Today I woke up feeling pretty awful from going to bed at 4AM last night.
I was feeling super overwhelmed with many many things in my life.
Today, I chose to wake up slowly, get to work slowly, and here are some of the mentalities that helped me:
Cleaning is incredibly healing. Any time of cleaning, cleaning your workspace, your body, your clothes, it all is very therapeutic.
What can I do for future Jack. This is the Matthew McConnehey’s idea of leaving breadcrumbs. Instead of the common idea of letting your future self deal with a problem (let future Jack deal with the dishes, let future Jack deal with talking to this person) think about what you can do now to make your future self happier. This can look like everything from cleaning, to setting up a super nice workspace, cooking yourself a really good meal.
Focus on challenge and growth. I think oftentimes I get overwhelmed because I think about how hard things are. What helps me is thinking about everything in terms of challenge and growth. How can I challenge myself? What can I do to grow?
Live in the hierarchy of being true to oneself. I was talking to a friend the other day about hierarchies and choosing the right one (don’t compete in a hierarchy you don’t believe in such as money). I want to compete and live in a hierarchy of being honest and true to myself.
I still feel a quite a bit of stress of the difficult conversations I’m anticipating, and the difficult tasks I have in front of me.
So I just changed Airbnbs in France and it made a massive mental difference.
The first Airbnb was fine. It looked nice and modern and was in the heart of the city. But the bed was uncomfortable and it was small and everything felt dark and closed.
The outside felt dirty and dark and the “main attraction” was the Carrefour (a french grocery that was extremely close by).
Rarely got a full nights sleep
View overlooking the street
Mirror in the back, not as big as it looks
Little bathroom
Door for apartment right window construction frame
The local attraction
The second Airbnb was very different. It was over twice as large (55 m2 vs 20 m2), filled with natural light and greenery and was near a park (Jardin des Arenes de Cimiez) and a museum (Musee Matisse).
Living room is filled with natural light and interesting interior design and decor
Lots of space to work
Garden outside
More comfortable, though small bed
Outside the airbnb
Local attraction, Jardin des Arenes
The difference in mentality was so massive I was floored. In the first Airbnb I felt:
Depressed
Unmotivated to work
Tired
Not feeling like I’m on vacation
While in the new Airbnb I felt:
Like I was on vacation
Full of energy and enthusiasm
Ready to get work done
Feeling creative and relaxed
The interesting thing was, that my girlfriend told me that the new Airbnb was in a much much nicer and richer neighborhood and this got me thinking. This is the definition of privilege – the ability to grow up in an environment that nurtures you and gives you energy instead of sucking it away.
I’ve never believed in leveling the playing field for the sake of fairness because fairness is both a subjective and impossible standard to meet. Instead, I’ve been interested in creating a more productive society as a whole and I think that by creating better spaces for all of society people would feel more energetic and productive. I only experienced the change in physical space, in greenery and natural light and calm and quiet. What would happen if you were able to get a better mental environment, with more supportive loving people? This is why children in single-family homes and substance abuse have it so hard in getting ahead. They don’t have the mental environment to live up to their full potential.
This has a couple of implications for me:
Money is not everything, but it is important in getting you into a good environment
Don’t skimp out on rent or places to stay on vacation, the environment is everything
Surround yourself with nurturing people who help you feel peaceful and energetic
I had a slower start to the day. I started the day on my phone, waking up a bit early because my new retainer is bothering me when I sleep.
I watched some Valorant, talked to my girlfriend, and now I have a flight in about 3 hours. I want to leave in about 2 hours. I still have to take out the trash, eat up some more food and load the dishwasher.
I did a bit of a workout and I found out a couple of things that help with regaining energy, and gathering chi:
Butt-clenched breathing: sounds a bit weird but it works. Lie down, clench the sphincter muscle (what you use to hold in poop) breath in. Then relax and breathe out. Repeat.
Tummy circles: put the left hand over your stomach, then your right hand over that. Make circles over your stomach in the clockwise direction. Do it lightly. Then put your hands in the same area in your back and repeat.
Extremity exercises: this can be any exercise that works your extremities. For example, doing a dead hang and focusing on clenching really hard with your hands but leaving everything else relaxed, or doing heel raises with the tips of your toes super engaged with everything else relaxed.
Meditation: lie down close your eyes and walk down a staircase while counting to 10. Imagine the smell of wet stone, always puts me in a meditative state really quick for some reason.
Anyway goals for today. Just relax! I want to get all the chores sorted out and just spend the rest of my time relaxing.
Today I will be playing a lot of Valorant and hopefully processing a lot of the stress and feelings I have around Valorant through the use of poetry.
Pregame Stress
I’ve got knots in my stomach
What if it is another day
Of humiliation
That drop in my stomach
Feeling helpless
Like I’m worth nothing
I go down in rank
The more I play
What is wrong me
That I cannot get better
I hate this
Myself
Me
Hands Sweaty
On my keyboard
Heat on my face
Clenched stomach
It is no wonder
Valorant has such a big impact on me
I wish to let go of my fears
And remember the satisfaction of shooting
I starting to find it a challenge to write poetry because my mind always turns to thinking strategically and thinking in terms of sentanaces and bullet points. I’m going to roll with that. If that is how I feel, we are just going to write in sentences and bullet points.
I feel a bit tired like I’m walking through a haze. I’m scared to start a ranked game, and yet there is an eagerness to gain rr. Gold 1, what could go wrong? Yet I’m scared. HOW DID I GET TO GOLD 1? That’s unhead of. It gives me so much anxiety that I don’t know what is going on.
I want to remind myself of my main valorant tenants:
Think of it as a 1v5
Follow your feelings, peek when you are ready
Keep wrist relaxed, use movement keys to aim
Some additional tenants:
Find a space angle to hold, something that feels safe
Peek expecting them there
Notice things about aim, don’t try to change them, noticing is the pathway to the unconscious mind
Goddamn, this fucking omen can’t hit him while he’s moving . Why is Silver Movement so good?????
WHY IS THE RAZE HIDING IN THAT AREA? NO FUCKING COMMS? I hate this team. Why can I not hit shots.
I think I wasn’t aware of the danger I was in when clearing heaven. Maybe need more of that 1v5 mindset. Also, maybe need to notice where my shots are going. Scared but playing again. It is silvers I am with WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY KILLING ME. Counterstrafing, one tapping me??? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
THIS IS LIKE GOING BACK 2 FUCKING YEARS. I guess what I thought before is that I would never drop this low because I can beat them on gamesense alone.
I feel tired. Why are the braindead idiots getting more kills? I feel a bit better now. I adjusted and I was able to get a bunch of kills in the end. I guess its just about holding better angles.
I don’t like this bullshit bottom fragging. I feel so tired and awful and I feel hungry.
It is interesting that with these reflections I was able to drop 39 kills in one of my games.
