Some Things I Learned in 2008 (That Hopefully I won’t Have to Re-Learn in 2009)

Posted: December 31st, 2008 | Author: Daniel Higginbotham | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Don’t wait until you “feel like it” to do something

In fact, doing the thing usually puts you in the right mood to be doing it.I learned this one when my uncle moved from Boston to New Jersey. Before, he was a 45 minute drive away. Now, I’d have to travel at least 4 hours to see him. I regret that I hadn’t gone to see him more, even though I didn’t always feel like it.

Everything will take longer than you expect it to

Well, almost everything. Phone calls that should take 5 minutes will take 20. Errands that you think will take one hour will take two. Even when you think you’ve learned and adjusted your expectations, things will still take longer. This one hit me when my friend, my girlfriend, and I drove to downtown Boston to see a friend perform. We should have been 10 minutes early, but we couldn’t find a parking spot and arrived a little late. This lesson was confirmed recently when I left 30 minutes early to go to an aikido class and ended up 5 minutes late because of unexpected traffic.

There’s no reason to worry

Are you worried that something bad is going to happen? Well something bad IS going to happen, so how’s worrying going to make any difference? Besides, worrying will drain your resources prematurely and make it harder for you to cope. I learned this one from getting laid off twice in three months.

What it means

Around the time that I got laid off for the second time, I was listening to the Alan Watts podcast a lot. He talks mostly about buddhism and mentioned that “nirvana” means “breathe out” – as in, if you hold your breath, you’ll suffocate. In the same way, if you cling to life, you’ll “suffocate”. But if you breathe out, your breath will come back to you, and it works the same with life.

I try to keep this in mind when I have too much inertia to do something, when I’m becoming impatient because something’s taking longer than I expected, or when I find my energy being drained by worry.

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