Idle Hands

Idle hands are the Devil's playground... or so goes the proverb.  I have (re)-discovered that when I actually do stuff with my life, I become much happier than otherwise.  Sitting around the house is my downfall -- I have done it so far for most of break, and I did it for much of summer (although I was pretty good at not spending too much time around the house).  John Stuart Mill was right: humans can gain pleasure from both activity and tranquility; but they work best when alternated one with the other.  I certainly needed a break after this past semester -- and about a week after I finally left El Cerrito, I began to start to feel normal again.  But soon after feeling normal, I started to wonder what I was going to do with my time, and, as some of you may know, as soon as you wonder what to do with your time, it is gone.  Disappeared, just like that.  It was half past noon when you sat down, and now it's six o'clock and you're starving.  Well, I have found that activities are a wonderful way to burn time without feeling bad about it.  Problem is, I still don't get any work done.

Still, though, it isn't all about work.  The human person is not a work machine.  We need play just as much as we need physical rest.  Play, I propose, is rest for the brain.  It's why we want to play video games or watch TV when we get off of work: our brain needs to relax.  Or perhaps cool down -- like running a cool-down lap after finishing a race.  More precisely, though, our bodies and mind require quite a large number of ingredients in order to run properly.  Without even thinking, I can name: food, sleep, exercise, play, friendship, mental stimulation, humor, art, music, dance, and shooting the bull.  Part of having a wonderfully complex and amazing body & mind is that they require proportionally complex care to keep running smoothly.  So it's not as simple as: 2000 calories a day + 8 hours sleep + 30 min workout = healthy person.  In fact, all the activities that we do (hopefully) contribute to a healthy person.  That is why our routine is more like: wake up, eat, go for a run, shower, go to work, eat lunch, read the paper, work some more, go home, do the bills, watch your favorite movie or television program, talk with your roommate/wife/best friend/mother, go to bed at a reasonable hour, and other activities that we throw in here and there.  That is one reason we fill our lives with so much stuff, always being busy and not having time to do all the stuff we need to do.  In fact, there was supposedly this guy who went to a life coach, a personal trainer, a dietician, a psychologist, and a spiritual director, and added up all the activities that they say you should do each day in order to maintain a healthy being.  It added up to over 30 hours a day.  As the saying goes, does anyone see anything wrong with this picture?

It's really weird to think that, mathematically speaking, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do everything we "should" do in order to be all that we can be.  Fact is, we can't.  I have occasionally planned out (yes, I know, it shocks even myself) what my day should ideally look like, and I remember struggling to fit in what I wanted to fit in.  And that was the IDEAL day, if everything goes perfectly.  It barely fit!  I had 45 minutes of free time per day -- in my schedule!  Kind of depressing.  But still, it's better to know than not to know, and go on through the same routine day after day and never catch on to the fact that it's not going to change by itself.  (Math is a wonderful thing!)

Confucius said that success in life consists of eliminating the nonessentials.  There really is only enough time in this world to do what we were created to do, and then leave this world to meet our maker.  Okay, that's probably not the most accurate description of life, but it's true that life is not long enough to justify wasting time.  Everyone is given 24 hours per day, and some accomplish much more with it than others.  Heck, I accomplish much more one day than I do the next.  And there are books, seminars, tapes, articles, advice and opinions galore to tell you how to get the most out of your day.  There's some good advice there.  I benefit from hearing it whenever I hear it...problem is, I usually forget it the next day.  Well, I think the advice mostly boils down to vision and discipline: vision to set goals, see what needs to be done, and figure out how to do it, and discipline to keep you on track so that you actually do it.  To have an effective team, you need a coach with good vision, and a team with good discipline.  That is the winning combination.

Okay, enough with the pep talk.  Let's talk about what happened today & yesterday.