7 Things I Learned This Year That Changed My Perspective
The flip side to keto, completing the stress cycle and the four immeasurables
Happy Holidays from Tokyo! :)
I wrote this newsletter a few days ago and I’m taking about 10 days off now to write, relax, and play in the snow. In reflecting on the last 12 months, I realize a lot has happened — from deciding I didn’t want to do my startup anymore to working through tons of emotional issues to spending days in silent meditation and to launching this Substack. Along the way, I’ve found myself changing my mind on a few things, perhaps more than I normally would in a given year. Here are a few things that I learned that somehow changed my perspective, usually a deeply held belief — from meditation to psychology to health and more.
1/ Training like the top 1%
"No pain no gain" is plastered in gyms around the world. I used to take this too seriously and overextended myself in workouts. Burning thighs and redlining my heart rate were badges of honor. I even delighted in my leg pain during long meditation sessions ('My legs feel like they're going to explode, I must be making progress'!).
I watched a TED talk that challenged this masochist view. The top athletes in the world usually aren't pushing their max on a daily basis. Around 80% of the time they are in their 'green zone.' They have to train daily and go for hours, so they can't constantly push their max otherwise they’d get injured. In other words, on an average training day you could keep pace with the top cyclists and runners (at least for a bit).
Staying in the Green Zone keeps things interesting. With writing, for example, instead of trying to write and send this newsletter all in one day, I stop after 2-3 hours and then go back to it later. Instead of feeling like I am emptying my creative tank every day, this keeps me excited to keep writing tomorrow. There’s no need to increase my suffering.
Instead of "no pain no gain" my new motto is "Work less, meditate more." It seems more fitting for me.
2/ Stressors are inevitable. Focus on dealing with the stress instead
In the book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, the authors frame stress in a very practical way. There’s stressors and then there’s stress. You can't escape stressors, those things that stress you out. Babies will cry. You will sit on dog shit (like I did yesterday). Your unsympathetic boss will piss you off. However, to reset your body's stress response and avoid burnout, you have to make a habit of dealing with inevitable physical and mental stress. You have to “complete the stress cycle.” If you don't, your nervous system will be stuck in a sympathetic response. Do this long enough and it f's you up.
Example: You've had a stressful Zoom conversation but you managed to resolve a contentious issue by the end of the call. You might believe that you've successfully dealt with the stress and can move on to your next call. Wrong. You've dealt with the stressor, but not the stress itself. You might've "resolved" whatever logical point needed to be discussed, but like a gazelle that shakes after being chased by a lion, your physical body still needs to release that stress. You gotta shake it off baby.
The solution is to do something every single day that removes this stress: running for 30 minutes, deep breathing, dancing in your living room, strumming your ukulele, getting a message, or playing Skrillex songs on Expert+ on your Beat Saber while flailing your hands like a horse digging for gold.
(The caveat is, of course, if you push yourself too hard by dancing for 3 hours and not resting, then this could cause more stress. So, there’s a balance.)
Read: Completing the stress cycle needs to be part of your daily routine (assuming you are human and have daily stressors), not whenever you already feel exhausted, because then it's too late.
3/ Loving-kindness meditation is powerful stuff
After spending years mostly focused on breath meditation (anapana) and Vipassana body scans (the Goenka tradition), I started practicing a loving kindness or “metta” meditation this year that has been extremely powerful. It follows the Buddhist tradition of the Bramaviharas, or the “four immeasurables” which are love, compassion, joy and equanimity.
This meditation has allowed me to let go of a lot of attachments I was holding on to — from my startup to old grudges to insecurities. The amazing part about it is the speed of progress, which I measure by the amount of stuff I am able to let go of. Letting go of things is what meditation is all about. The more you let go of, the more free you can be. While I didn't go to a long retreat for loving kindness, my 1-2 hours a day at times has felt like being on a retreat.
I was initially a little skeptical about it when my good friend introduced it to me. The reason many people don't try loving-kindness is because it can seem wishy-washy or too sentimental. I certainly felt this way. The only response I have to that is that if you have a strong response to something, it could be interesting to consider why. Maybe there’s something there to explore. Also, if you're going by strict Buddhist texts, the suttas actually mention metta meditation way more than they do breath-focused meditation. There's probably a reason for that.
The technique isn't super easy at first and takes a few days or weeks to get into if you're a new meditator. It requires you to conjure up a feeling and imagine other people, which is a little bit trickier than just focusing on your breath. But once you get the hang of it, it begins to naturally unfold. I recommend starting with Forgiveness meditation, which is the prerequisite to letting go of big attachments.
You can check out the TWIM method which has online/offline retreats and the book Path to Nibbana by David Johnson if you're interested to learn about this technique.
4/ We tend to overvalue vacation and undervalue routine
I heard this on a podcast: "People want to live a good life. Well, your routines are your life. So figure out what you're repeating each day and make sure that it's what you want to do."
It's a simple concept. Your morning routine, your food habits and your work are all repeated daily; after months or years, you look back and these strings of moments are what you call your life.
The mindset I used to have is that having fun, rest and good times in life are usually in the form of Friday nights or longer vacations. You know, work hard and play hard. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you choose to design your life to prioritize doing the things you love, your health, and joy — and put them in your daily routine in small ways — then you can feel consistently good most days.
