Tag: Workaholic

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Chronic Disease Uncategorized

Day 372 and Pace Yourself

I was in an incredible groove yesterday. I’ve been letting go of the awful December I experienced and enjoying the new January energy. If you look at yesterday’s post I was absolutely in the zone. So I pushed myself thinking I can handle full capacity day. Mistakes were made in my enthusiasm. And well I’m probably in need of a rest. I over did it.

I often struggle with pacing and moderation. It’s important for me to remember that I’ve got a history as a workaholic. But I don’t want to feel as if I can’t push myself either. It’s the middle path I must walk. But it is hard to stay on it. I feel like every day I am sliding off the middle path right into the ditch. I’m getting better at getting myself back.

I used to be happy mailing elaborate detours. I’d take every exit on this metaphorical path in the past. But tonight I’m going to remind myself I’ve got a destination. And that is being responsible for keeping myself happy and healthy. So I’m going to get in bed and watch some TV and shitpost on Twitter

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Background

Day 363 and Best Of 21

One of the unexpected benefits of writing every single day has been the accumulation of reference material. I can send folks a synopsis rather than retyping a topic that I get asked about a lot. So if you want to know how I get healthy, or how I invest, or even how I think about aesthetics this page will serve as a reference for year 1.

Health & Wellness

Biohacking 101 Guide

Supplements for Beginners

Self Care & Pacing and Recovery Protocols

How To Communicate with Me

Why I Prefer Asynchronous Communication

Why I Dislike Phone Calls (Or DM Me First)

Getting To Know Me for Founders Seeking Investment

Investment Thesis Thoughts

Empathy Investing

Chaotic Labor Markets

Chaotic Families

Request for Founders

Psychological Safety

Mental Flexibility

Bias Towards Fuckaround

What Don’t I Know?

Why I Don’t Like to Invest In Retail Anymore

Aesthetics

Fashion Week Back in The Aughts

The Thursday Styles Problem

Swag (Or My Facebook Hoodie)

A General Theory of Shitposting

Cultural Hegemony and Internet Citizenship

A Short Guide to Becoming an Edgelord

Advice for Startups

Above All Else Fun

Inertia

Rooting For You

Stress, Luck & Startup Families

The Emotion of A Big Exit (or Stack Overflow Sold)

Show Me Anything

Just Make Stuff

Optimizing For The Right Outcome

How To Work With A Startup

Emotional Growth

3 People Inside You

Punishment

Forgiveness and Failure

Easy for You (Not For Everyone)

Superpowers

My Addiction to Work

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Medical

Day 355 and Not That Bad

I made one of the rookie mistakes in coping with illness today. Yesterday I came back positive for Covid. It was pretty mild. So I didn’t cancel any of my appointments. I went to therapy. I still had an on and off work day with a few obligations. And now I feel like shit

Basically I ignored my own advice. I wrote a post about how to effectively beat back an illness in a post I called “How to be sick.” And just a few days later I forgot everything I said. I feel very on my own bullshit.

My experience of Omicron has been quite mild. It feels much more like an inflammatory condition than a respiratory one for me. My whole body aches. I ran a slight fever. I’m exhausted. And I have awful brain fog. Like my normal speed of thinking has slowed ten fold. I can still recall the topics or even general contours of what I want to say. But then I can’t quite get the specifics to form in my mind. It really is like living through a fog.

So I need to wrap this post up and go to bed. I am sick. It’s mild but it doesn’t mean it’s not there. So I need to treat myself gentle and make sure I help myself get well. If you get sick don’t push yourself. It will only extend the experience.

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Emotional Work

Day 347 and Self Acceptance

Because a huge chunk of this writing exercise has been tagged under “emotional work” I’ve had the good fortune of chronicling much of my emotional growth this year. A huge theme? Learning to love myself. I know, it’s pretty core stuff. You are probably working on the same thing as me. Just because it’s fundamental doesn’t mean it’s easy!

My favorite coping mechanism is working harder. Didn’t get what I wanted? It’s my fault. Maybe if I’d put in make work I would have! I’ve got a whole circle of abuse I pour on myself. It’s always my responsibility if something didn’t work out. Not happy? Time for self improvement. It’s rarely occurs to me that I should simply accept myself and that sometimes things simply don’t go my way. I don’t seek out self improvement for the joy of it. I do it to punish myself.

I’m terrified of letting go of my coping mechanisms. If I was good enough I would have felt loved as a child. This is a horrible inner child logic that I’m applying to myself. As if an infant deserves love because of its efforts. We love our children just for existing. And yet I struggle to express love for my own inner child.

