Momentum – and why it Matters
Bad habits are hard to break. So are good ones. Momentum is behind everything and it’s why doing something even once makes it easier to do it again.
The first time an employee takes a dollar from the cash drawer it’s a big deal. They’re overcoming their conscience, fear and all the inhibitions holding them back from stealing anything, even a dollar. The next time they do it, it’s a little easier. They feel a little less fear, a little less guilt. At some point – maybe the 10th or 20th or 100th time, it no longer takes effort to steal. It takes effort not to.
There’s a reason why recovering alcoholics avoid taking even one drink. Having one drink makes having that second one much easier, and the 3rd is easier yet. It’s all related to momentum, and it can be applied to any kind of change whether positive or negative.
Think of a heavy train rushing down the tracks at 80 mph. Imagine the kind of force needed to stop that train. Now imagine that same train at a full stop, loaded with cargo, and the force needed to get it moving. Once the train starts rolling and building speed it takes less and less force to keep it moving, and more and more force to stop it.
Every action we take is like that train. The stealing employee who returns the dollar, and the alcoholic who refuses that first drink never set that train in motion. It doesn’t get the chance to build speed. Stopping is easiest before it starts.
The same is true for the habits you want to build and the goals you want to reach. The writer who always waits for tomorrow when there will be more time or more inspiration leaves the train parked on the tracks, wheels slowly rusting into place. But even small forces consistently applied day after day will cause movement. The writer who writes just 5 words a day, or a paragraph or page is constantly inching that train forward, allowing it to roll just a little. Even a slow roll is easier to keep going than a stopped train.
Every action or inaction we take makes further action either easier or harder. We’re always making the habits we want to have either easier or harder to continue, and the habits we don’t want to have either easier or harder to stop.
I haven’t written on this blog for over a year. I could give all kinds of reasons and justifications for this, but the simple truth is that I didn’t write. Posting today changes the direction of the momentum, and gives a tiny push to that stalled train. That’s true for every action or goal a person wants to take.
The man who wants to run 5 miles is much closer to that goal by running 50 feet than by putting it off another day. The woman who wants to learn a new language is closer to her goal if she learns just one word a day than if she waits until she has “time to start.” And the man who runs 50 feet a day, every day, is far more likely to run 55 feet, or 100 feet or a mile than the man who isn’t running at all. The woman who is learning one new word every day is more likely to learn 2 words, or 5, or a new phrase than the woman who is waiting for the perfect time to start.
The key is to just start doing something, and then keep doing it. As long as you keep taking small actions and don’t stop, momentum will build. The more you do something, the easier it becomes, whether it’s something you want to do, or something you don’t. It’s all those little actions and inactions both positive and negative that determine who you are and where you go. You decide through your actions which train you want to be on, and which train you want to leave rusting on the tracks.
Caught in a Game
The past couple months my best friend and I have been playing League of Legends together. Classified as an esport, teams of five people square off against each other to destroy the other team’s base. It’s a game of both wit and skill, and it’s addicting. I was reluctant to start playing in the beginning, because I know that when I start something I become very focused on it, and can easily lose sight of nearly everything else. I’ve avoided playing computer games for years because of that tendency in me. But now, I sometimes wake up thinking about strategies, or what champion I want to save up game points to get, and my friend is likely to call within moments of waking whenever he has a day free to ask if I want to play with him. He’s even more obsessed than I am, and has probably played twice as many games as I have over the same time period.
When I lived within driving distance of a fencing school (now the closest is an hour’s drive away, and on a schedule that makes it difficult for me to participate) I used to really enjoy learning the sport of fencing. I didn’t do it long enough to get really good, but it was so much fun, and I’d stay until the gym closed and the instructors were ready to call it quits practicing and learning. Fencing is often called “physical chess” and I think the mental aspect of it appealed to me almost as much as the physical. Many sports do have a mental aspect to them, where outsmarting your opponent can be a factor second only to outplaying them with your physical skill.