For me, I'll go to the karaoke booth once a week and jam out with my ukulele. When I chose my gym, I made sure it had a sauna so I could multiple times a week and de-stress. Massages/spas aren't just reserved for holidays, but I usually go once a week. This doesn't mean I don't need a "real" holiday on a beach or mountain with my phone off, but it does mean that life is a lot less stressful, especially when I make time to be kind to myself.
Perhaps for New Years instead of making audacious goals, you could focus on habits that could be more sustainable and easier to implement. This is essentially what James Clear recommends in his book Atomic Habits, by the way, and it's a great book if you haven't read it.
5/ Eye gazing is therapy
I started a new meditation practice this year with my wife. We would sit down and stare at each other for 5-10 minutes. Blinking was permitted, talking was not. We'd usually erupt into laughter the first couple of minutes. And then towards the end, in tears. Even though we live with each other, these were powerful moments that allowed us to really feel connected and open up to each other. I wrote about eye-gazing recently and why it's an incredible way to unlock hidden emotions.
I never considered myself to be great at eye contact, actually. Perhaps it's because I live in Japan and I've picked up a habit of quickly averting my gaze. It was awkward at first but I've come to truly enjoy it. So much so, I started an eye-gazing meetup here in Tokyo and have been surprised by the number of people who come out just to look at strangers. But I guess that's all we really want, right? To connect. To be heard. To be seen.
6/ It's normal to make the same mistake twice...or twenty five times
They say don't make the same mistake twice. I learned this the hard way when I was still in high school and worked as a waiter at an upscale French restaurant that served the best garlic shrimp in the world — a recipe I have been unable to create after a decade of trying. One day, in a rush to catch a movie with my girlfriend, I closed up the restaurant but forgot to change a tablecloth. The next day I came in and the boss told me I was fired. Why? Because I didn't change the tablecloth.
This was a bit harsh. It was one strike and you're out. This experience pissed me off but it taught me to be more thoughtful. It reinforced the view that quality is important, to follow through on your commitments…and that mistakes could be irreversible and that if I made a mistake more than once...or even once...there could be dire consequences.
In reality, life isn't really like working at an upscale French restaurant for a trigger-happy boss that wants to impart life-lessons by punishing an immature teenager. We all make mistakes, and most of the time we do not learn the first time. That's okay! The consequences may suck but we tend to bounce back. It was a relief for me when I accepted the fact that we all make mistakes, repeatedly, and that’s part of being human.
In fact, we often fall on our faces multiple times and repeat the same stupid mistake. How many times have you done something dumb while drinking and said "I'm never drinking again," only to go out the next weekend and feel like crap again? Happens to the best of us. In my case...I got burned out more than once. Twice. Maybe three times. Recently, I keep telling the owner of the event space I rent out that I'll make sure the place is 100% clean after I use it. But I always forget a water bottle or incense stick or something. When will I learn?
In times like these I love to read a poem by Portia Nelson:
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
I.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I still don't see it. I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place. It isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there, I still fall in.
It's habit. It's my fault. I know where I am. I get out immediately.
IV.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
V.
I walk down a different street.
7/ The “paradox of intention” is the story of my life
The paradox of intention = the simple idea that we may reach a goal by giving up the attempt to reach it or, conversely, that we may be prevented from reaching a goal by our intentional efforts to achieve it.
My startup experience hit me with so many lessons. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on what I really enjoyed and the nature of hard work. A major lesson was that when I tried too hard in life — from a relationship to a startup idea — I was almost never successful. And even if I was, it didn't feel like I was successful, which is what really counts since, you know, life is basically how you feel about life.
For example when I raised money and launched our product and did all of the day to day stuff I had to do, none of it felt really good. If it did, it only felt that way for a few moments. Most of the time I felt empty or stressed or lost. I justified this by telling myself that there was a light at the end of the tunnel that never came. This hard work and contrived effort came at an extreme price — my emotional, mental and physical well-being.
I've come to believe that to find joy and lasting meaning in your work, most work (maybe 80-90%) should not feel like you're exerting a ton of effort. There should be an effortless focus and Flow. In order to have that Flow, you need to be relatively good at what you do but it still has to be challenging enough to stay engaged. Crucially, you can't be attached too much to the outcome.
The more attached you are to the "end goal," the less you'll be in Flow and the less enjoyable the whole thing becomes.
Obviously if you find yourself in a job where this isn't possible, maybe there's a role in the company that's better suited, or maybe it's time to look elsewhere.
Before my startup, I wrote a book about getting a job at Amazon. The book came out in a stream of consciousness flow and I finished the book in a few weeks. It's been the easiest book to write and has sold thousands of copies, my best selling book to date. Later, I spent over a year working and straining very hard to finish a thick book filled with interviews of people in Japan — and not surprisingly, it sold a few copies. This is the story of my life.
In everything I do now, I check in with myself. Does this feel good and natural? Am I enjoying this? If I'm not, why am I wasting my time? Life is short. Do shit that doesn't require you to try too hard and it will paradoxically produce the results you are looking for.
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