So yeah it’s true. we all have limitations. They can be on your tombstone or just another stepping stone. You gotta start where you are. This isn’t about implementing a habit, or even a routine. You’re building a life. The skills you need might and should require a lifetime to master, but only a few weeks to improve upon.
In trying to build a life, it seems useful for us to imagine what our perfect day or perfect week looks like (a day doesn’t seem like a reasonable timeframe).
Your perfect week is not a perfect outcome. Your perfect week is a normal week in the life of your future-self. It is the pattern that if repeated, will lead to the best (or at least a better) version of you. It is the perfect process. Your perfect week enriches you now, and enriches you later. It enriches the people around you, and enriches those after you.
Of course, we wouldn’t be talking about this if it were easy. If it were a bunch of things I wanted to do in the first place, I wouldn’t need the push. But the hard work does pay off, not only for my future-self, but right here and now: When I finish a round of push-ups, Endorphins flood my veins. When I sit quietly to meditate, I am filled with Oxytocin. When I make a sumptuous meal, Serotonin lifts me up even higher.
Every effort in the right direction is rewarded. The reward is not electric, like a pulse. It is not short lived, and disruptive like the effects of a Dopamine high. Instead, it is a gentle wave that you learn to ride. It’s subtle, at first. You need to listen closely. Pay attention.
The perfect pattern is sustainable. It energizes you, rather than deplete you. It excites you. It makes you healthier. It develops your skills and deepens your interests. It makes you more attractive as a mate, friend, colleague. It makes you a more loving son, mother, sibling. It strengthens your relationship to the divine. Really, what is it like to step into the skin of the best version of you? In my healthiest body, in my healthiest mind. In my home, and its surroundings. In my places of work and worship. Within the fiber of every relationship. What role do I play in my family, my community, society at large? What’s in the air I breathe?
If you were to close your eyes and start imagining, be prepared to be disappointed. “The first draft of anything is shit.” But you gotta have a draft, however rough, however off. Having a draft is a world away from having nothing.
This act of imagination takes days, weeks, years. It takes work. It’s a process of transforming and refining and adapting. Time is a necessary ingredient. It takes you on a quest. Self discovery, trial and error, observation, confrontation, heartbreak. It takes rethinking a lot of deeply held assumptions. It takes unthinking and undoing. Building a scaffold for your future self requires you to use the one you’re currently standing on.
To be continued.