I enjoy putting both my body and my mind to the test, challenging myself and competing with myself or others. I’m always trying something. Yesterday for example, I remembered watching a karate class years ago learning a roll, where the students tumbled forward rolling across their shoulders and backs to land on their feet. It was different from your standard forward roll in gymnastics, and remembering watching them I tried both in my living room. Sometimes I’ll stand on my hands, or attempt to jump on or over something, just to see if I can. And puzzles. . . if someone tells me that there’s a problem or logic test that is particularly difficult to solve, you can bet I immediately start working on it.
So, seeing League of Legends as a challenge similar to these other pursuits may be an elaborate justification on my part for why I’ve spent so much time on it. After all, classified as a legitimate sport or not, it is still a computer game. It’s hard to ignore the prevailing bias that any kind of computer or video game is a mind-rotting, life-destroying waste of time. They’re just games. But aren’t physical sports games too? Isn’t chess just a game?
All animals play. Humans play. It’s even been found that play helps develop the brains of both animals and people. Sometimes that’s reported with the implied idea that it develops their brains for better, more worthwhile pursuits – that serious business of living. Games are separated from “real world” tasks. Whether written about video games, or physical sports, it’s often connected to how it improves their “real lives.” Everything gets compartmentalized. Beyond the scope of this single post and something I want to write about later is this compartmentalization in all aspects of our lives where everything is turned into preparation for something called life, rather than being seen as part of our lives.
But for now, I want to close with the still unfinished thought that maybe meeting challenges in any form (even in games) isn’t so much a distraction from life but an integral necessity of it.
To be continued. . .
Auto-Tune, Technical Perfection and Soul
Yesterday, I read a couple of posts by Seth Godin that I tucked away for later contemplation. One, was this short blurb on your “best” being your same, where he ends with the thought “There is no best jazz performance. That’s why it’s interesting.” Then, there was this post entitled “Self-truth and the Best Violinist in the World” that talks about technical proficiency, and striving to be the best at a technical skill. They got the gears in my mind turning a bit.
I thought about watching gymnastics or ice-skating competitions which are judged both on technical skill and presentation. Watching someone perform a highly difficult skill with precision can be amazing to watch, and certainly gets my admiration. There’s a beauty of its own in the execution, timing, performance and landing, but the beauty comes from the human element. The risk, the difficulty, the adrenaline and pushing the limits makes it far more awe-inspiring. Watching an animation of the same feat inspires nothing and has no interest. Likewise, when a competitor sticks to the easier skills, and completes each one perfectly, but takes no risks the performance seems dull and lackluster.
Sticking to what you know, and drilling it over and over, focusing only on following a pre-set formula that everyone else is doing, but trying to beat them in just how perfect that one movement can be prevents the risks that add interest and excitement to a performance. Doing something different, a different kind of combination, a rarely-tried skill, taking risks and putting yourself on the line change a performance from being mildly interesting to being enthralling. For me, it’s far more pleasurable and interesting to watch someone try something new, something unique to them, and mess up a little, than to see a hundred people competing in the same skill at nearly the same level all trying to be just a little more perfect than the others.
This morning I heard a song so auto-tuned I thought my ears would start bleeding. I turned it off, and rubbed my ears in some attempt to get the sound out of my head. Sometimes artists use it in a stylistic way to add auditory depth or interest to a piece, but it’s used everywhere now as a kind of crutch or necessity. I may be alone in this but even subtle uses of it can disturb my ear. The notes may be “right” but they’re off, robotic and empty. Then I came across this interesting piece by Lessley Anderson: Seduced by ‘perfect’ pitch: how Auto-Tune conquered pop music | The Verge. It fit right in with what Godin was saying about technical best, perfection and truth.
Anderson writes, “As humans, we crave connection, not perfection. But we’re not the ones pulling the levers. What happens when an entire industry decides it’s safer to bet on the robot? Will we start to hate the sound of our own voices?” She makes an interesting and thought-inducing point, and follows it up by touching on what I consider the heart in music, the humans behind it creating it:
“When a (blues) singer is ‘flat’ it’s not because he’s doing it because he doesn’t know any better. It’s for inflection!” says Victor Coelho, Professor of Music at Boston University.
