It fundamentally doesn't make sense. You would figure, the more energy you spend, the less you have to focus on other tasks. Well, I would figure, and did, when I was entering college.
I got into an argument with Ana, a friend who lived in the dorms and was studying Kinesiology, about the subject. I told her that systems wear down with usage, hence the term, wear and tear. She said, no, the human body is organic, and it becomes stronger with usage, provided you don't blow out the system. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
The last year I have been testing her theory, and, provided I receive ample sleep and fuel, I've discovered for myself that she had been right those years ago.
It really started, as so much of my improvement has, with the website. When GTG was getting started, there was just so much to do. So many ideas to hash out, personnel decisions to make, layouts to comment on, events to plan and execute, content and content and content to slam into my head about all this Asian pop culture stuff I had very little background in at the time.
So I ran myself ragged. 90 hours a week between the site and the Coffee job, at the height of my obsession; 30 hours pulling shots and steaming milk, 60 hours talking with AJ and Sean at UC Davis, plotting with Jonas at the pad on La Riveria, clicking away on my desktop. Of course, that couldn't last forever, and I was blowing out...but I began to understand then the truth of hard work: the more you work, the more you want to work, and the easier each task becomes.
After management training, my world stopped for a bit, and I realized that there was a balance that needed to be reached. I was starting to resent working at the coffee shop, started thinking about escaping again, as I had every time I reached one of these crossroads where I felt external forces were holding me back. When Resident Services Coordinating started to sour, I escaped for grad school. When I worked straight through two weeks to qualify for bar and street marketing, I decided to go to apply to teach English in Korea.
But the colleges, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, they were experienced in people like me: people who were trying to use their organizations to hide from life, rather than to embrace a new change. I wasn't going to expand my horizons, I went to find a hole to crawl into. Honestly, if I was accept to Amherst or Florida, if I had gone to Korea, I wouldn't have learned what Mark and Joe learned in college, I wouldn't have flourished and developed as a more full person, as AJ and Jeff have.
Again, it was about learning what it meant to take satisfaction in one's effort, rather than needing other peoples' praise to power my work.
So blowing out with GTG, it was necessary: I had to let myself unleash the power within me, expend all I had, and learn lessons.
And I did. I learned that, the best thing to do when you're down was exercise: exert yourself physically, ESPECIALLY when you feel spiritually blocked. If it was the website, I would go play basketball. If I felt lagged at work, I would scrub the floors with a scouring pad, a bottle of simple green and a towel. The extra effort, the accomplishment of doing more than I otherwise would, and, most importantly, getting lost in the simple action of being, was enough to rejuvenate my system. I would then make sure to sleep extra and eat more, take care of myself.
I also learned that when I did this more often than that...I was ignoring a need in myself. I wasn't asserting my will in the places it was important. Usually, it has been that I need more rejuvenation reassertments when I've been isolating myself for a period of time. When I recognize this is the case, I make sure to hang out with friends...luckily, I have good friends who put up with my sometimes negligence (thanks guys!)
Working on what needs to be done, and accomplishing those tasks, really does more for you to utilize your free time than it does drain you. When you feel you are doing a bad job at work, or with your friends, or anything you view as important, that negativity does more to inhibit you than spending that extra bit to get through a rough day...especially when, realizing you had to put in the extra work, you feel accomplished enough, and secure enough in your autonomy, to reward yourself with a good night's rest. When I used to beat myself up, and "give up," I wouldn't be able to sleep...I would spend more time dwelling than getting stuff done, or using the time I wasn't spending getting stuff done to decompress.
Autonomy is so, so, so, so, so, so important. So important. Underline it. Italicize it. Surrounded it in parenthesis, brackets, and asterisks...highlight it in yellow if you need to.
Autonomy.
It is the chief gift of hard work, the blessing of human's sometimes maddening nature and wiring. If there is something you expect yourself to do, REGARDLESS if anyone is holding you to it or not, do it. Make yourself do it.
You'll be better for it, I promise you. And so will I, once I get to the point where I feel that I need to do Mike's workout three times a day.
I don't feel that way yet...and it's just something I'm gonna have to get used to. Like coming into work on a clean slate every day. Like this blog, writing every day. Like my desire to make people smile, and think, and my passion for thinking my way through problems, my obsession with self-work.
I'll keep working on those things I need to do, until, some day, when it clicks, and I realize I need to do the workout every day, I'll have the support of my deeds, the history of my accomplishments embodied in me, to achieve that goal as well.
Self-confidence. It's a step by step process. Day by day. Always.
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