I’ve spent a good deal of this week trying to figure out what it means to quit.
Since I got whacked up side the head with a big dose of nerve rot, I’ve spent my time either battling this disease or contending with elephantine doses of steroids – the size of which only a body builder could truly respect.
With either foe, the result is the same. I’m tired, man.
If you don’t know already, demyelinating conditions make it very difficult for you to move. Simple actions – getting a cup of coffee, putting on your shoes, typing – become epic mental chess matches exercised in four dimensions, first in your head and then in the deep shifting territory of Einstein’s playground. Space, time, and gravity have no love for the frayed of nerve.
In short, you spend your time thinking about moving, moving, or recovering from moving.
On the other hand, steroids do work. They reduce inflammation. They revive lost mobility. They make you hungrier than Galactus. But in exchange for all these wonderful gifts, you have to give up your remaining energy reserves.
Result?
Hey, I can walk but I’ve only got four or five hours a day in which to do it – slowly.
Alas, you can’t win for fighting. Even taking an aggressive stance– to dig in, clench my teeth and raise my middle finger takes just about everything I’ve got.
So, I’ve been thinking about quitting – succumbing to the obstacles and letting the vacuum be my guide. To give in and just go. With. The. Flow. Man. Ahhhh. But is acknowledging these constraints quitting?
I think not. It’s strategy.
We need constraints. The more the better. Without them we’re unfocused energy exploding outward in an ever-expanding universe of indecision.
Constraints are important and working within our boundaries isn’t quitting, it’s the best damn thing that we can do.
1) Constraints Give Us Priorities.
The number 10,000 came up a lot this week. In Taoism, 10,000 represents the myriad things – all things under heaven.
“Tao produced the One.
The One produced the two.
The two produced the three.
And the three produced the ten thousand things.”
That’s a lot of things. A lot of actvity, a lot of objects, a lot of time. What do you do with all the things under heaven? Bounty abounds. The mind boggles with possibility. Some people spend 10,000 hours mastering a task. Others watch reality TV.
Wrangling the universe necessarily requires constraint (and the knowledge that we are not infinite). By applying borders we can focus on our highest priorities and define only the necessary steps in order to achieve our goals. This changes our goals too. What was once achievable or desirable may not even be realistic anymore. New goals aren’t good or bad, just different.
Constraints come in all shapes and sizes – from personal commitments to ROPES courses. In my case, it’s just an energy game. We’re all managing resources in one way or another. Some ways are just more pressingly obvious.
One thing to note, as in this video, is that if we’re going to spend so much time focusing on tasks, we very bloody well enjoy the process. There are lots of miserable people who achieved every one of their goals. If you’re going to stay focused, better make the journey the destination.
2) Constraints make us more efficient
A friend of mine with MS was telling me that before she leaves a room, she makes sure that she has everything she needs because coming back to grab something as inconsequential as her keys adds another fifteen minutes to her cycle time. Believe me, when doing something is going to be difficult, you don’t want to have to do it again (or for very long). You may not even get a second shot at it.
My favorite thing about constraint is that it removes the beautiful lies we tell ourselves about how much work we actually do. I don’t know about you, but I can pad the mental caverns of my mind with mementos of distraction pretty quickly. And then I wonder why nothing gets done as I perch upon my plunders from the Lords of Inattention.
In the immortal words of Yoda, constraint gives us a binary equation. Fuck trying.
3) Constraint gives us rest.
When you know what you want to achieve you’ve got a beautiful checklist from which to work. Without the veneer of motion, you can get down to action and actually get something done. Set the pins up and knock them down because you’ve got a beginning, middle and end with which to work.
And at the end of that work, you can rest – quietly. The self-imposed, self-gratifying, vampiric guilt that we love to wallow in disappears. It does for me at least. My recent experiences have left me remarkably uninterested in confession. I’d rather deal with something that did or didn’t happen, not in ‘shoulda’s.’ The task is done. Past.
I quit.
