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  1. A Winding Path of Progress/

No explaining challenge

·4 mins·
Challenge
Table of Contents
Me in the forest

Hi 🙂,
one of these evenings I was watching a movie with my wife. At some point she gets up from the couch, because watching what’s going to happen it is too much for her. She listens from nearby. This is not an uncommon occurrence, but it always annoys me as I want to cuddle. Also I misinterpret it as a lack of interest in the movie (which it is not.)

Then shes asks me to pause the movie, she needs to do something real quick. My initial reaction is annoyance and I think “You already got up, you don’t really want to watch this, why are you ruining my movie-watching experience?” But I just let those thoughts go and sat there patiently.

After ca. 7 mins she comes back. We talk. She had a legitimate reason why she needed me to pause. She really did want to watch the movie with me. My annoyed judgement was completely wrong. It would have been destructive (to my mood and the relationship) had I let it take over (like in the past.)

It was easy to patiently wait for her, because I was present. I just sat there. Being present and not resisting what is happening (I want to watch, but I can’t) led to much better outcomes than getting annoyed. It helped me to keep the vibe up and strengthened the trust I have in my wife word.

Commitments #

My ongoing commitments are:

What I’m working on #

For context, see /now.

Over Christmas I spent most of my time with family and friends. Even after I was back home it was hard to dive into the writing, like I had planned. I found myself craving the easy dopamine of media and unable to work on anything substantial. This is of course nothing unusual. Usually I won’t let it come this far, but Christmas messed with my timing on my regular no media detox schedule. Anyway, I’m doing no media now as I prepare things to launch into my next focus challenge1 (2-3 weeks on trading) sometime next week.

Challenges #

Applying a specific learning or philosophy for a week (see project.)

Last one #

Last weeks challenge was: No arguing

I caught myself multiple times as the discussion was devolving into an argument. In all of the cases stopping was the correct path of action. I noticed this about those arguments, they were:

  1. About something I don’t care about or there was no value in arguing
  2. Arguing coincided with negative indicators (worse mood)

I’m sure I also had some conversations that could would fit the definition of “arguing”. I did not notice (or categorize) them, probably because I instinctively know the kind of ill-intentioned, bad faith argument I was targeting with this challenge.

Next one #

Besides starting pointless arguments, I also often comment unasked on things I know very little about.

I will do the No explaining challenge, or “Don’t explain unless spoken to”.2

Challenge details

I will not explain:

  • how X works/happens
  • how I think/feel about X
  • my reasons for doing/thinking X

I will not explain unasked. And even if the other person asks me I will say “I don’t know”. Exceptions apply (other person is very present, I it preface by saying “I heard that…”, etc.) Generally though: avoid explaining.

Why do this challenge?

  • I don’t know shit
  • Most of the time I don’t really know my own reasons for why I did things
  • The vast majority of my thoughts are useless and not worth repeating
  • I want to de-emphasize ego identification
  • Most people care only about themselves, they don’t really want to know what I think

New articles #

I’ll see what I can get done before starting the next focus challenge.

All the best,
Jonathan


PS: Please let me know if you have any comments, feedback or criticism.

  1. What is a focus challenge?
    I commit to work on a topic (a subject) for a period of time. The leading principle is: Stay on-topic at all times. That means any task, project, action, media shall pertain pertain to the selected topic. Anything off-topic is to be noted for later without receiving much attention.

    Exceptions apply for established habits, outside work, chores, FFF, etc.

    Some applications of this principle:

    • I hid all my off-topic projects.
    • I only listed to on-topic audiobooks and podcasts.
    • I only read on-topic books.
    • I only listened to instrumental music.
    • I did not process any off-topic notes in my note-taking system.
    • I did not make any online purchases.
     ↩︎

  2. Hopefully the play on “don’t speak unless spoken to” is obvious enough🙂 ↩︎