The Power of Solitude to Inform Us About Possibility

Tonight I biked twenty miles along the minute-man bike path, starting in early evening. I found myself relishing and enjoying the solitude. When do we get such moments unless forced upon us, or rather when do we relish such moments -when the moment for reflection arises in us, and with overwhelming need, takes advantage of this time to flood the brain, the body with inner reflection. Thoughts would be too simple a word. Ideas too profound. It's more like the self, once a frequent visitor, recognizes itself and takes a cup of tea by the wooded edge and takes in the sunny vale- but here it's night and bugs fly by in haste and make bug jam in my eye. The self is a gauzy cloak, a teary eye in the night lit by a small lamp that softly blinds me with memory while speaking entirely in the present and future.  

Henry David Thoreau seems to have gotten it right when he wrote in his chapter "Solitude" in Walden: "This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled."

The velvet darkness speaks to me, from within a question emerges. How to express the impossible? Or rather, how to synthesize what is currently impossible into what is possible? At every moment there is possibility, the way there is potential energy in a car battery or a book just peering over the edge of the counter. It occurs to me that the reason people have uncertainty is because at any moment there are a many things with potential that have yet to come into being. We are validated in this feeling. It is both normal and necessary to recognize those moments where uncertainty is so palatable you can taste it - a violin string so tight it reverberates a twang and leaves a cloud of resin dust in its wake. Taste. Hear. Feel. Relish. Relish the moment that you were able to arrive at a moment for reflection, sadness, joy, humor, uncertainty, and even loss. How did we get here? Are we powerless to control what happens to us? We are powerless insofar as we can rarely control the actions of others, but we can often control how those actions affect how we feel. If we let a moment destroy us or allow us to respond in anger or disappointment, it will be that. If we instruct ourselves to work not with what was but with what is and what could be, we can vastly determine how we think about future thoughts. We may not  be able to remove or change existing feelings, but we can change how we choose to interpret new ones.

So, as I continued to fly by during this cool August evening, getting lost in memory and the tight weaving of emotion, it was only the right thing to do. Summer informs us of its end and fall of its beginning. So, why shouldn't other cycles be as natural? Why shouldn't we be able to say goodbye to those we love, the way early fall says goodbye to sultry summer evenings and lake baths pitched in the aroma of lavender and verbena?

On the Value of Habits and Why We Should Develop Them

 "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle.

Habit as Essential to Every Day Life
Look around us and you will realize that we could not function without habit. 99% of everything we do is an activity conducted out of habit, rather than out of new learning or new decisions. Decisions and learning take energy expenditure, and most of what we do every day could not be done without the chemical channels literally carved into our brains by habit. We would spend all day trying to insert a button into a the button hole on a shirt if we did not have the ability to develop life-long habit. This suggests that habit is a kind of learning. Once learned, the brain changes physically to accommodate for the new learning, and like a well-carved out river bed, little will disturb the flow of the river except land-slides or extraordinary human power. This means our habits, over time, will become ingrained into us like grand-canyons delved by slow-moving glacial ice. Persistence pays off with well-honed habits. The tortoise wins the raise every time, whether it be developing a habit, climbing mountains, climbing the corporate ladder, or whittling your middle. So, think twice next time you decide to "break" a developing or well-established habit you've been working on.

William James on Habit
William James is particularly insightful when it comes to habit. "The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right."- William James


What is a Habit?
Habits are what allow us to follow diets through the years, as they become integrated into our lifestyles. Habits allow us to go from ice-cream slurpers to celery munchers in a mere matter of months if continued uninterrupted. Habits allow us to go from undecided undergraduates to highly skilled scientists, doctors, teachers, police officers, and business people. It is said that an activity must be practiced 30 times, consecutively, before it becomes a habit and that 10,000 hours must be spent on a subject for that person to become an expert in it. That, then means that there are 30 times for us to fail before the activity becomes a full habit, in which the task is more or less automatic. But on the wonderful flip-side, this means that there also only 30 times before it becomes second-nature. Only 30 times before we capture the indelible solution to our flakiness, unpredictability, money and weight-loss problems. Invest in this. Invest in yourself. Remember that habit, ultimately, is a personal investment in yourself, much like money in a bank that you yourself managed, an investment fund you proudly managed. Think of that. The potential for success is boundless after that.

