Not This, Not That

With so many possible uses of our time, we often struggle to allocate it in a way that reflects our true intentions. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Time is the obvious problem area. Less obvious is how we allocate our energy or how we choose to spend the period of time when we are at our best. A lot of our energy just gets thrown away. One way to control for this is proper relaxation since we are masters at using energy even when we aren't doing anything.

I will try read and write about various relaxation techniques, but an interesting one from Vedanta is called 'Neti neti'. We spend a lot of time and energy worrying about who we are. Mental relaxation involves doing that less. 'Neti neti' through a process of negation tries to help. If you lost your hand, would you still be you? If you lost your arm? etc. etc. Most of the time we come down to characteristics of our personality or ways we would be described - but how many of these are permanent? As part of my 'First 100 hours' project, I am going to spend some time and energy seeing how many of these things I can change. If you are keen to join in, please do. 100 hours is only 10 hours or so a week for less than three months. I suspect many of the negative ways we see or describe ourselves are just because we haven't put in an initial effort. Some of these projects will be skills or even games rather than 'characteristics' - but those are ways we describe ourselves.

Trev:
- doesn't eat very healthily and has a rather odd aversion to messy fruit
- is clueless as a handyman. He called a plumber in to 'install' a washing machine once
- ice-skates like an old man learning to walk
- throws his clothes on the floor and doesn't make his bed
- (...) unsuitable for public disclosure on a blog

Beyond habits or knowledge gaps, we might define ourselves by memories of things we have done, or the constraints we find ourselves in now. 'Neti neti' is a mental technique to try remind yourself that things which can change can't be what defines you. You need to look for something more permanent. Some of our worries can feel permanent. For the most part, it seems to me if you can build a buffer, you can change a lot more than worry imagines (The buffer may be a financial (a few years salary) or emotional (a network of friends)). For the most part our imaginations predict that things are more permanent than they are. For the most part:

''This too shall pass'