decide

Often ideas and thoughts cross my mind but fade away. And they fade not because I don’t find them important, but because I don’t take (or take little) action on them. Things that usually prevent me from taking action are:

1 - Me letting perfect be the enemy of the good. 2 - Me not dissecting the steps and stages to go through in order to acomplish or take action towards whatever I think I’d want to achieve 3 - Me diluting my energy on accessory things, filling idle times with side micro objectives (that I also find somehow cool or important) but are probably more procrastinaing than anything else. 4 - Me lacking some frame or structure on how I spend my time and energy.

Last Sunday when walking on the beach, I looked far away to the horizon and saw a buidling when when I thought:

I’m walking towards that building but each step I take is as if I’ve taken none because I see no difference whatsoever that each step actually made me closer to it. I know, however, that if I keep on walking, overtime I look and clearly see that I’m closer and closer to it. I thought this was a very good analogy for the things I think I want to have or do or experience. They are usually those building far far away, and taking action are the steps towards it. As time passes, and many steps were given, I still don’t see I’m close to it and it’s probably when I drift off, forgetting the goal and diverging on another direction, which will lead me nowhere if I keep on following the same pattern.

What’s lacking here is, unlike when walking towrds the building, in life situation I lack the “Knowing” that each step will take me to it if I just keep on walking towards it. It may take time, but it’ll get me there. Also once there, I will see other buildings, which are other possibilities I could not have had if I didn’t get to that first one.

I know that long time preference and consistency are the ingrdients towards great things. Also, the possibility of failure is only there where when I’m actually taking a chance towards something. So If I don’t want to fail, the solution is not to have a goal, right? Wrong! Having the goal of not failing is probably the worse failure someone can aim towards. Taking action onto some endeavour will always have the possibility of failure lurking on the side. Also there’s the fear of the unknown. The unknown that happens once I reach said goal. The unconsious feeling taking actions towards a goal can end up in failure or an unknown which it outside of my control and therefore scares me.

I know all this, and that’s why I’ve decided to, first, write it so I don’t forget it, and second, do something about it.

First is, focus on consistency. Every big thing is made of little things. The big thing may be scary, but it can be divided in unscary little ones that staked ontop of each other will make reaching the first though to be unatainable big thing. This will take: Time,Energy, Decision. I’ll need to let go of things where I’m spending my time for the sake of my high time preference tendency, for things that are aligned with me. Resting is a big part of it and it’s easy to get wrong, because I can be decieved that I’m resting when in fact I just spending/wasting time and energy on other side activities that just don’t stress me or trigger some dopamine reaction - but guess what - those are also time and energy sinks. They are not real Resting. They are deceivers! Knowing this is key. So as it is key to also plan relaxing times wisely. Relax should allow grouth, solidifying knowledge and give boosts of energy. It’s better to be bored on purpose or meditating or sleeping or just walking, or going to gym and make a light workout, or journaling, than to mindlessly binge on scrolling through social media or watching new or youtube videos, even if I think I’m optimizing resting time. Those may actually drain me which is the opposite of what resting should do.