Blues singers have traditionally played with pitch to express feelings like longing or yearning, to punch up a nastier lyric, or make it feel dirty, he says. “The music is not just about hitting the pitch.”
. . .
John Parish, the UK-based producer who’s worked with PJ Harvey and Sparklehorse, says that though he uses Auto-Tune on rare occasions, he is no fan. Many of the singers he works with, Harvey in particular, have eccentric vocal styles — he describes them as “character singers.” Using pitch correction software on them would be like trying to get Jackson Pollock to stay inside the lines.
“I can listen to something that can be really quite out of tune, and enjoy it,” says Parish. But is he a dying breed?
“That’s the kind of music that takes five listens to get really into,” says Nikolic, of Poolside. “That’s not really an option if you want to make it in pop music today. You find a really catchy hook and a production that is in no way challenging, and you just gear it up!”
In other words, the individual is taken out to some degree, the nuance, the inflection, the feeling, the authentic and momentary expression, and it’s smoothed out into another copy of the same thing. All perfecting the technical aspect, but removing some of the human. Some artists even use auto-tune during live performances – just in case they don’t hit a note quite right. Is their so-called best with the perfected pitch the truth, and is it what people can connect with? Anderson writes:
If I were a professional musician, would I reject the opportunity to sound, what I consider to be, “my best,” out of principle?
The answer to that is probably no. But then it gets you wondering. How many insecure artists with “annoying” voices will retune themselves before you ever have a chance to fall in love?
Why can be so hard to allow ourselves to be less than perfect, but more authentic, more real – more human? Isn’t it the risk and the reaching that goes beyond perfection to the good that inspires and illuminates the soul of any endeavor?
Friendship
Friends (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today was filled with small triumphs and frustrations, unexpected let-downs and happy surprises, but at the end of the day, it was just me alone. There was nobody waiting to hear about any of it, no emails, no phone calls, no texts for me, and with all the things I wanted to say to someone – I didn’t know who to tell. Soon I was reminiscing about friendships from long ago.
I remember being a kid who moved all the time so I was no stranger to being alone and friendless in a new place, but I also remember what I did back then. I wrote letters to my friends in other places. I had one best friend who I wrote all the time, and she always wrote back. We both moved (her a few times, and me so many times I lost track) and still we kept in touch to the degree that when I saw her years later it was as if no time had passed at all. We still knew each other. At any time, no matter what was happening in my life, I knew that there was someone who would care, would hear me, and would respond by sharing her own stories with me. It meant that I was never really alone.
Somewhere along the way things changed, life changed for me, and I lost all the friends who had been such an important part of my life for so long, including her. Google for any number of phrases regarding friendship and you’re bound to find a slew of articles talking about how friendship has changed, and usually technology is made into the culprit. It’s blamed for the disconnection people feel, for dwindling face-to-face interactions, for the reduction of interactions between people to tweets and status updates, short blurbs and jokes, and an increasing lack of real intimacy between friends.
The number of close friends or confidantes that people list has decreased over the past twenty years particularly in the area of those who would provide any real support. But, losing touch has always been a problem as people grow up and their lives become busier and more focused on matters besides friendship. I think of that old poem “Around the Corner” by Charles Hanson Towne and I know it’s an issue that’s been around a long time. It’s not just today’s technology that’s the cause, although that can create different barriers and issues. It’s a matter of how we let life push us away from others, changing our focus and our priorities.
By the time we realize how far apart we’ve drifted from each other, it can become a real struggle to reconnect. A growing number of people are expanding their network of acquaintances and more surface-level friendships while their deeper connections and true confidantes diminish. And more than all the health benefits touted recently for having good friends (longer lives, better ability to cope with stress, lower heartrates and cholesterol, etc.) there’s something immeasurably good about having that relationship, that open interaction, communication and trust.