If I stop using hard work as a coping mechanism I am afraid I’ll never be accepted again. If I let it loop even further I am afraid I will die. Because I fear I only overcame my health issues because I throw so much effort into recovery. I am afraid it is only through effort, punishment and improvement that I deserve to be in this world. Any wonder I find Calvinism appealing as a faith?

I tell myself these are rational coping mechanisms. The world does reward me for hard work and continual efforts towards improvement. I pay my bills through hard work. And sure if I don’t pursue basic healthy habits and fitness then yes I probably won’t feel as well. But these arguments are just an excuse to keep myself from accepting that I’m worthy as a human independent of my work or my health. And because I have a hard time hearing this for myself I want you to know you are worthy just for being you too. Our humanity is enough.

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Emotional Work

Day 345 and Trust

I’ve not always been accepting of my own weaknesses. Instead of focusing on how well I can hone my super powers, I’ve occasionally fixated on where I lack innate talent. I’m not particularly adapt at operations or logistics but I feel bad about it. I am however genuinely top tier when it comes to narrative & attention. Somehow I don’t feel equally good about this.

I’ve tried to work in teams where my talents & weaknesses are balanced out by others. I like teamwork now in a way I didn’t fully appreciate when I was younger. I’ve learned to trust my own value. And I am able to emotionally trust the people around me.

The psychological safety that comes from trusting yourself and others is a lifelong process. Even a few years ago I’d struggle to not compulsively overwork to overcome my weaknesses. When I should have been honing my unique talents.

I’ve got an opportunity over the next few days to really trust one of my teams. We’ve got a deliverable that isn’t in my area but I’d crucial to success. I could spend my extra energy worrying over it and making an attempt to contribute just so I felt useful. Or I can emotionally let go and appreciate the trust I have in others.

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Emotional Work

Day 338 and Effort

The real world rewards talent. It largely doesn’t give a fuck about effort. Sure, we like it when someone with talent works hard at honing their gifts. But if you just work hard it is largely ignored. The end result still matters most. Talent more easily gets the desired outcome.

This is a sort of hard truth that isn’t particularly hard to grasp. Every bit of evidence you have from a young age indicates that we reward outcome. Even if you are in a school system without grades, like I was, we still know what a quality outcome looks like. But we spend all this time and effort lying to kids with this separate system of effort that suggests that working hard and putting in a lot of effort are the thing “good” kids do.

I’m not wild about praising effort and hard work on its own. Sure it matters, hard work honing your skills, even when you suck, has its own value. But not when it comes to what the world expects of us. We inculcate habits and emotional expectations that are basically cargo cults. No wonder kids, after being praised and rewarded for effort for a decade or two, are confused when they get their first job. I’d be fucking pissed if I were that kid. I’d slowly shaped my behavior around one set of expectations only to find it had no bearing on reality.

Why do we spend so much time cultivating the myth that effort matters as much as talent? Why do we praise effort so consistently among our youth when we know that at a job being told “well you work hard but…” is probably a prelude to being let go. You have to work hard and achieve the desire outcome. It’s enough to drive people nuts. It is literally crazy making to contradict reality with all these lessons on effort. We are gaslighting our youth.

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Emotional Work

Day 328 and Cultural Pause

I love America’s big holidays. Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year’s are my favorite. But not because I am particularly attached to any festivities. Though I do love everything about Christmas. I love holidays because I feel like it’s finally ok to pause.

Having an moment where it feels culturally acceptable to be at rest is deeply comforting to me. I feel it slightly on the weekends. It’s like the ambient environment around me lifts the expectation of being “on” and everything I do is a bonus. I finally let myself relax. And more crucially I don’t beat myself up for feeling relaxed.

It’s a fairly profound feeling for me. Normally I have something in my gut that says I must be productive if other people are working. It’s hard for me to shake honestly. I struggled with vacations and I initially hated sick leave (even though I needed it badly) because I felt I should be accomplishing things along with everyone else.

I’m working on it and it is getting better as I do more emotional work on myself. But I still relish the feeling of rest that comes with a holiday.

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Emotional Work Politics Reading

Day 306 and Shortcuts

I never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. But I have impossibly high standards for myself that may be unproductive.

While I’m sure some of it innate, some of it is nurture. I went to a school system called Waldorf Schools that didn’t have grades. Every child was evaluated against their individual performance and each class was deliberately taught to the best student in the class not to some perceived middle. That’s left me with a habit of always believing I can improve and also the expectation that our average performance must be comparable to the best.