The silver-lining, is that once we do become full embracers of those habits, life is significantly easier, saving us oodles of agonizing, stressful hours as we pine about when or how to get back on track with life and what we want. What we want gets done with habit. Anything great needs habit. Anything accomplished needs habit. Just 30 times on average, and we have mastered 95% of the problem- developing the habit to begin with. The rest of it is smooth sailing. Master the habit and you have a solution, almost without fail every single time. 

Newton's "Law of Habit"
"Every object continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless compelled to change that state by external forces acted upon it." Like Newton's first law of motion, a habit will continue until something distracts you or knocks you out of the regular course of events, such as an invitation to a party on a Tuesday night with your friends when you originally planned to attend your weekly spin-class. Tragically, this party could knock your spinning habit out of its orbit, depending on the number of times you've attended the spin class and the strength of your emotional association with this habit.

This is why it's so important to not go to that party on Tuesday and continue attending your weekly spinning class. The energy needed to return to the spinning class the following week will be significantly greater than the week of the party, and if you don't go the second week, exponentially harder after that. Thus, knowing how great a difference it takes to elevate oneself from the energy level of the habit once it's fallen to the first, like an electron knocked from its orbit. From this, we start to get a picture of how important it is for us to stay on track with our habits no matter how much we may be tempted by other events.

So, pick up those celery sticks, almonds and fresh veggies or whatever it is you want to develop a habit in. Munch away, and combined with proper support and some information, to your surprise, you can find yourself with a desire for vegetables in no time. Pick up those exam books and start ploughing away for an hour or two a night. Pretty soon you will be missing the quiet night time routine with your books. Just be aware that the first hour, and the second, and even the third time will be a struggle. Note that every time you sit down to study or eat carrots instead of brownies the difficulty will become less and the enjoyment greater. As when you were a child and finally got all the way across the monkey bars on your own, pretty soon you will even start to feel the same kind of pride and confidence that you did then and look forward to your study time or your fresh salad with light vinagarette on the side. If you slip up, remember, "two steps forward, one step backward." Continue on with your attempts as if nothing happened. Stick to your routine. Stay calm and carry on and have confidence that your actions will result in a positive end and smooth-sailing habits.

Good Habits and Bad Habits
James informs us how important it is to actually try to develop habits that may be good for us. It's important to note that habits are not only a means to help us to good for our selves and others, but a means to do unhealthy or unsafe things, as well. The same habits that keep our teeth healthy also make us fat, blacken our lungs, and deepen our credit card debt. The difference is that it takes about five times on average to develop a "bad" habit, versus 30 times on average to develop a "good" habit.

This has to do with the different chemical pathways and the ways that those chemical pathways act on our brains. When you eat chocolate ice cream, dopamine, a relaxant and "feel good" chemical floods the brain. The receptors in the brain remember this this feeling and connect chocolate ice cream with relaxation, and therefore as your head sinks into your chest and your eyelids struggle to stay open, wallah! you have the makings for a 3 p.m. craving for chocolate ice cream. This association between feeling good and ice cream becomes stronger with each satisfying of the craving, as with each bite you are reinforcing the brain's belief that ice cream induces relaxation.

Taking It Home
So, what is the best strategy? Armed with this knowledge, you can take further steps to make yourself aware of the danger of participating in "bad" habits and of the perils of caving into temptation while establishing or reinforcing a "good" habit. Ultimately, you run a huge risk of expending thousands of hours re-establishing your good habits every time you allow yourself "just this time." For the sake of spending those hours doing something enjoyable, stick to your good habits.

However, if you find yourself loathing the activities of habit, this is a separate matter that must be addressed first, in which you should examine your thought process to find out where the negative feelings are originating and whether or not the habit is actually worth pursuing.