I think of kid-me sitting alone after a particularly good or bad day and pouring out her heart to her friend, or what it felt like to find a letter addressed to me from a friend in my mailbox – how quickly I opened it, and how slowly and carefully I read it, and I know the importance and the value of friendship, and wonder how I could have taken it for granted or let it slip away, and how I can find it again. We value our friends so much when we’re kids, but we don’t ever outgrow the need for them. I think a lot of us just deny that need, pushing it away as we become more and more isolated. I know I’ve seen my independence and self-reliance as a strength many times in my life, or thought I didn’t have the time or energy to devote to my friendships – but thinking back on all the best times in my life I realize that I was able to do so much more, and life felt so much easier when I did spend the time to give support and receive it from my friends. Even if we can do it all alone, there’s no good reason we should.
I Don’t Want to Run! and other protests against discipline
My mom wants me to run a marathon with her. This isn’t the first time she’s asked, and it’s not the first marathon she’s run. Five? Six? I’m not sure which number this is for her . . . but so far it’s zero for me. I’ve thought about it – really seriously considered it. I listened to “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougal multiple times on audiobook, felt inspired, started a running program and even joined a running group on Meetup. But there’s a problem. I don’t like running.
I really wanted to like running. I wanted to go for miles and feel exuberant, and catch that elusive runner’s high and keep going further and further. But the only time I ever feel great running – is when I’m sprinting. I ran track and cross-country way back when in high school, but cross-country was only because I wanted to keep in shape for track where I could hit the 200 and 400m and go all out. THAT’s the kind of running I’ve always loved. The rest – the distance stuff – that was just practice. That was work.
I thought maybe I’d grow into it, that I’d grow up and become a mature responsible adult and all that, and develop a taste for long-distance the way you might develop a taste for broccoli as you mature. Instead, I find myself dashing around my house leaping over furniture, or going for long walks and in the middle somewhere – wherever the mood strikes me – I take off sprinting as fast as I can until I’m tired. The only thing enjoyable about long slow runs is finishing. It feels good to finish and say, “Yeah, I did that!” It’s nice to be ABLE to run for a long time – that’s good stuff, but the process isn’t.
I suspected that maybe I was just lazy. After all, my mom is turning 60 this year and is running on a improperly healed ankle (she broke it playing volleyball, and didn’t even stop playing to take care of it.) My mom is not . . . normal, but still, the nagging idea that I was just a slouch ate at me. . . . Until I started gathering evidence against running. 😀
At first, it was just a way to justify not having to run. “Oh look, fast-twitch vs. slow-twitch muscles – I must have more of the fast-twitch kind, that’s all” or reading about the heart condition dubbed “Athlete’s heart” that affects “primarily endurance athletes.” I even found articles suggesting that sprinting is as good an aerobic workout as endurance running, and that sprinters have better bone mass into old age. Then there’s the whole crossfit/caveman/primal eating and exercising trend that seems to be everywhere I look. They all suggest that hey, maybe our bodies need a little quick-work, some fun – but then they try to put in into a strict regimented program to follow, and it stops seeming like fun and more like work.
Then, it occurred to me – why shouldn’t I have fun? Why, if what I’m doing is fun, and is already beneficial, should I turn it into work? Some people love long-distance running. They love it. It’s a joy to them, and they get a lot out of it. Some love to ride their bike, or rollerskate, or play tennis, or run a business, write novels or build bridges – and every one of those things is beneficial. Every one of those things is fun for them, and makes their life better because they enjoy it, rather than just making it longer, or accomplishing something that doesn’t mean that much to them.
I can very happily go to my grave having never run a marathon. It’s not something I’ll regret not doing. That isn’t true for some people. It’s a bucket-list item for some, and it’s a pleasure for others, and a necessary challenge for others yet. When we hear ourselves saying, “I should . . .” maybe it’s time to rethink whatever it is that we “should” do, and ask is it necessary? good for my quality of life? bringing me closer to a goal or milestone I want to reach? And, is there something else that gives the same results (or better) that I actually want to do? It’s easy to forget, and not count as work the things that we love doing.
