Wednesday, January 08, 2014

2014 is possible

Possibility is described as a realm, and I'm a bit taken back by the accuracy of that descriptor - realm.  Don't you think of the universe when you think of the world realm?  All of the matter and anti-matter, or perhaps matter and energy, or matter and space, or us and God, the living and the eternal, or whatever duality serves you best?  Why not approach the realm of possibility the same way.

So focused on the impossible, but does that ever get us anywhere?  Depression, lamentation, struggle.  But we don't approach any other realms this way do we?  We're not searching through space to find out how vastly empty it is.  We're looking for one, just one, other planet like ours.  So in the realm that is made up of the duality of possible versus impossible why do we suffer the impossible? Why do I?  Why work so hard to be convinced that something is possible only after thoroughly understanding that it can't be impossible?  Imagine sniffing around the outer atmospheric layer, scanning from pole to pole, to determine that indeed, there is no space here, this is a planet.  In fact, funny thing about space, we never seem to consider it at all until we're running out of it.

So I'm approaching life differently this year.  In the realm of possible versus impossible, I am no longer trying to remove the impossible.  Most realms are zero-sum, so I'm going to test if this one is.  To decrease the impossible, simply increase the possible.  There are things that I just can't find the time in a week (or month or year) to do.  Now, I do a little bit of it every day.  Every single day.  They say, or someone said at least, that what you do everyday matters infinitely more than what you do some of the time.  I think the math is simple there; do something 365 times for even 10 minutes, and you will have done it for, 60 hours.  And did it take longer than 60 hours for you to learn how to ride a bike, drive a car, learn to write, converse plainly in a new language, play your first scale on the piano, lose 5 pounds, read a life changing book, allow yourself to fall for that person?   And this is just the beginning. 10 minutes a day.  Why, I could dedicate one hour a day to 6 things, and put in my 60 hours each, and at the end of the year have 6 new basic literacies.  A pretty good start for novelties.  That Outliers book says that you need to dedicate ten thousand hours to anything to become an expert at it.  But in the meantime, couldn't we dedicate one thousand hours to 10 things to become an amateur at it?  And when you are an amateur at 10 unique things, aren't you only then entitled to determine which one is for you?  To decrease the impossibility of finding out the thing that you want to do the most in life, increase the possibility of there being that thing.  Keep increasing the possibilities, keep doing new things, more new things, everyday. Every single day.  In fact, like space, don't concern yourself with the impossible until you're running out of it.  Until you're jam packed with possibilities and have a population problem, you are not entitled to concern yourself with the impossible.

And life doesn't need to be scattered as a result.  Matter finds a way of coming together as it should.  In time I predict I'll have three or four things that I dedicate an hour to each day, three or four things I can call myself a true novice at by the end of this year, and a dozen other things I put my 60 hours into so  that I'm left with a feeling of happiness to know that I've broadened my horizons, 12-fold.  Imagine each year telling yourself you learned how to do 12 new things.  20 minutes a day at 6 things, for half a year, and then a new 6 things staring in June.  All it takes is two hours.  Seems impossible though, doesn't it? Who has two hours?  I need time for all my bad habits!  Having trouble with bad habits, btw? Easy, don't pay their impossible removal any mind.  Want to decrease bad habits; increase good habits, and you'll simply not have time for the bad ones.

So this is my modus.  The above is how I think 2014 will differ from the years preceding, and why I think it is possible.

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