Resources from: The Principles of Psychology, 1890 ch. 4 "Habit" by William James

The Importance of Risk in Achieving the Realized-self

I just thought it would be helpful to share with you some of the books and resources that I am reading and that have been helpful in terms of getting me to think about establishing direction, guidance, meaning and action in life.  Some of these are just books that planted the seeds in my head, and whether they speak specifically to genre of self-improvement or not, they have been influential and poignant catalysts to my thought process recently.

Books
The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter- and how to make the most of them now by Meg Jay
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino
Delivered from Distraction: Getting The Most Out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder


Blogs
Leaving The Law a blog by Jennifer Alvey
http://leavinglaw.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/you-can-do-so-much-with-a-law-degree/ 


Articles
"Is Law School a Losing Game?" January 8, 2011 New York Times Article by David Segal
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

• Many long conversations with my friend Michael L. and others.
• My own experiences and collective books, articles and essays whose names I've now forgotten.

Response to "The Defining Decade"
At this time, I will respond to just one of the books for the purpose of keeping this article to a reasonable length. However, this book is particularly good at making a point about the twenty something generation (children of the 80's and early 90's), not often described so explicitly.

Meg Jay tries to explain how twentysomethings have been caught in the "swirl of hype and misinformation that has trivialized what is actually the most transformative period of our adult lives."
The following quote embodies what she tries to explain and respond to in her book:

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find, ten years has got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. -David Gilmore, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, "Time"

Whether or not it is actually true that the twenties are the most transformative years of our lives, she has some important points regarding acting on your goals. I, rather, think that the greatest degree of emotional and intellectual growth occurs in childhood through age 18 or so, and that the twenties are the time of greatest potential action and change based on our ability to shape our career direction, networks and earning power. The twenties are influential because it it is the time when we can act on impulse, on whim, on long established and hard-worked for goals, on long thought-out plans, or a trip to India embarked on after a few conversations with a new friend and have those ideas shape and color our direction in life for years to come. These changes can be made later in our thirties, forties, fifties and beyond, but our minds are most adaptable, responsive and sponge-like in the twenties. At this time, our brains our both incredibly impressionable and incredibly willing to take risks and take actions that will decide the fate and color the direction of our thoughts and behaviors for the rest of our lives. It is as if all the pieces of the quilt are there but the pattern they create is not yet stitched together until our twenties, and then simply further explored for the rest of our years. This is a rather simplistic and not totally correct expression for everyone, but for many people, the patterns we tread for the rest of our life are rapidly (or slowly and carefully) stitched together in our twenties. The thoughts we think, the people we meet, the kinds of activities we do and the number of hours spent doing them considerably affects the circuitry of our brains during a time when we come into the power to shape our futures through our actions and interactions with others. Hence, the power of the defining decade, the value of "now," and "the world as our oyster" come into clear view as we understand the critical timing of the twenties and how important it is to listen and take right action within them.

Decide to reflect.
"The time is now," is her message, but what exactly does "now" mean? Does this mean we should run out into the streets nude and dance from rooftops? Should we quit our jobs, join the ranks of unemployed and starving artists? Yes and no. It requires a bit of self-examination and reflection. Yes, reflection. Reflection wrought out with paper and pen, stone and anvil, clay and stylus, sand and brush, napkin and lipstick, or computer and word processor. However you choose to do it, do it again. Make a list. Write it out. Make a song. Draw a picture. Speak it into existence.

I'm sure you've made these lists before, maybe even hundreds of times as you've see-sawed indecisively through your twenties and maybe even early thirties, but try looking at those lists once more or write one again (as chances are things have probably changed since you wrote that list, even if only 3 months ago.)

Write it out.
Plot out the whims, the desires, the angst, the pleasures, the wants, the goals, the loves, the hates, just let it all flow out for 20 minutes of pure, uninterrupted thought. Let the core of your being come to the surface, be those ideas evil dragons or milk-fresh princesses. Let the things you feel and want and the things you need come out. Don't inhibit yourself by what others want or by what you should do. This is a writing exercise, not a contract for your life.

