Cleaning Day

It's cleaning day! Because today is Yoojin-comes-to-stay-over-day and tomorrow is retreat and it's rainy which means it's perfect for laundry-vacuuming-dusting-packing-reorganizing.

There's a little trick I've learned recently to controlling clutter::: take a picture of the space, and you'll be able to more easily identify what should and should not be there. Our brains are wonderfully adept and can quickly skim over things that it's grown accustomed to -- i.e. patterns (this is a really poor and cut down explanation of why we can read things like this). Patterns can be in text, concepts, or spaces. I have no research-based scientific backing for this, but I think that based on our brains' ability to chunk things into patterns and store them into long term memory as "habits", we can similarly chunk our cluttered spaces into patterns. So unless you are very intentional about looking for clutter, it's easy to ignore it because it's "just always there anyway" (patterns!).

Cameras don't do that. When we look at a picture, we're looking at a frozen instance of space. Yes, inanimate objects are still inanimate objects (unless you live in Harry Potter world and every picture is alive), but the finality and distinct boundaries of a picture force our eyes and brains to explore the finite space, to actually process those patterns that we otherwise overlook (literally). Sometimes, we need to be slowed down by a physical picture (or digital, whatever) so that we can really process what's going on in that space.

I think the same goes for life in general. There is a lovely article on the Harvard Business Review about prioritization, with one quote that I really like:

"Many of us have become addicted, unwittingly, to the speed of our lives — the adrenalin high of constant busyness. We mistake activity for productivity, more for better, and we ask ourselves "What's next?" far more often than we do "Why this?""

I would say that's very true, and generally descriptive of what I do with myself. Activity most definitely != productivity, and more != better, yet somehow we convinced ourselves otherwise (or just me).

From the article,

"It's only when we pause — when we say no to the next urgent demand or seductive source of instant gratification — that we give ourselves the space to reflect on, metabolize, assess, and make sense of what we've just experienced. 

Taking time also allows us to collect ourselves, refuel and renew, and make conscious course corrections that ultimately save us time when we plunge back into the fray."

It's been a theme in my life for a while now, I'm such a slow learner... but I think that I've been internalizing and exerting this more. Hopefully.

Welps, happy cleaning day! And also I can't wait to eat my lunch!

Patterns

[This post is inspired by Lifehacker]

I've noticed a pattern in my dreams recently -- there's been a theme of not knowing what to do with what I've got, not knowing how to use my skills and assets, not knowing how to solve a problem... Just last night I dreamed something akin to the Hunger Games (another pattern in itself -- why are my dreams always like this?? I haven't even read it.), and I was faced constantly with this feeling of "omg this sucks I'm going to die" rather than my usual "Yeaaah adventures!!" I generally remember emotions in my dreams very well (as opposed to in real life haha -- but really, I'm trying!) and I've noticed that the overwhelming feeling in my dreams of late is that of a pervasive directionlessness, joined with frustration and an overall color of burnt sienna.

More patterns in life: I love problem solving - challenges excite me, and I love tackling something that I find difficult or elusive or overly ambitious. At an extreme, if something feels almost impossible to me, it's probably something that I will latch onto and try to tackle (however consciously or willingly), and typically not with the careful foresight and analysis that should accompany it.

I am competitive. Perhaps I don't seem to be (or maybe I do -- do I? Not sure), but I can take the most meaningless activities and make them unnecessarily cut-throat. That said, I mean this in solely play-environments. Though for a while my family (thankfully no longer) and family friends valued competitiveness in terms of grades, GPA, SAT scores, trophies, medals, and extracurriculars, that is not the sort of field I want to compete in. That makes me very sad -- maybe because I now associate that with a sense of worth - i.e. if you have higher grades or salary or what-not, you're automatically better? Or if you've created more artwork than person B in the last month, you're a superior artist? Far from it! But if you're going to play a sport or game or anything else, have at it! It's the attachment of worth to any accomplishments that sets me off.

All these now written out... I've been feeling quite at odds with myself. I want [to do/be/have] a lot of things, and in my typical too-excited-and-not-enough-thinking way of jumping into things, I often bite off more than I can chew. Thus, part of growing for me means learning to recognize my limits, to think more thoroughly before I leap, and consider more carefully before I accept a challenge. Though it's no excuse, I think this does help to at least partially explain why my plate is often overflowing with projects to do, people to see, places to go - perhaps why I often feel like I'm running madly behind life, trying to keep up with and not be dragged along by time.

More thoughts are swimming, but I will have to sieve through them another time... Good night.