Distractions, Broken Tools and a Finger Up The Arse

Every Sunday, I send you something to THINK about, a question to ASK yourself, something to TRY and invite you to SHARE.

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THINK

THINK

“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one; each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.f it’s both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it.”
Paulo Coelho

“Would you like a chaperone?” The doctor asked.

I replied, “No, I’m fine thanks.”

She asked me to drop my trousers, face the wall and lift my knees to my chest.

Rather forward but I did as she asked.

I closed my eyes as I heard the tube of lube being squeezed into her hand.

I reassured myself… It’s probably not as bad as I imagine it to be.

My eyes immediately popped open as she entered my nether regions.

Perhaps it was. 😕

I thought she was examining my prostate, not attempting to tickle my heart.

48 hours later, it feels like she’s still inside of me.

#AnalDOMS

She said, “It’s enlarged, but the surface feels normal. I’m going to refer you to Urology to play it safe but I’m sure you’ll be fine. We’ll take another blood sample from you this week, book you in for an MRI and send them your results.”

I thought, “Great, more time away from the office.”

This wonderful experience was capped off by walking home in the rain for 20 mins because my car was at the garage.

One of my alloys had a crack in it.

They no longer stock the “fancy” wheels that were on the car when I bought it, so I had the luxury of buying 4 replacement wheels and tyres.

These issues are more common on a 19” alloy, so I made the decision to put the original size wheels back on the car (17”) to reduce the likelihood of future issues.

I’d been without a car for 5 days and it was starting to wear thin.

Upon getting into the house I hesitantly sat down on my chair, feeling somewhat sorry for myself before jumping back into work.

The charging point in my laptop has been playing up for a few months now. To instigate charging, I need to wiggle the cable around a bit. I gently pull the cable in and out ever-so-slightly to make the connection.

Once it starts charging, I treat it like the Crown Jewels where nobody is allowed near it.

It’s been getting increasingly more fiddly to start charging. And now… I can’t get it to charge.

I’m going to have to get this fixed.

The garage calls.

“Your car’s ready for collection. Sadly, we had to take it to another garage to transfer the wheel sensors over.”

The £70 job turned into a £270 job.

“Great!”

I had a 40-minute walk (in the rain) to pick the car up, but at least I could drive my laptop to the local computer shop (13 miles away).

The computer shop told me it was a simple fix, but they’d need to wait for the part to arrive, so they’d need to keep my computer for up to 5-7 days.

FFS! 🤬

That was my Monday. How was yours?

A Good Day or Bad Day?

Lou could sense I wasn’t happy. The swearing made it obvious.

She offered to walk with me in the rain to collect the car and drop off the laptop. (That’s why she’s the best! 🧡)

Something happened on that walk that I wanted to share with you today.

I started venting about all the things that had happened that day. Poor Lou!

I’m sure you’ve had worse days than this, I know I have, but it’s reasonable to suggest, it wasn’t a good day…

Or was it?

Towards the end of the walk, once I’d offloaded my problems and had a chance to reassess my situation more objectively, I could see an alternative.

My Arse

My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in his early 60’s. Thankfully, he caught it early and with minimal treatment he had the all-clear within a year.

With that experience, I’ve been proactive to ensure I’m on top of my prostate condition. Just in case. Catching Cancer early is crucial.

Unlike many of my American friends, I’ve had multiple blood tests, consultations with GPs, and a referral to Urology without paying a penny.

The GP said I had nothing to worry about, and I felt the same way. This inconvenient exploration is leading me towards the “all clear”, at least in my mind. If I receive the dreaded news, at least we’ll hit it early and minimise its impact.

The alternative is the absence of inconvenience and peace of mind.

I’ll take the disruption.

My Car

Cars are wonderful tools. There are so many components that go into moving us around comfortably at speed that it’s inevitable that parts will eventually break.

Car maintenance is a known unknown.

It WILL have issues. You just don’t know what or when, so you’d best prepare.

Thankfully, I set aside money every month for car maintenance. It’s part of my budgeting system.

The recent inconvenience and cost were frustrating, but at least I was decreasing the likelihood of facing further issues moving forward by reverting to more reliable wheels.

My Laptop

Whilst I was walking to collect the car, I told Lou that having my laptop unavailable for a week would allow me to review the year. I could use the good old ‘pen and paper’ and draft my 2024 goals.

