#23: Everything is Practice

#self-love #responsibility #self-forgiveness #planning #mental-health

Jun 16, 2023

👋 Welcome to this week's Pursuit. My name is Amir, and each week I go over 10 hours of content in pursuit of living a meaningful, fulfilling and balanced life. I'm grateful to share my findings with you and hope I can have a tiny impact on your life. Subscribe now if you haven't already!

This week’s discovery:

🚴🏼‍♂️ Everything is Practice
🌟 The Importance of Responsibility in Life
👊🏼 You Choose Your Hard
📅 How to Plan Your Week
😴 How to Rest Well
🗒️ A Quote I'm Pondering On
🎵 Music Tracks I'm Listening To

🚴🏼‍♂️ Everything is Practice

I recently started including a new section in my morning journal. “I forgive myself for yesterday’s mistake….”. Every day I have something to write. I start the day lighter, leaving yesterday’s guilt behind. Self-forgiveness is a practice. Like everything else.

Everything is practice. It’s all practice. All of it. Staying grounded is a practice. Staying in the waiting period is a practice. Learning to tune into what we need and finding the capacity to actually meet that need is a practice. There will be some moments/days/seasons where practicing is easier, where I’m doing great at it, where I’m feeling super supported. There will be others where practicing feels impossible, like a slog, like a drag, like something I’ll never figure out — days where I forget all the wisdom I’ve gleaned and instead slouch on the couch, wondering why my life is so blah (does anyone else have these days?). And all of this is simply part of the process of being a person, rather than something to figure out.
When I inevitably forget to live my values, to do what I say matters to me, to pay deep attention in the places that feel most majestic and magical, the next best move isn’t to berate myself until I’m a weeping mess to make sure it never happens again and I’m forever present from here on out; it’s to say, “oh yes — how human of me — forgetting to pay attention to this sacred gift right in front of me. I’ll try practicing that again now,”… and then practicing again. And again. And again. And then forgetting again. You are not a Before and After story. You are fluid. Multilayered. Ever-changing. You don't need to prove you've made it to some "other side." You can just be you, now.

📖 7-min

🌟 The Importance of Responsibility in Life

If you want to get ahead in life you need to practice radical responsibility. This means taking ownership of everything that happens in your life, even if it's not your fault, even if it's tragic, even if it's completely unfair and unjust. Taking responsibility for your response to it is crucial because it empowers you psychologically. As long as you're blaming something around you, you're disempowering yourself from actually doing anything to improve your situation. So, take responsibility for how you're going to deal with that challenge or setback. This is the prime belief. Nothing else really works until you flip that switch.

🎧 2-min

👊🏼 You Choose Your Hard

Whenever I find myself trying too hard to win or improve at something, I pause and ask myself: do I even care about playing this game?

You could probably be really competent at whatever it is you want to do but if it’s not the right fit, you’re always struggling against the tide. Why put yourself through a marathon if you don’t even like running? Same applies to people, jobs, hobbies. Ultimately, difficulty should be the route toward something that feels right, not merely suffering to suffer. When something is strenuous or demanding. I ask myself: what is this for? What part of myself am I trying to satisfy with this? Is it ego, or is it meaning? The latter is what is worth striving for.
Everything is hard in some way. It’s hard to be in the wrong relationship. It’s hard to be in the right one. It’s hard to be broke and miserable, it’s hard to achieve your dreams. It’s hard to be stuck in the middle, not really feeling anything at all. Everything is hard, but you choose your hard. Difficulty becomes bearable when you know what it is for.

📖 6-min

📅 How to Plan Your Week

Every Friday afternoon, I begin to plan for the upcoming week. This helps me to maintain a clear mind during the weekend and reduce my anxiety about Mondays.

If you want to plan your life effectively, the first step is to realize that the week is the right unit of time to plan. It's long enough to plan holistically and deal with more than just the crises of each individual day, but it's also short enough to plan with reasonable certainty. So, sit down and look at your upcoming week, your calendar, and make yourself a priority list for the next seven days. Divide your priorities into three categories: career, relationships, and self. Think about what's most important to do professionally, what you want to do with family and friends, and what will advance your mental, spiritual, or physical health. Triage your calendar and get rid of anything that you truly don't want to do or that doesn't have to happen. Make sure to include something that you're looking forward to in the next week or so, because life should be enjoyed. If you plan effectively, you'll ensure that the things that have to happen are covered, so you can enjoy your downtime guilt-free.

🎧 3-min

😴 How to Rest Well

Busyness is a badge of honour, even a sign of moral superiority. Rest, in contrast, is often treated as if it’s passive and pointless. Indeed, I’ve noticed many people hardly think of rest as its own thing. It’s just a negative space defined by the absence of work. Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summers day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means a waste of time. Rest is a natural activity, but it can be improved to benefit your life. Just as swimmers and monks use breathing to maintain energy or calm their minds, busy people must learn to rest in ways that recharge their batteries and bring creative insights. This requires developing new daily practices and changing one's perspective on rest. If you're busy and driven, give rest a chance to work its benefits. Remember that rest is a skill that improves with practice, like settling into a new job or shifting into vacation mode. Your mind will require time to harness the power of rest.

📖 16-min