by Max | Jun 19, 2024 | Health, Life, Mindset
There’s just too much I want to do.
As I get older, and my job and my personal life seem to get more serious, I feel like I’m constantly behind.
Throw in some hobbies, a side-hustle or two, and a writing practice, and I feel like I’m constantly coming up short.
I’ve often heard that life is about sacrifices. To do anything well requires focus.
I think I have a form of anxiety related to FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.
There’s so much I want to do and be good at – salsa dancing, jiujitsu, chess, building a game-changing deep technology startup that helps clean up the planet, Spanish.
Travel the world, father some children, spend time with the friends and family that I love being around. Go to concerts and dance parties. Oh and I still need to do errands, go to the doctor, clear up that issue with customer service, make food and coffee and clean up and shower and laundry.
What can I cut out? What is #1? Some of the most successful people seem to have made their business their one and only – everything else is secondary. Seems miserable.
Warren Buffet says to pick something like 25 things you’d like to do and then circle the top 5 and forget everything else. Let’s try:
- My partner
- Friends/Family
- Health? Seems important
- Work
- Spending time in nature?
Pretty hard to do.
I guess there is no answer here. It’s just one of those things that’s frustrating and beautiful about life. There is so much good shit out there.
Makes me think of Steve Jobs’ messy desk. It just kept piling on and I’m quite sure he had a lot going on. But he made some pretty cool shit. And he did believe in focus and saying no to the 100 other good ideas that are out there.
I just need to be okay with the proverbial messy desk. And keep a few good priorities. The rest will happen or it won’t.
Fuck social media.
by Max | Dec 4, 2023 | Health, Productivity
It’s a dopamine addiction that needs to be managed.
The hard part is in today’s society, going cold turkey on quitting phone has too many implications. I’m not sure I could continue to hold the job that I have without a phone, let alone a smart phone.
But damn are the consequences really starting to be apparent, both in my personal life and in society.
When I wake up, my instant and overwhelming urge is to check my phone. I wanna see what messages came in over night. I want to check the news to see what happened in the world, especially in these turbulent times.
Coupled with coffee and a cozy blanket and this first-thing-in-the-AM phone use fills up my dopamine cup so damn well. And then correspondingly derails my gratitude practice, my journaling and meditation practice, and my path to a full exercise workout.
That workout really needs to be non-negotiable so I end up skipping things, doing 5 mins of pushups, and telling myself ‘at least I kept the habit alive‘.
Bottom line – I think it boils down to the phone. Smoking cigarettes used to be a cornerstone habit for me that would inform all other habits – good and bad.
Since quitting smoking, I think the phone is the new cigarette for me.
It’s not just on the weekday mornings. I can find myself spending all weekend buried in my phone. Feels like it’s okay because it’s a rest day and that’s what I want. But I wake up at the end of the weekend not feeling rested. I have the anxiety of what was in my phone that I’ve been steeped in all weekend. And I’ve simultaneously neglected all other forms of relaxation and presence like nature, sports, listening to music and much more.
I’m not quite sure the answer here. If I can’t get rid of my phone, how do I improve my relationship to it? I think my first step is to hide it somewhere at night, so that it requires effort to retrieve in the morning. It should take enough time to uncover that my brain can derail that addictive action and refocus to one of my desired pursuits.
I also need to think about playing with the ‘digital wellbeing’ settings a little better to make sure I can’t really access news / twitter / crap before the day starts, while I’m supposed to be working, and then close to bedtime.
How to get myself to a stage in my career where I can forgo at least the smartphone for the bulk of my existence? No clue, but I’ll keep the world posted if I figure it out.
by Max | Nov 14, 2023 | Health, Mindset, Writing
Consistency is my weakest trait by far.
It’s a theme that reverberates throughout my life.
Working out. Not smoking or drinking. Writing this fucking blog.
The trick is to do it, even if it’s just 1 minute.
Don’t have enough time to workout? Do 1 minute of pushups.
It’s about showing up. Keeping the habit alive and consistent is the most important thing.