I would capitalise on not having my laptop.

I went from being annoyed to excited.

It just so happens that they called me the following morning to let me know that they had a spare part in storage, and they had replaced it right away. I had my laptop back within 18 hours and it was charging like new.

My Mindset

Was it a bad day?

Within 24 hours, I had clarity that I likely didn’t have prostate cancer (TBC), I had access to my car with less problematic wheels, and a laptop that charges normally.

The issues I had with my car, laptop and arse weren’t that severe, but they occupied space in my mind longer than necessary.

One day later, my problems disappeared and I felt good.

The Problem with Problems

I’ve been listening to ‘Finding Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Pronounced Me-high Cheek-sent-me-high), which was perfectly timed for Monday.

Csikszentmihalyi says, “Negative emotions like sadness, fear, anxiety, or boredom produce Psychic Entropy in the mind. A state of mind where we can’t use attention effectively to deal with external tasks because we need to restore an inner subjective order.”

Negative emotions lead to an inability to focus, which prevents us from achieving our goals.

On Monday, my mind was all over the place. My plans for the week went out the window.

Anything that grabs your attention and creates inner disorder would be classed as “Psychic Entropy” or “Inner Disorder”.

The guy with the unpronounceable name says, “We give this condition many names, depending on how we experience it: pain, fear, rage, anxiety, or jealousy.”

Inner disorder creates a self-perpetuating cycle of psychic entropy. Put simply, bad stuff creates a cycle of more bad stuff.

Negative Emotions – Your expectations haven’t been met. You’re not where you want to be, you’ve lost trust in yourself and you experience negative emotions.
Inability to Focus – Your mind continually circles back to your problems preventing you from focusing on the present moment. The longer the issue remains unresolved the longer you’ll stay in the cycle of Psychic Entropy. Challenges, goals, creative work and relationships all suffer when negative emotions aren’t addressed.
Goal Failure – Your inability to focus stops you from working towards your goals. You fail to meet your expectations, which lowers your self-esteem and self-worth, and creates more negative emotions.

A minor setback isn’t going to keep you in the cycle of Psychic Entropy. The problem occurs when an issue is left unaddressed over time.

You can enter the cycle from a single negative event or from perceiving past events or upcoming achievable challenges negatively.

Attainable tasks will feel evermore demanding the longer you’re in the cycle.

The key is to break the cycle as quickly as possible, and Csikszentmihalyi presents 3 solutions.

But before disclosing what they are, I need to uncover a sneaky mistress that pulls you into Inner Disorder.

It’s so cunning because you’re not only unaware of it happening, but it makes you THINK you’re doing a good thing.

The Devious Disorder

What is this manipulative mistress that pulls us into Psychic Entropy without us knowing?

Mindless scrolling and TV.

“Although watching TV requires the processing of visual images, very little else in the way of memory, thinking, or volition is required. Not surprisingly, people report some of the lowest levels of concentration, use of skills, clarity of thought, and feelings of potency when watching television.”

How does this harm us?

According to “the guy’s surname I still can’t say”, mindless screen action threatens our goals. It’s the most common form of procrastination.

In 2020, the UK’s average screen time per day was three hours.

Uswitch’s 2022 survey has found that the average screen time among UK adults is now five hours per day. (An increase of two hours!).

1 in 10 people aged between 16 and 24 spend seven hours a day on Instagram.

TV: 5 hours /day = 1,825 hours a year or 76 days.
Instagram: 7 hours /day = 2,555 hours a year or 106 days.

Most people would say they enjoy TV and won’t view it as negative.

That is what makes it so devious.

It sucks up your time and attention, and much like a hangover, it prevents you from achieving what you want from life, which makes you feel crappy, which decreases your ability to focus, so you achieve less, etc.

Imagine what problems you could fix, things you could learn or time you could spend with loved ones.

Picture who you could be, what you could accomplish, how good you’d feel or connections you could build with an extra 5-7 hours a day.

With more ‘ability to focus’ and time to act, you could do more and achieve more, which would result in more positive emotions, which would lead to an increased ‘ability to focus’, etc.

You could move closer to the person you know you can become – a higher-performing, healthier, wealthier and happier version of yourself.

Escaping Inner Disorder

The “man with the long name” presents 3 options for combating Psychic Entropy.

