It’s one of those things where you smack yourself in the head and say “duh!” when you realize it.

Are you staying hydrated and eating fairly quickly after waking up?

Me, I’d been waking earlier but in a haze the last few days… then I water/food/coffee up, and good to go. It’s obvious in retrospect, but I was losing a few hours of good thinking by eating late in the day. Making the same mistake? Try having some water and something quick to eat in the morning.

This post will be short, but I encourage you to read it two or three times. It could save you a lot of headache.

The most convincing sort of falsehood looks like this.

1. Clearly true fact.
2. Clearly true secondary fact that’s emotionally charged.
3. Faulty causality that ties the two together.

That simple structure is so convincing, but so incredibly bad for you that it’ll get you into all kinds of trouble. Especially if you’re analyzing your goals, or your weaknesses, or trying to form an ethical structure, or something important like that.

Stop and re-read this one. There’s no way to fill in the blanks without examples that wouldn’t be either very boring, or incredibly hurtful/controversial to someone going through it. But try to make some of your own in your mind, and be damn careful when something falls into this structure of argument.

“The artist’s life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him — on the one hand the commom human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life, and on the other a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire.” — From “Modern Man In Search Of A Soul“

From “Modern Man In Search Of A Soul” –

Every creative person is a duality or a synthesis of contradictory aptitudes. On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other side he is an impersonal, creative process. Since as a human being he may be sound or morbid, we must look at his psychic make-up to find the determinants of his personality. But we can only understand him in his capacity of artist by looking at his creative achievement. We should make a sad mistake if we tried to explain the mode of life of an English gentleman, a Prussian officer, or a cardinal in terms of personal factors. The gentleman, the officer and the cleric function as such in an impersonal role, and their psychic make-up is qualified by a peculiar objectivity. We must grant that the artist does not function in an official capacity — the very opposite is nearer the truth. He nevertheless resembles the types I have named in one respect, for the specifically artistic disposition involves an overweight of collective psychic life as against the personal. Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him.

One of the toughest parts about being busy and working with lots of people is the, “Oh, one more thing…” when you’re on your way out the door. Usually, whatever it is turns out to be relevant and important, yet you can get “one more thing’ed” to death if you always take these.

There’s no great solution. Sometimes saying, “Gotta head out now. Urgent?” is the right way, other times listening is correct. Maybe best of all is to stop it from happening by addressing key stuff earlier in conversations.

And also — though it’s probably underrated as advice because it doesn’t sound glamorous — making a clean exit seems to hold this down. Once you say you’re going, just head out immediately, or potentially face a bunch of one more things.

“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Confusion is a joy, a blessing. If your life isn’t already exactly where you want to be, then you should be regularly feeling some confusion — and working through it.

I’ve found the exact opposite tendency in myself naturally… my brain and body dislike being confused. So when I get into confusing territory, the temptation is to go onto something I’ve got a high degree of certainty on — checking Hacker News, or running to something else that’s familiar.

But sitting there, really fully confused, is the way to work towards it. Recognizing and owning the confusion, embracing it, having a big question mark in the thought bubble above your head. You own your confusion, you get more results.

Yesterday, we talked about wishful thinking. My definion? “Thinking an effect will or could happen without a cause.”

Right away, you might realize some wishful thoughts you have. “I want to lose weight,” but you’re not changing your diet.

But probably the easiest short-term gain is in identifying something that regularly fails to achieve your desired outcome, but you keep doing it out of wishful thinking.

For me, depending on my sleep schedule and diet, there tend to be certain times of the day that I’m dead useless to do any work unless I make special preparations. Yet, sometimes I’ll keep trying to work during those periods and get not a damn thing done, while burning myself out in the process.

I’ve been trying to recognize that, and replace those times with things like:

1. A meeting for a coffee with someone I want to catch up with, where I don’t have to be particularly sharp,

2. Totally abstract brainstorming in front of a whiteboard with no other materials (maybe paper, certainly not internet access), to just see if I come up with anything,

3. Lifting weights or going for a swim first, after which I can usually do good work.

But I’ve gone through periods of weeks, even months, of doing the same stupid routine of trying to grind through sections of the day without a workable gameplan, hoping — wishing — that things will go well, knowing damn well that they won’t.

Want a huge life gain right now? Sit and think about your last few weeks. I bet there’s something you keep repeating that’s not producing the desired result. How you could tweak it to do better? Really think on this, do it, it can be huge for killing frustrating off and producing more results.

Wikipedia:

Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality.

Wishful thinking might be the most underrated self-destructive force on the planet.

I think most people, when they hear the term “wishful thinking,” they understand that it’s a dangerous thing.

But has there been any great definition of it? Wikipedia’s is too weighty to be thought of quickly.

Here’s mine: Thinking an effect will or could happen without a cause.

When something isn’t as good as you want in your life, it’s tempting to just want things to get better. But, it’s dangerous to entertain that notion blindly. Hope and faith are amazingly powerful and useful forces, but much better when combined with a bias for action and a little planning.

If you have an outcome you want — don’t just fantasize about the outcome. Think, “What could cause that?” And then start trying that stuff.

The feedback loops on attitude are incredible.

When you’re in a bad mood, cynical, and hostile, you put people off — and it justifies that attitude, because people will react poorly to you, and top-notch people won’t want to be around you.

When you’re happy, complimentary, jubilant, people want to be around you and even do random nice things for you — I was just in a particularly celebratory mood going to a cafe, greeted and complimented the owner, and she sent some free watermelon over.

It’s funny – the free watermelon would help a lot more during bad days to reinvigorate hope and good feelings, but it doesn’t work like that. When you’re going great internally, that’s when you get random great little (and big) external things.