Maybe I’m still trying to justify not training for a marathon . . . but I think the more things we put in our life that make us happy, and less we force ourselves to do the unnecessary, the better off we’ll be, and the more energy we’ll have to do those unpleasant things that we actually have to do.
Image and Perfectionism
I haven’t been writing any blog posts in here. The idea behind this blog, of being able to embrace imperfection because each of us as humans are imperfect was dancing away from me in a number of excuses. The reason I didn’t write anything was because I wanted it to be GOOD. I had all these aspirations in mind that I would make pithy observations on interesting research and ideas, and present something of value. I wanted to create something meaningful that people would gain something from . . . but the standard of those ideals kept me from creating anything. Perfectionism – the very thing I’m trying to get away from – was stopping me.
I was afraid to write just my thoughts without a sound and fascinating topic to comment on because it felt self-indulgent, as though I was just propping up my own importance with the sound of my voice. I wanted to create something – to present something to the world, and what I could offer from me just didn’t seem good enough. But that’s the point of the blog – to realize that reaching perfection is impossible, that we ALL fail, and stumble around, and sometimes create stuff that’s utter crap, and it’s how we grow. It’s how we learn, and deceiving ourselves, and trying only to show our best face at all times hides something important, and imposes a standard that can become limiting, petrifying us and preventing us from expanding to a greater potential.
I think of the authors you hear about who had such great first novel success that they never wrote again – not because they had nothing more to say or felt their work was complete – but because they didn’t think they could meet or exceed that standard again. We can’t be afraid to make fools of ourselves, because that laced-up image of perfection/genius/great insight or whatever we think we are presenting or want to be presenting isn’t who we are, and keeps us from reaching any further.
Wherever we go, there’s a journey to get there. We don’t skip steps, and it can be a struggle that sometimes gets the best of us. But the struggle is where we reach each other. The most inspirational stories that touch us and our lives are about that effort, the struggle itself because that’s where we’re all at most of the time. Most of the time we’re in the struggle, fighting our way to brief moments of glory and achievement. If all that we show are the highlights – the wins, we can’t connect with anyone, and miss out on the learning we can gain by reflecting on the path itself.
Some of these thoughts were prompted by an interesting blog called The Beheld that I read tonight. The author writes about spending a month without looking in the mirror, and explores the impact of image, presentation, and the feedback and grounding we receive from other people as well as what we present to ourselves. A reader of her blog, aliceunderground made an interesting comment that got me thinking. She wrote, “I suppose this blog, to an extent, must also function as a kind of mirror. Do you ever find that disconcerting?”
Autumn’s response to her reader was:
That’s an astute point about the blog functioning as mirror. Yes, it can be disconcerting; in fact, this entire experiment, to some degree, was different than it would have been were I only doing it for personal enrichment, because I still had to sort of monitor my thoughts and feelings if I was going to have anything to report. But the larger question is the idea of social media as a place for recognition–and, indeed, the fragmented self. Rob Horning at Marginal Utility wrote this re: this project–“Social-media sites seem to me to be self-consciousness machines, encouraging that one maintain a directorial distance from one’s own life experience in order to strategize how to present it in update broadcasts.”
When we write something we expect others to read, we’re creating a kind of presentation. We’re crafting something in such a way so it can be received and perhaps reflect back to us what we want to see. My fear, my reluctance to write anything unless it was something really thought-provoking, interesting and could be seen as worthwhile came from a particular image I hoped to create. I didn’t want to create content that was less than that ideal. I didn’t want to see anything but that ideal reflection, so I wrote nothing.
