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I’m Not Allowed to Waste Time

Byjack
I’m Not Allowed to Waste Time

I was standing in the morning

And jumped in place

When I heard her come down the stairs

She was going to catch me

Wasting time

She told me to do exercises

But I wanted to focus on my breathing

Stare into space

Feel my thoughts

I had to bring reasons

Like armor

To defend myself against her assault

Wash your clothes

Go outside and exercise

Take a nap

Or the screaming

Rejection comes next

Anger

Chaos

Danger

Like a time bomb

Set off by too many times 

I didn’t give a reason to her

That I knew what I was doing

In my room writing this down

I await the assault

And brace myself with a list of explanations

Of why I’m up here

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Workpost 46: A Black Dragon Called Neelu

Byjack

Today I came up with a new emotional processing tool, finding a way to personify the feelings within me and making friends with them.

The goal is to accept and validate feelings within instead of trying to push them down or quickly process them.

Here are some examples:

  1. Valorant stress and anxiety (fear of being bad/defective, fear of failure) – a little black dragon called Neelu. The tension in my stomach and heart are the dragon’s body my frustration its fire.
  2. The feeling of being overwhelmed by the thought of work – Pedro the Triangle, a pyramid floating in my chest with sharp edges
  3. The desire/pull for attention or to be liked – Lethe the a sort of fast moving air or energy in my chest

These personification, I make friends with them, allow them to be with me while I go about my business.

I also wanted to talk about a really good video I watched.

Some lessons I learned:

  1. Stay consistent
  2. Figure out what you want to be the best at (good enough for others to want to pay you money)
  3. Figure out what comes before the money in terms that is more grounded and more closer to your purpose

Taking the final advice, I wanted to think about it a little more.

I want to make $200,000.

My two goals are:

  1. To help people turn their artistic gifts into masterpieces
    • Works of art that are honest, emotional, grounded, playful, imaginative, personal, and beautiful
  2. To make companies 10x more valuable
    • More purposeful, unique, efficient, intentional, innovative processes, brands, culture, products and leaders (consistent and aligned)

The question I want to ask myself is: how would I need to go about my goals in such a way that it would be strange if I didn’t make $200,000?

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Profit in Peace 15: Workplace Reflections

Byjack

I had quite a stressful workday as I expected but I wanted to jot down a couple of reflections today:

  1. Reminding myself of my boundaries (time, respect, honesty, empathy, and possibility) really helped
  2. It also helped to note down what I cannot control before every major meeting (usually something related to how someone felt about me)
  3. I noticed that keeping pace with my todo list was helpful:
    1. Keep all tasks that come to mind in my todo list (use it as a mental trashcan to throw all my worries)
    2. Reorder todo list to whatever I am working on right now (move something to the top if I am currently working on it)
    3. Do tasks immediately if they are low-effort
    4. Do sweeps (try to do everything on the todo list)
  4. Focus also helped
    1. Close as many tabs as possible
    2. Focus on one thing at a time

I was thinking about how to transition from work to Valorant more effectively since I usually start to feel dead and I end up watching youtube and ordering food and that kind of makes it hard for me to stay sharp when gaming and I end up feeling even more stressed and awful.

I think cleaning is a really good transition point. Cleaning reduces stress and is a great way to transition slowly…if I’m worried that there will still be a call coming in and I might have to go back to work, cleaning makes it easy to go back to work without feeling like I am not ready to transition to the next thing. In fact, if I clean, even if I go back to work, I will still be more ready to game after the work is done because my space is now clean.

I also like the idea of a mental dump to write down everything you are thinking about at the end of the day so that you can pick it up at any point today or tomorrow or the day after.

Finally, I like to look at the schedule for the next day and mentally prepare for it to know what you can do today to give you a lot of spaciousness tomorrow.

Finding Myself

Byjack

Today I went for a walk. It was cold, but amazing otherwise, I felt happy.

I realized that I don’t feel like myself because I feel so lonely. I miss feeling safe with people that I trust, who understand me. I think about how I lost my art. My dreams, my worlds. And I think more about this artist part of me and I realize I also lost the romantic part of me.

There was always a softer side to me. It wasn’t always about attachment theory and working on myself. I don’t regret going down that path at all, but I feel sad for the Jack who was left behind. The Jack who cries when he listens to the story of two sisters stuck in a Chicago together and one feels she betrayed the other one because she left her alone to sleep in the same bed as the flight attendant: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/175/babysitting/act-two-17

Or Neistat’s story about his girlfriend Candice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dALypGk3xbI

For me, even by telling the story, shows the depth of their love. They cared enough for these moments to be some of the most important in their life.

I think I always sought out a love story of my own. This is what I loved about college. So many opportunities for my love story to happen. This is why I wanted to learn daygaming, I just loved the idea of meeting someone on the street.

It’s why I liked the idea of dating my current girlfriend. Everything about it felt like a movie. Dating a girl on the other side of the world, and traveling to meet her in person. Finding my little sloth despite everything working against us.

