The Days Get Away

How do you plan your day…or is “planning” something akin to a foreign concept?

One of my graduate professors referred to much of the day as “fighting alligators”. The strategy being you fight the one closest, the one about to kill you.

It was his tongue-in-cheek way of talking about damage control, managing chaos – responding to the whims and beck and call of others.

Confucius say “Every man lives two lives: the second begins when he realizes he has only one.”

Perhaps this was true in the time of Confucius. What feels more true to me is that we live in the time of YOLO, FOMO, and being guided by the whims of others instead of the intentions of ourselves.

For the last five weeks, I’ve been living in a microcosm of outside intention and inner chaos. Of things that seem planned if you’re not there, but feel thrown together if you are. What have I observed?

It appears the inner lemming comes out in me in this environment. I find myself slowly gravitating to the unproductive and useless engagements of “deep talks”, “titillating conversation”, and generally being social at all times.

It’s just as likely to be over-exposure. I came from an environment where I was either alone or with one person nearly all the time. A common phrase around these parts is that the social batteries are running low. No matter how fulfilling the conversation, how interesting the person, not moving forward to a goal at a pace which feels productive is damning to the soul.

On this I work today. Back-tracking – making a list, checking things off. Simple administrative stuff, unadorned by fanciful talk and clustering with other “grinders”.

The most productive people I’ve ever met never saw the inside of an office. Trying that today.

Hello from Forest City, Malaysia with a view of Singapore across the Johor Strait.