Now you've written it/ drawn it/ spoken it, what does it say?

Stop thinking of your life as a contract written in stone. Nothing is written in stone, and the thing you think are will at some point be dramatically wiped away with the stroke of a brush. Think about what you, at the core of your being wants and no one else. This is not defiance or rebelliousness, just pure and simple truth about who you are, what you are passionate about, and hence, what you are most likely to succeed at and from which you will likely draw your greatest income if pursued to its fullest. Give yourself the chance you deserve to be a productive member of society and a fulfilled self with a fully-realized sense of identity.

Some helpful advice from my friends.
Risk as the vehicle for moving direction of your dream (and achieving it.)
Two years wasted in pursuit of your dream (or one of them) is not wasted at all. We waste years of our life in all sorts of ways. There is no one who hasn't wasted a year or two of their lives. Waste it for yourself. Waste it in pursuit of yourself.  Waste it in spite of yourself. You'll be surprised how "wasting" that time by taking a risk may actually be the best move you've ever made. Take more risks. I'm not asking you to take ridiculous risks like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, but a risk in pursuit of your dream is definitely one worth, well,  risking it all.

If you believe that we are wasting time by taking a risk, chances are you have not accomplished your dream yet. Am I right? A risk is inherently risky by nature and hence, we yes, run the risk of wasting time.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward. If you get discouraged, which is as common as sliced bread, this piece of advice will keep you plodding along when it feels like you are fighting an invisible enemy in the dark along a road with no road-signs or markers to give you a sense of how far you have progressed. In a moment of panic and distress years ago, a supportive professor gave me this piece of advice: two steps forward, one step backward. With each step, we may not get to exactly where we want to be. We may actually go backwards, get a C on that math exam we studied for for weeks or lose our cool after nights spent in a musty library shoveling legalese into our brains while the sun shines and beach-goers mock you with their sandy bods and coaster-sized sunglasses. Nothing worth pursuing was ever pursued in vain. We want to give up and break down. Don't.

This quote says don't underestimate the power of failure to teach us how to proceed forward. Some days we go backwards a few steps, some days forward ten steps, and others a long plateau, but always moving forward when moving forward sometimes means going backwards or standing still. Then, pop your head up occasionally to reflect on where you  are and how you could revise our approach, should your progress not be as expected. Sometimes we must simply lower our expectations for how long something takes. Let the project be our guide, rather than rashly deciding it's "not worth our time." You might be surprised at what it can teach you.


Find a mentor. Talk to a friend that cares. That mentor may be a parent, a counselor, a professor, a teacher, a friend, a fellow MBA student you met at the bar last night. Whomever. Just make sure you have someone to bounce ideas off who is supportive with just enough criticism to keep you on your toes and who pushes you to get going and keep up with your goals. He or she might say, "You haven't taken that grad school entrance exam yet? What are you waiting for?" Or, "Did you start that novel yet? I want to read the first few pages by next week Monday." Or, "You should definitely work on your Spanish. You have a a shot at this interpreting job. We can work on it together through conversation."

Act on your chosen risk. Whatever you do, do something now. Take that programming class. Go for that MBA at Stanford. Take that class on sociology and gender studies at the local university after the workday is through. Secure a space to do your welding. Go to the meeting for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Go for that internship in California. Try out that farming experience in France. At least you'll improve your French, find out you like sustainable food, discover you hate milk but love cows and that hard physical work can be a great way to let of steam, and maybe find out you want to become a veterinarian. That's all? Who knew!? So, take a risk, take a walk. What difference does it make? Actually, it might just make all the difference in the world.

Focus. And then, when you find that special thing, focus. As Dogen says, "When you find your place, practice begins."