I don’t want to forget the romantic in me. I want to be around people who see the magic like I do, and I feel safe around. People who allow me to get out of the fear and anxiety response long enough to feel more deeply. People who accept my story, who want to hear the truth, not what they want to hear. After all, a story about people being fake happy about everything is not a romantic one.

I think this is at least one part of the art that I’m missing. Art is one part exploring worlds, another part allowing you to feel deeply and effortlessly. Maybe another part is vulnerability, of pain.

This is what “high” art is missing. Feelings are lost behind academic musings. Worlds are exchanged for high philosophy. Pain is exchanged for numb confusion.

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Workpost 27: Business Inspiration

Byjack
  1. Start with what you love
  2. Learn how to do what you love doing better
  3. Find a partner to fill gaps within your execution
  4. Come up with simple execution plan
  5. Figure out where the revenue comes from
  6. Start with purpose, later you manage purpose not employees
  7. Delay gratification
  8. Culture has to be client centric
  9. Hacking luck is about persistence
  10. Taking risk increases luck
  11. How to deal with failure
    • Don’t let things own you
    • Do not let short term ego go (enjoy looking like a loser)
    • Learn to embrace getting a D
  12. Take your time
  13. Don’t ask yourself what you will do when you grow up, ask yourself what problem you want to solve
  14. Write down in detail what person you are looking for in a cofounder
    • Opposite of what you love to do
    • Same moral code
    • Post it everywhere
  15. Sell the sizzle, not the steak
  16. Build sales relationship
    • Do they need you?
    • Do you like them?
  17. Marketing is about experimenting and connecting with people over time
  18. Marketing is all about the process and the system
  19. Marketing is about having fun
  20. Write press release like its the actual story, do all the work for the journalist (high res photos)
  21. Lean into marketing for other brands you like and they can lead to brand sponsorship

Something I was thinking about in this video is how I love challenges, but I don’t like failures. But maybe the most important thing to do, or a really good outcome for a challenge is failure, and I can focus on failure if I want to. I think maybe a big part of failure, is unexpected outcomes. It isn’t important that you didn’t succeed at what you originally went for, but how you grew in the process of trying and discovering what unexpected things were on the other side.

The cofounder part is also really interesting in writing down what I want so I can recognize someone when I see them.

Sales relationships makes me think about reaching out with all my goals and involving people on a journey because that is the thing that interests me the most, it is the thing that I can connect with people on very easily and naturally.

Marketing is making me think that failure might also be about the story you can tell afterwards. The story is not about success, it is about the exciting hook and premise. Failure is one of the most interesting ends to a story, although it can be depressing.

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Misaligned

Byjack
Misaligned

It’s been bothering me

All day

All night

Nagging at me

This feeling I cannot place my finger on

Something 

Misaligned

The easiest way to see this

Is how much respect 

She has for her friend

Wealthy

Privileged

A liar

A cheater

Skips school

Steals for fun

Likes being toxic

Likes fighting people

“Winning” arguments

As if life is handing out prizes

For the most annoying waste of space

Yet somehow

These are not the traits she dislikes

But admires

She loves it when her friend buys her things

She also lies

Also likes to cheat

Also plays mind games

Skips school together

Is envious of the stealing

Tries to be even more toxic

Like fighting people too

She seems to respect her friend so much

A near high school dropout

She claims I won’t be able to handle her

That she will somehow break me emotionally

As if I don’t have years more experience

Intelligence

And self-awareness

And yet

Everything good in this world

That I love

Exploring the world

Learning about math and science

Reading books

Being kind and empathetic

Singing and dancing

Succeeding in school

Being smart and competent

Are all somehow undesirable

Somehow

Cringy

Boring

I don’t know

I’m confused

I don’t understand

What world she even lives in

How can I connect her world with mine

I still love her

And I have no idea

What to do next

It makes me feel

Confused

Afraid

Angry

Unhappy

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Workplace 20: Basics

Byjack

I’ve been feeling quite down and unhappy recently.

I’ve decided after some meditation, journaling, and deep breathing that I want to focus back on the basics.

Here are the basics I already covered:

  1. Morning blog post and walk
  2. Nighttime journaling (most nights)
  3. 11-12 PM bedtime

Basics I want to further incorporate:

  1. Music and dance in the morning
  2. Deep breathing when I feel drawn to distract myself (indicates pain)
  3. Focus on creating delicious meals, taking time to enjoy eating and cooking

I’ve been processing the rejections in my previous post and I wanted to write a poem:

She Stared at Me

I remember the times when they just stared at me

As if they were surprised that I would even dare to ask

The girl in art history class

In the library

On the bus

That stare

Then that feeling I was reaching

For empty air

Something that didn’t exist

The feeling of people watching

Seeing me fail

Yet now I think about it

I was quite brave

I am a brave person

Willing to take the risk

I often didn’t believe in what I was doing

When I was trying to pick up girls

But now

With my career dreams

I do

Isn’t that worth a few stares?

Don’t I get the opportunity to shock

People out of their square lives

Square thoughts

Into my world?