JeremyFirth.com
“A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded pistol on your coffee table — there’s nothing wrong with them, but it’s hard to stop thinking about it.”
Magic Sword of Grayskull
Sep/28/08 22:47
I
was talking with my wife today while my
20-month-old daughter was watching old
He-Man episodes (the same ones I watched as
a boy) and I said, "You know, it took me a
long time to understand that there's no
magic sword that can transform you from
being Prince Adam the Douche into He-Man,
the most powerful man in the universe." I
used to think that just by being
intelligent and talented, that I would be
rich and never have to worry about money. I
thought that being smart was just like
He-Man's sword, just hold it aloft, say "I
have the power!" and you would become
He-Man, the most powerful man in the
universe.
It took a LONG time for me to figure out that even though I was smart and talented, I still had to WORK. I'm still pissed off about it. I didn't realize when I was young that if I wanted to be the most powerful man in the universe, I needed to pick up a barbell and drink a lot of milk every day. For me, the hardest thing in the world is to do a small step toward a large goal every day over a long period of time. It's so hard for me to be patient with a process. I have this delusion that because I'm smart, everything should just be easy and should just work for me. So anything that takes time, or a lot of dedication, or a lot of consistent effort, I just get frozen up and say, "Aw, fuck it." I have so many unfinished projects, I don't even like to think about it.
And writing that last sentence reminds me of an insight I had recently. I had a clean office for awhile (I work from home) and recently it was junky in a bad way for about six weeks. I slipped into depression and just ignored it. I felt more frantic and anxious, and it got to where I just kept the door to my office closed all the time, and I just went upstairs to the t.v. room, and took my computer up there to work.
For one reason or another, I finally decided to clean the damn office. I told my wife, "I am going to..." and she said "clean your office. Blah blah blah." I realized that I had said I was going to clean my office about half a bajillion times in recent days, so I said, "if my office isn't clean by 10 pm tomorrow night, I will give you $100." I wanted that deadline to be painful. It worked! Office is now clean.
And now the insight: a part of me actually likes the stress feeling that comes from clutter. I feel like I don't deserve to enjoy what I'm doing, so I distract myself from enjoying it and being fully present by leaving a bunch of junk around that makes me feel guilty for doing something I enjoy. I look around and say, "I really want to read a book, but I can't really because I should clean. But I don't want to clean." So I read the book, but only for a minute, because I feel guilty, so I go watch t.v., but only for about 20 minutes, because I feel guilty and feel like, boy I really should be working right now, so I go read reddit.com. I click a few articles, read a couple, and think, "Man, I should clean right now." and this goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until I can't keep my eyes open at night. I wake up at 3 am and think about what I should do tomorrow, so I get up and make a list, then I'm awake, so I go on reddit, read a few articles, watch a South Park episode, then it's 7 am and I'm exhausted, so I go to bed, sleep for an hour, then everyone's awake and I feel guilty for sleeping, so I get up, exhausted, and start the stupid procrastination process all over again because I LIKE torturing myself. I don't know why yet, but I have figured out that there is a part of me, a powerful part of me, that feels like this is the life I deserve, so I keep myself here. Distracted, not really enjoying anything, surrounded by clutter with a calendar full of missed deadlines.
It took a LONG time for me to figure out that even though I was smart and talented, I still had to WORK. I'm still pissed off about it. I didn't realize when I was young that if I wanted to be the most powerful man in the universe, I needed to pick up a barbell and drink a lot of milk every day. For me, the hardest thing in the world is to do a small step toward a large goal every day over a long period of time. It's so hard for me to be patient with a process. I have this delusion that because I'm smart, everything should just be easy and should just work for me. So anything that takes time, or a lot of dedication, or a lot of consistent effort, I just get frozen up and say, "Aw, fuck it." I have so many unfinished projects, I don't even like to think about it.
And writing that last sentence reminds me of an insight I had recently. I had a clean office for awhile (I work from home) and recently it was junky in a bad way for about six weeks. I slipped into depression and just ignored it. I felt more frantic and anxious, and it got to where I just kept the door to my office closed all the time, and I just went upstairs to the t.v. room, and took my computer up there to work.
For one reason or another, I finally decided to clean the damn office. I told my wife, "I am going to..." and she said "clean your office. Blah blah blah." I realized that I had said I was going to clean my office about half a bajillion times in recent days, so I said, "if my office isn't clean by 10 pm tomorrow night, I will give you $100." I wanted that deadline to be painful. It worked! Office is now clean.
And now the insight: a part of me actually likes the stress feeling that comes from clutter. I feel like I don't deserve to enjoy what I'm doing, so I distract myself from enjoying it and being fully present by leaving a bunch of junk around that makes me feel guilty for doing something I enjoy. I look around and say, "I really want to read a book, but I can't really because I should clean. But I don't want to clean." So I read the book, but only for a minute, because I feel guilty, so I go watch t.v., but only for about 20 minutes, because I feel guilty and feel like, boy I really should be working right now, so I go read reddit.com. I click a few articles, read a couple, and think, "Man, I should clean right now." and this goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until I can't keep my eyes open at night. I wake up at 3 am and think about what I should do tomorrow, so I get up and make a list, then I'm awake, so I go on reddit, read a few articles, watch a South Park episode, then it's 7 am and I'm exhausted, so I go to bed, sleep for an hour, then everyone's awake and I feel guilty for sleeping, so I get up, exhausted, and start the stupid procrastination process all over again because I LIKE torturing myself. I don't know why yet, but I have figured out that there is a part of me, a powerful part of me, that feels like this is the life I deserve, so I keep myself here. Distracted, not really enjoying anything, surrounded by clutter with a calendar full of missed deadlines.
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