Life is More Than Your Job & Why You Should Pursue Your Dreams Now

Life is more than your job. Way way way more. It just may be very hard to see if you don't have a job that is satisfying or that provides enough income to satisfy your basic needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, transportation, utilities, debts, and a bit of extra spending money to enjoy life with or to buffer you against unexpected events or emergencies, e.g. your car breaks down or your bike gets stolen, or you need a new suit for that interview.) If this is your situation, this article is for you.

The benefit of a road map.If you are lost in the circular angst of an uninspiring job and being paid too little to meet your basic needs and financial demands, you are not alone. Knowing this, you try to "get out" by researching job opportunities, scanning Craigslist daily, sending out email and contact blasts on Linkedin, Facebook, or Twitter. This is one way to grow in job skills and...number of jobs, but how to get where you really want to be? Follow a road map with real guidelines and alternates solutions all within the framework of a time-schedule. Take this timeline out occasionally, or on que on your calendar, bi-weekly, monthly, or every 2-3 months. Either way, follow a road map. Notify others. Have them check in with you at scheduled, regular periods of time to keep you on track. Either way, make your road map and actually follow it. You can make changes as you go along, but at least try following it for a while.

Hang-ups. Though, the most important thing (for our overall happiness as well) that people who are in this situation know is that getting hung up on the "job" and "how much money you have" severely limits your ability to 1. enjoy your life, 2. enjoy your free time after work, 3. think about and actually seek other life opportunities, be they work, education, relationships, hobbies, or other personal pursuits such as traveling. Aka, we miss the boat on self-development and life enjoyment when we constantly worry about how much money we are making and whether or not we like or jobs or even whether we will have a job. Even if we have these concerns and must address them, address them within a very specific block of time each day, e.g. 1 hour per day during lunch, or 1 hour in the morning at work, or 1 hour in the evening before dinner time per day, or even, only one day a week, such as on Monday evenings. Whatever works for you, just make sure to categorize those thoughts enough to allow you to focus on things that move you forward or just keep you where you are but allow you to enjoy a richer, more fulfilling expression of that life.

Perspective. Recognizing your limitations with your job search and that time spent worry about money or the future or job-seeking is often fruitless, you will then be able to enjoy the present on a level you have yet to discover. Recognizing that you could be spending those hours reading new books or going to the beach or planning that trip to China you've always wanted to go on is way more satisfying than choosing tubs of ice cream, countless calls home in tears, or purchasing more clothes, electronics or dinners out just to make yourself feel better. Stop pining and start living. Start by leaving the current concerns behind in your head and move forward with your life. Write that blog. Plan that trip to India- and go! Take that year off to live in Alaska. Write that novel in the evenings instead of looking for new jobs. Be productive, go forward, and get out of the cycle of job searching and money-seeking. You will never have more time for yourself than by stopping the activities that hold your brain hostage for so many of your productive waking hours. Use that time to start that mushroom-growing business or that internet business. Be productive for yourself now. You will only hold yourself back by not giving yourself the time and permission to do so by NOT doing other things- such as that hugely time-consuming job of finding new work or fulfilling work. Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for country. Write now. Program now. Contact buyers. Just act on the things that are integral to getting you in the place you want to be. If that is working in your current job and developing job skills, then continue to do that. However, if you want to be somewhere else, this information is here to get you started (and remember to try and enjoy the present as well- check out scheduling for life balance.)

Remind yourself that news headlines temp agencies, and other services prey on the desperate and financially hungry. Ignore the quick solutions, the quicksand traps, and take the long, arduous, and ultimately necessary route to your dream.

The Importance of The Right People at The Right Time in The Right Place

It is important to understand the value of the right people at the right time in the right place. All too often, we forget how incredibly influential people are on the kind of decisions we make and how we make them and if we make them. Most of us only ask how our decisions are being influenced when we experience some kind of change in the kind of  thoughts we are having, such as when new people come into our lives, or in the aftermath of a a relationship when we realize how our thoughts or days have changed when they leave our lives.