Match external conditions to your goals
Adjust your perception of external conditions
Cultivate a life of Flow

1. Match External Conditions to Your Goals

Break ‘Goal Failure’

Achieve your goals and cultivate the life you want.

If you want more money, to lose weight or a long-term relationship work towards those outcomes.

He points out that this will improve your life but it won’t prevent Psychic Entropy long term.

If you feel poor, overweight or lonely and you make progress, you’ll feel great initially but you’ll likely move the goalposts when you get there.
The underlying discontent can resurface.

Work towards your goals, knowing it’ll help, but don’t rely on that alone to fix your life.

2. Adjust Your Perception of External Conditions

Break ‘Negative Emotions’

Turn a negative into a positive.

There’s learning and growth in every outcome, including death. You can feel sorry for yourself, ignore it or benefit from it. You choose.

The things that happen to us are not inherently good or bad. It’s our perception of the events in correlation to our expectations and goals.

EXAMPLE:

I could curse my luck for having a broken wheel and be mad at the world OR…
I could fully expect my wheel to break at some stage and accept my fate when it happens OR…
I could be grateful for the opportunity to change to a more reliable set of tyres for the future.

It’s up to me.

3. Cultivate a life of Flow

Break the ‘Inability to Focus’

Focus your attention on a task that’s challenging and requires skill. Not too much or too little.

Overdoing it leads to anxiety. Underdoing it brings boredom.

The Goldilocks activity will put you right in the middle, “in the zone”.

No thoughts enter your mind as you are 100% present in the moment.

This is the Flow State.

We experience Flow when we’re totally absorbed in an activity. We think of nothing outside of the task at hand.

The inner chatter disappears. We exist in the moment.

He (nice move!👏) says, “When a person is able to organize his or her consciousness so as to experience flow as often as possible, the quality of life is inevitably going to improve, because, … even the usually boring routines of work become purposeful and enjoyable.”

The more Flow we experience in our lives, the more rewarding our lives become.

How Do We Get Mo’ Flow?

The “guy with the name we avoid saying in public”, suggests that we can experience Flow in any simple activity by increasing the difficulty to a level that’s still achievable.

Take a simple task like walking:

Plan a route and stop at certain checkpoints. What can you find?
Pay attention to your walking style. Can you walk more efficiently or mindfully?
Track things like time, distance, heart rate or things you see.
Create mini-challenges like balancing on curbs, walking backwards, box-breathing, or counting the number of Lorry/Truck horns you hear from signalling the driver (my nephew’s favourite!)

You can utilise this approach for any boring activity – Your job, exercise, side hustle, etc.

If the task makes you anxious, do the opposite – simplify the process to get back into Flow.

FLOW = CHALLENGING + ACHIEVABLE

Create more Flow in your life by focusing on challenging but achievable tasks.

After me…

“Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi!” 🙌

You’ll get more done and be happier as a result.

Summary

Remember the cycle of “Inner Disorder”.

If you experience negative emotions (inevitable as a human), remember that it prevents you from focusing. If you lack focus, you’ll not do the things you think you should do, which will make you feel more negative emotions, and the cycle continues.

You can break the cycle by:

Working towards your goals even when you don’t feel like it
Challenging your perspective to see the good in any situation
Create more Flow by making tasks challenging but achievable (avoid anxiety and boredom)

Reduce or eliminate time spent on TV and Phones. They train procrastination and lead you into “Inner Disorder”.

Use that time instead to become the person you want to be.

You deserve it.

Reflect and share this with someone.

ASK

Cultimate more “Inner Clarity” by considering the following:

“What ‘little things’ are you putting off fixing that you know will improve your life?”

“How much time are you spending on screens each week on TV that could be better utilised?”

How could you cultivate more Flow effortlessly into your life?

Write down what comes to mind.

TRY

The next time you experience “Inner Disorder”, examine the areas that keep you in the cycle and experiment with the “Effects of Inner Clarity”.

– Are your emotions positive or negative?
– Are you cultivating Flow?
– Are you working towards your goals?
– Are you fulfilling your potential?
– Are you spending too much time on screens?

Don’t allow little issues to become big problems. Focus on fixing them fast.

Be the person you know you can be, and reap the rewards.

I read and reply to every email, and remember, I’m rooting for you.

Remember: Little by little, a little becomes a lot.

Reply to this email and share how it went for you. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.