Focus units

 Watched this video the other day. It's all about focus, and how to manage it -- kind of a game changer, even though I had supposedly learned this lesson before. I read Deep Work and all that, so I should know all about treating your mind as a resource, and managing it efficiently, effectively, blah blah.

 But you know... we forget lessons all the time. That's what practice is for, to drill known concepts into "muscle memory", unconscious processing, habit (that's why they're called drills, I guess) (also on another note... practice doesn't always make perfect). The Power of Habit anyone? And that's what churches are for. It's not enough to tell people once, even if they totally agree with your message during a fiery revival and have some sort of awakening/revelation. That shit happens to me all the time* and it lasts two weeks at best. Not religious revelations, although sometimes it feels spiritual.. 

Anyways, back to focus. The main thing I took from this video, aside from remembering how focus works, was why I had trouble actually implementing the lesson. You see, if I know one thing about myself it's my neuroticism and small working memory. That's two things. And that's a terrible combination with my tendency to worry about missing or failing at anything, so I try to take everything on. That's three. Further I attribute every failure to personal weakness, so I either get dejected or reject the feedback and attempt to delude myself or blame the problem, the situation, or others. Okay, four things and a half. On top of that, I refuse to reach out for help or advice because technically that's also personal weakness. Five things and a half. Also, I sometimes like to gimp myself by insisting I do things, but without using X. Just for fun and generality. Six. 

So when you put 2 and 1 and 1.5 and 1 and .5 together, you get a guy trying to juggle 4 balls and a knife and a torch with one arm, terrible form, while constantly worrying and beating himself up with the other arm or just throwing a tantrum when he drops the ball, causing even more balls to drop, yet still insisting that he can juggle them all while taking on even more balls and doing the same thing over and over. Definition of insanity much? 

Watching this video made me realize that I'm allowed to let myself focus on juggling one ball at a time, and in fact that's pretty much the only way I'm going to get things done. It reminded me how much I actually love focusing, if only I would let myself. It did this my making me face the hard truth that actually I'm finite, and suck just like everyone else and I should just allow myself the pleasure of focusing on something rather than somethings and quit setting physically unattainable nth dimensional bars for myself. Yes, we all suck. If some people look like they suck less it's actually because they accepted the suck and figured out how to make the best out of it. Probably. I mean I'd hate to think that it's just me who sucks.

*More like once every few months, but you get my point