I don't mean to say that one ought to go around with a checklist and examine each person to see if they have traits you have identified as conducive to your happiness, success, or best interests. I mean that one should think very carefully about how this person you are interacting with will influence your decisions, particularly if you have long or repeated interaction with that person, such as a boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, co-worker, supervisor, teacher, mentor, mother, father, sister, brother. The issue most commonly arises in situations, not with a mentor or teacher where you have chosen the person for what you want to get out of the relationship, but where you have chosen to interact with the person in spite of or for reasons other than whether their influence is in your best interest. Always ask yourself how their opinions, amount of time spent on certain areas, actions, behaviors, methods of thought are what you want to make your own. This is because the more time you spend with someone, the more your thoughts line up in accordance with their own, and if they do not, the more unhappy you become when they don't address your own best interests.

It is not to say that new people with new ideas cannot also be in your best interest, but when, after careful deliberation or overwhelming or repeated feelings of discomfort arise, that you have not addressed whether your needs are being met and your best interests being considered, it is important to step away from, or spend less time with those whose ideas, behaviors, and thought methods are not the ones you want for yourself.

The catch is that it is not always easy to let go of or back off time spent with people you may otherwise love or enjoy spending time with. The important thing is to recognize where those people add value to your life and where they don't, and then to limit your interactions with them to those areas of your life where they add value. This is particularly important when you have established a close relationship with someone such as a significant other, a best friend, or a circle of friends who no longer meet your needs, or really only ever met that need in one place, and they are poor companions for influencing say your study habits when they like to party, or your workout habits when they like to talk a lot or your open-mindedness on a subject where they are close-minded or their ideas are open-minded but an a trajectory different from the way in which you'd like to be influenced.

Seek them out. Seek out people who you want to be more like, not just people who are like you or people who jive with your opinions or who don't jive with your goals but otherwise satisfy one aspect of your life (like your interest in soccer but not your spiritual, ethical, or emotional trajectory.) Keep these people in your life if they add to it, but make sure that you stay in touch with yourself and who you are by making sure they don't overwhelm the entirety of your person and your time. Give yourself the space to meet and spend time with other people who may be more on the trajectory you are looking for, whether it be a particularly devoted work mind-set, a motivated student mindset, a person to discuss your passions with may they be biochemistry, law, construction, engineering, art or television, person of your religious or spiritual conviction (or non-conviction), or simply someone who laughs at your jokes. Then, gently step away from believing that someone can fulfill all of those roles for you. Let them be your best soccer buddy or your research mentor, but when it comes to things they don't satisfy, make sure you make time for people who do, instead of letting/hoping others will do that for you. Check in with yourself every week/few weeks to see if the people in your life are influencing you the way you want them to.

Getting rid of them is not my aim, but if it comes to that, then allow yourself to accept it and find ways to let them know. This need not be done painfully, rashly or with great flare, but can simply be done by your finding others to satisfy the same needs or spending less time with that person on areas that don't have your interest in mind. Also note that it is not the other person's fault for not knowing what you want or don't want out of the relationship if you have not informed them of this. They will continue to be who they are, and that is not good or bad. There is no value judgment placed on this. Others have to keep their own interests in mind as well. You are merely making the decision to veer more toward those that have your interests in mind. Any personal fault of anyone else's does not play a part in this (unless of course some wrong-doing has been done,) but in most cases, no wrong-doing has been done. There is merely a divergence of interests in what one wants or is seeking. An admission of this is important to yourself and others if the need arises to grow in other way to avoid misunderstandings and broken relationships. This is because it is the nature of people to take things personally if they don't understand why certain actions are being done, and the nature of the person needing change to blame others when they don't know how to identify their own divergence of interests and painfully struggle with why they can't get it out of the person with whom they are best friends, significant others, etc. To expect one person to satisfy all your needs will almost always end in conflict with yourself and others.

