.2024

Everyone knows the aphorism ‘The Best Time To Plant a Tree Was 30 Years Ago, and the Second Best Time To Plant a Tree Is Now’. This is usually attributed as a ‘Chinese Proverb’ but according to Quote Investigator it is more likely to have come from the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1967 as quoted by George W. White, but his source was anonymous.

Regardless of its origins, there is a strong message here. Don’t worry about what you should have done, instead start doing it.

While this is great advice, it is also very hard to do.

‘If I had only’ is a phrase that we as humans utter constantly. IE If I had only…

  • invested in Google 20 years ago.
  • gone to college.
  • started working out.
  • and the list is endless.

This is a trap that is so easy to fall into.

So, when confronted with this thought process, instead think, yes I should have done that then, but what can I do now plant a tree?

Turn missed opportunities of the past into new opportunities for tomorrow.

Haiku

peering to the sea
over rust-stained rails of stone
ponders their decay

Word of the Day

zygology n. The branch of technology concerned with joining and fastening. via OED.