Affirmation #29

You Can Be Inefficient

Feeling clunky? There’s no better time to start

It was then that Blasto the Warbot realized his fingers were too big to type a quarterly report. (Image by Author, via MidJourney)

Somewhere between learning of a task and actually starting it there is a point where your brain must decide what the task “is.” Is it big or small? Pleasant? Profitable? A bore? A chore? A massive drag? The decisions your brain makes during this phase matter, a lot.

Is that term paper ten pages of torture, or five short sessions of leisurely typing? Is that quarterly report a nasty interruption or a golden opportunity to climb the corporate ladder? Whatever your definition, it will shape how you experience the task.

You don’t have complete control over your experience of the world, of course; reality matters. But you probably have more control than you realize. For example, if you dislike something, instead of recoiling, you can question the source of your dislike. Do so and you may find that parts of your dislike are based in arbitrary decisions that can be reconsidered.

Or they may not be. My point is that while your mind is not a canvas where you can create anything, it is also not a tyrannical deity governing your experience. Your mind has limits, yes, but it also responds to choices. Whatever machine you’ve got behind your forehead, it has gears, parts, and a shape. Know the levers and you can…