The Problem with Attaching Value-statements to Goals And Its Contribution to The Un-Realized Self

Pursue a goal not because you should pursue goals, but because the pursuit of the goal will make you happier. I specifically did not say because the goal will make you happier, but because the pursuit of that goal will make you happier. I do not mean to say that you should decide if you like what that pursuit is, but that you should like pursuing a goal simply to engage in pursuit accompanied by periodic accomplishment. Too often we get caught up in whether we like what we are doing, whether we want to be doing it, whether we should be doing it, and whether the goal is something we want/should be pursuing. All of this value-placing diminishes the important of fully engaging in pursuit. A life without full engagement is something that should be mourned. It is the loss of self-realization and a loss of a life, in many respects.

Very often, this goal needs to be nothing more than a cone or marker on the path to something else. It is a marker to help motivate you on the road of life. Engage in goals for the satisfaction of pursuing a goal, not even for the goal in and of itself. Any thought beyond the goal, especially in the moment of necessary action can lead to the kind of wavering that prevents you from engaging in the pursuit, as you deliberate, doubt, pull-out hair, or otherwise mire in the soup of self-doubt. Don't allow self-doubt each time you are at the point of deciding whether or not to do the activity in pursuit of a goal. Goals are meant to stimulate us to engage in the pursuit, not mire us in the chaos of wavering and self-doubt.

However, even though reflection and self-doubt are essential to making "right decisions," constant deliberation in the moment of pursuit will lead to the pandering away of precious time needed to engage in pursuit. Often, in order to escape the chaos of self-doubt and indecision, it is important for you to realize that the goal itself is not important, merely the fact that you can actually engage in actions that motivate you, encourage your deepest focus, and fully engage the mind. Focus on one thing, no matter what the goal, it is crucial to developing the sense of identity, purpose, confidence, and complete engagement necessary to make us feel important and create meaning in our lives. To not pursue something, anything, well and deeply is to live a life unwrapped or un-lived and to never identify anything and to never know ourselves at all. One must engage deeply in something to experience the flow, the continuity, the core of our potential. What is potential? It is who were are at our greatest most extracted self. To deny ourselves the experience of the most concentrated, extracted self is to never see our potential at all. It is not just that we see part of it, or live life half-way, it is that we never experience realized-self. We are always un-realized until we can decide to and actually engage in something that utilizes our full potential.

Too often we feel that deliberation on its own, indecision, or rationalized-actions are sufficient to pass for self-realization, only to pine over lost time and lack of success, love, money or whatever it may be weeks, months or years later. In reality, this angst over lack of things like success, love, money and the like is really lack of the complete attention or full-engagement of the self in the pursuit of a goal. True accomplishment of these things is important, but more often, lack of full-engagement is the real loss. To realize oneself is to fully engage in pursuit of something.

The identifying markers of love, money and success are just markers to gauge our own levels of accomplishment of self-realization or the fully engaged life. It is important to note that the actual accomplishment of those markers is not important, but that they act only as the measuring tape we've applied to assess whether we are involved in full engagement. More often than not, those markers fail to stimulate us into action and instead act as the pot-holes on the path to full engagement, as we fall in them repeatedly by questioning whether we should be engaging in pursuit. This results in a lot of sprained ankles. No wonder we have not gone very far. Sprained ankles are serious things, and can set back the pursuit of goals for weeks, months or even lifetimes.

So, make note of this, and when your measuring tape is no longer accurate, identify it, attach a note to it reminding yourself that it's broken and riddled with self-doubt. Leave it behind so that you don't use it again. Improper measuring tools will only prevent you from pursuit of full-ambition/ self-realization. Throw out the measuring tape. Pursue something for the sake of pursuit and throw out all the deliberation and goal-valuation that clouds pure focus. Only then will you know self-realization. Only then should you (if ever) attach the sticker of success, happiness, or "best-life." It is always and only a valuation or sticker that can (and very often should) be removed later as life changes. Anything more than that, and you have already lost yourself. Engage fully in something. Pursue the goal. Now.

When full engagement is missing, don't think about the goal itself. Just use the goal as a notch in the tree, a cone on the path to success. Full engagement must come before using the measuring tape and attaching stickers determining worth or value-oriented labels. Any more deliberation than this is not worth your breath (nor your life.)