This post is the equivalent of 1 minute of pushups. I’m just happy that I showed up.
by Max | Sep 11, 2023 | Health
A straight back is a proxy for how disciplined I’ve been lately.
If my back is straight, that means I’ve been exercising. If I I’ve been exercising that means I’ve been waking up early. If I’ve been waking up early, I’ve probably been meditating. When I’m meditating I can feel how straight my back is.
I was diagnosed with kyphosis at the age of 5 and wore a back brace until middle school.
All of my stress is carried in my back. I slipped a disc a couple of years ago. I have sciatica often.
My back is the barometer for how I’m doing in my life. When it’s straight and pain-free I feel confident.
And I guess it will require more work as I age. More discipline, more attention.
Good.
by Max | Sep 1, 2023 | Health, Mindset
I slipped a disc in my back a couple of years ago. I had been exercising every morning for years and was in very good shape. The disc completely fucked me up – couldn’t walk, horrible nerve pain.
In the last couple of years I’ve bounced back. I can move around normally and I’m more flexible and my core is much stronger than it ever has been. But I would still get some sciatica every time I’d work out.
I’d try to work out a couple of mornings in a row but my sciatica would flare up and then I’d take a week off. I think subconsciously I was scared and discouraged by the pain. Nerve pain is fucking brutal. Now mind you I was still doing jiujitsu and salsa dancing and bicycling to get around, so I was active – but that every morning workout regimen really fell by the wayside.
I’m proud to say that I’ve recently picked that regimen back up, and I feel incredible. There was some sciatica at the beginning but I think I’m over the hump. Movement is the way out of that kind of stuff and I was subconsciously limiting my movement. You have to lean into the pain to overcome it. I started doing 5-10 mins of stretching at night as well.
The effects of this regular exercise are more powerful than I remember. I can function on less sleep. I can wake up, do my morning gratitude and meditation routine, go to the bathroom, and exercise without having coffee. I feel much more alert and alive.
The original title of this post was “The Power of Exercise” but I think the lesson here is about leaning into pain. The only way out is through.
by Max | Aug 29, 2023 | Health, Mindset
This morning I REALLY didn’t want to do the workout I had planned.
My body was achey. I had planned to do suicides on the basketball court near my apartment. Suicides are where you sprint to touch each major line of the basketball court, returning to the baseline in between each line touch, until you’ve sprinted the full length of the court. They’re brutal.
I’m trying to get my VO2 Max up. VO2 Max is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption your body can use. And pushing yourself as hard as you can is how to improve it. I don’t have a fitbit or apple watch so I don’t actually measure the number, but having a high-intensity workout day is now part of my mix.
Suicides are awful, and they hurt. In general, VO2 Max day is one of the more uncomfortable workout days in my regimen. You’re working as hard as you can, out of breath, and in pain.
I really felt resistance to walking out the door to do this workout today. And that’s why I had to do it.
I’ve started to pay attention to when I feel that resistance. Saying something to my partner that I’m afraid to say. Speaking honestly about something that’s bothering me. Doing that task that’s been on my To Do List for weeks that I REALLY don’t want to do.
But the reality is – you do them, and then it’s over in a flash. Just like almost everything in life.
And our mental resistance to it is an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we can do hard things, and those things are often the best things for us.
One way to practice this is to stand under the cold water as your shower warms up. Especially in winter – it sucks. But then it’s over. It’s a small daily way to practice doing uncomfortable things that are good for you.
Overcoming that intertia is the hardest part. I haven’t quite figured out a recipe for overcoming it. It sounds trite to say, “you just gotta do it”, but that’s the truth. Just sense the impending pain and discomfort, and then put yourself on autopilot mode and get it done.
Once the ball is rolling….once you’re standing in the shower under the showerhead before you’ve turned it on, you’re already there. Once your shoes are on and you’re out the door, it’s already begun. I think it’s kind of like getting a heavy ball to roll at the top of a hill. The first couple of pushes are difficult and require strength, but as it starts to gather momentum, the ball becomes hard to slow down.
Get that momentum going, and don’t look back.