But the point of writing this blog for me is to explore all different aspects of myself and humanity in general, to see clearly, to remove the blinders of perfectionism and image-framing as much as possible and see the real. To see what’s really there so I can understand it. But presenting what I learned became more important to me than the learning, and presenting in an ideal way kept me from putting anything out there at all. Nothing (in my mind) that I wrote would be quite right. But nothing ever is. There’s always room for improvement somewhere, and focusing on that image of perfection that doesn’t and can’t ever exist, or to imagine that I must present something flawless or amazing kept me from seeing what is real, seeing what I could give, and giving from myself -however it turned out.
Guilt Vs. Remorse
This morning I woke up thinking about guilt and remorse and how the former is destructive, but the latter is productive. The emotions, and their effects are entirely different. I thought about it because I screwed up — badly, and in something that I’ve had problems with many times in the past. I lost control of my temper and my emotions and in the process caused stress and pain for someone close to me, and damaged our relationship to the point where he was ready to give up on me. He didn’t give up. But, I have to change. I have to learn emotional control to have the kind of relationship I want to have with him. I have to learn it if I want to be able to keep and develop any kind of close relationships at all. I feel remorse for my behavior, and I’m looking for ways to change it. There is a clear difference in what I feel and my attitude towards it though than the guilt I’ve tended to feel in the past.
Guilt
Guilt points the finger at someone. It says, “You are wrong. You are bad.” With guilt you self-flagellate, you accuse, but you keep yourself in the past. Every time you review your behavior, whatever it was that made you feel guilty you replay those messages in your mind. You hear, “You are bad. Look at what you did.” This doesn’t give any impetus for change. Instead it locks you in, telling you this is the kind of person you are.
Being accused hurts. It’s uncomfortable and not a feeling most want to hold on to. Whether it’s someone else or yourself accusing you, the first tendency for a lot of people (me included) is to try to explain the behavior, try to justify why we did what we did to remove some of the guilt we feel. If there’s a reason for it, then maybe it’s not so much our fault, maybe we’re not to blame. Maybe it’s just who we are, and we can’t change.
We can feel guilty for doing something, and then continue to do it time and time again. The guilt doesn’t stop anyone, and may even give us an excuse to continue in the behavior: this is who I am, and I can’t help it. I do this because I’m bad (or whatever negative label you’ve chosen: impulsive, impatient, selfish, greedy,etc.)
Remorse
Remorse on the other hand says, “I’m sorry for what I did and I want to change. How can I do things differently?” When we’re remorseful, we’re looking for a solution, and not just a quick-fix to explain our way out of something. We are not dwelling in the past and reliving the mistake, but looking for a real way to change it. We recognize our mistake but we’re not stuck in it. The message playing is not, “You are bad, you are bad, you are bad.” Instead the message is, “I can do better.”
In my case, I have to do better. Not just because I made a promise that I would, but because it’s the only way I’ll be happy. I have this vision in my head of me alone – this sad, solitary figure who can’t connect with anyone, and when I try to see myself getting close to anyone – I see drama, and conflict, and still an inability to connect. I see myself as separate, as defensive, as protecting a shell around me and keeping distance, and refusing to understand or be understood, like a drop of water sinking through a decanter of oil – drawing in on myself and keeping everyone else out. I don’t touch anyone.
I’ve had this image for as long as I can remember. I don’t know where it started, but in a way it’s romantic – fit for a tortured artist or poet perhaps, and maybe the dark idealism of it is why I’ve held onto it so long. A dark and tortured story can be rather interesting after all. The day-to-day living of it though is a different matter. The image is pervasive and attractive in a way I can’t explain – but it’s not what I want. I have to remove that image and change my behavior and interactions if I want to be happy.
If I want to be able to connect with anyone, and I do, I have to change. And I have to take clear, concrete steps towards change. Living in guilt and beating myself up, retelling the same old messages doesn’t bring that change. Instead, I can, and will do better. I don’t have to continue that same old behavior, no matter how long I’ve been repeating it. It’s not who I am. I can create a different outcome. I can change. And I’m looking for specific ways to do so.
Seven Billion 