Right Action or How Smart People Do Stupid Things

What is right action? This morning, right action occurs to me to be something like this:

Wake up, bike to the Fells, run in the fells, then come back and spend the day studying a section of the gre.

The focus is not so much on which activities I do, so much as that those activities are conducive to a healthy lifestyle, and of the kind, in the right way, at the right time, and for the right purpose.

For instance, I could choose to write poetry for my collection for 3 hours and then go meet friends for a party.

The moment of clear thinking is particularly important. It is the moment of choice. It is the moment when we choose how we proceed forward. Too often this moment is taken for granted, pushed-past, skipped over, or left to the fate of haste, hurry and just decide! Haste prevents us from taking "right action" on things we have difficulty accepting, handling, facing, or doing, despite knowing it is something we want to do or face, like choosing between a salad and a donut for lunch, or between studying for an exam or watching a movie. Haste in moments like this, or rather, the steam-rolling over a moment of clear-thinking is particularly detrimental for our future and for our current lives. Just as our bodies have optimal times for digesting food, our brains have optimal times for decision-making. Moments of  clear-thinking are essential to the formation of good habits, making a change, reflection, introspection, and allowing oneself to think before acting, living life with your frontal-lobe (the planning, organizing, and decision-making part of the brain, or the one commonly associated with separating humans from animals) and amygdala in concert, as opposed to just your amygdala (the emotion center of the brain), which can lead to regret, shame, and rotten teeth (as well as obesity, depression, anxiety, and many other physical and emotional ailments).

This is how smart people do stupid things. They fail to do right thinking, use moments of clarity wisely, to allow themselves time for reflection in the few moments that they have to make "that crucial decision" about how to proceed with their day, a new action, or any moment where decisions are made, all the way from which yogurt to buy, to whether you will hike Mt. Washington that day, to whether to take a job that has just been offered to you.

All too often, we make decisions out of fear of having to dwell on a difficult one or having to make a decision about something we are uncertain or have not fully fleshed-out all of the concerns we may have about it. This is the time to flesh-out those concerns so that you can see more clearly what decision to make. All too often, we fail to take the time to flesh-out the concerns and fears we have surrounding a particular subject because we dismiss it as taking too much time or  that it can be left for another time (aka procrastination.) However, time passes and our thoughts surrounding the issue build up and create patterns of regret and shame as we realize we have pushed the issue into the backs of our minds and failed to address it. So, instead of multiplying into the healthy cells of a liver, it becomes the mutated cells of a tumor, ruefully pushed back and ignored into the furthest reaches of our minds, mutating good intentions into self-doubt, depression, secret-harboring, and un-examined guilt, painted over with ice cream pints, frivolous distraction (at the time rationalized as "necessary"), excessive socializing, television watching party-going, or even book reading. Any action which you choose to do to distract you from facing a complicated issue at a moment of clarity, is an opportunity lost to either continue down a particular road or change direction in accordance with your goals.

However, be careful of "the deliberation distraction," in which discussion of or worry about that which you have difficulty facing, in order to NOT face or do that which is causing you discontent. There is a balance between examining what worries you and simply using that examination as a way to further procrastinate. Instead, examine the options insofar as you need to examine your feelings about it, and then make the decision and act on it. Thought without action, where action is at some point needed, renders thought pointless.

For instance, I can talk for hours and hours about how much I do or don't know whether I should take a particular exam or apply to a particular grad school, but at the end of the day, this is just an excuse to spin my wheels and NOT make a decision about something. I am giving myself permission to harm myself by wasting my time and not giving myself the opportunity to experience life, fail, succeed or take part in the act of living. I mire myself in the quicksand of fear, only to emerge time and again gasping for air but never allowing myself to use that energy to think deliberately.

Identify clear moments of thought, make note of when they usually occur, and use them to deliberate, make a decision, and act. If morning provides the most clarity for you, make sure to set aside 30 minutes to an hour in the morning to "make right decisions".