Of course this is unrealistic if one continues to climb up social, economic, intellectual and cultural ladders. I kept looking for my limit and then finding a new mountain to climb. Know I know there will always be mountains. And that perhaps it’s ok to take some shortcuts on your journey.

I really struggle with shortcuts. So am forcing myself into taking some so I can let go of some of my impossible standards.

I don’t scan books. I read them. So I bought a really bad prepper novel and am forcing myself to take shortcuts in pacing and focus. It’s so bad I don’t have a choice. I have to skip a lot or else I just wouldn’t finish.

I had to go to an appointment today. Normally I’d be sure to shower and wash my hair if I need to be in polite company. I showered yesterday but I just didn’t feel like going to the trouble two days in a row. So I put dry shampoo in my hair and opened up weight wipes for my nether regions. I doubt anyone would have noticed but a shortcut in my grooming routine was pretty liberating.

Today is also Election Day. My hometown has a bunch of local ordnance changes and some important bond related measures. It’s also city council elections. I’ve been following all the ballot issues but I just couldn’t find any city council people I liked. I read all the local papers and they all suck. None of them remotely come into my preference wet. So I took a shortcut. I voted on all the ballot issues and left the city council blank. I just wasn’t going to spend any more time picking lesser evil candidates.

These may seem like pretty different issues and maybe I’m also not fully committed to my civic duty (I’d argue as a democracy it’s a right to abstain from a vote if your conscience cannot condone it). But the point is that instead of getting bogged down in every unrealistic expectation I had of myself I could just take a shortcut.

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Biohacking

Day 303 and App Pressure

I refused to give in to peer pressure as a kid. I was way too much of a handful to ever let anyone else tell me what to do. Sadly this led to being constantly on the shit end of the girls in my classes because I didn’t like to play their games. I was terrible at respecting authority, and this included any kind of peer power structure.

Thankfully we moved every two years so I never had the suffer the consequences of being headstrong. Probably why I was so eager to thumb my nose at power. I didn’t think it was going to last for very long. So I never had to solve for it.

It turns out I should have learned to cope with peer pressure when I was younger. Instead of reflexively being against all kinds of authority, I should have learned when to accept (and when not) the input of people and systems who have power over me.

Why? Because now I don’t know when to say no. As an adult I am extremely susceptible to pressure from my applications. I opted into letting them have power over me and I have no idea how to say no to them. I’ve got a problem with application pressure because I didn’t learn how to deal with it as a kid. Ooops!

As part of my quest to regain my health I have become an avid biohacker. I track tons of metrics. I wear both an Apple Watch and a Whoop. I’ve use half a dozen different applications daily. But what I didn’t appreciate until recently is that the nudging state of my wellness apps is functionally just peer pressure.

My “Health” folder on my iPhone

And I give in to it every damn time. Welltory says I need to be active 10 hours today? I better go walk around the house. Apple Watch trends say I have fewer active minutes? Fuck I must be lazy. Gyroscope is reminding me I didn’t meditate? Oh no I am not zen enough! My applications are bullies and because I opted into it I feel like I’m a failure if I don’t say yes to everything. I guess it turns out you cannot escape life lessons.

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Biohacking

Day 297 and Day of Rest

October has been a whirlwind for me. Or maybe it just feels busy getting back to a normal pace of life. I had a shitty end of summer as part of an effort to decide if and then when to take me off my immunosuppressive medications to get me vaccinated so I could develop antibodies. Maybe anything would feel busy after that.

I lost about six or seven weeks to the whole vaccine situation. Thankfully nobody cared since it was August. But I cared. I didn’t do anything for weeks from all the side effects and management of the process. I only bring this up (and I should write a full post about getting vaccinated as I wrote one about the decision and its risk management) because it’s been a while I needed to actively rest.

I had nearly two months where I didn’t couldn’t pursue any strain like weightlifting or even hiking because I was under enough strain from my own body. And I know this because I used a Whoop to track recovery and strain. Biohacking is a bit of a hobby. I had low strain scores and virtually no activity. I spent all my time in what Whoop calls recovery. But not this week. This week I had strain. And then I learned what a poor recovery from too much strain looks like.

A Whoop recovery score of 32% based on a terrible HRV of 13. Plus I’ve got tachycardia.

This week in addition to a significant workload (ask me about my rolling fund if you are into that sort of thing) I decided to pick back up my powerlifting hobby. I changed up my diet to eat enough protein and calculated out new one rep maximums for a basic starting strength routine.

It felt awesome. Squats are the best. And my overhead presses were better than I imagined. I had this moment of hope that maybe I was well enough to train again after several years of health trouble. I felt empowered. I was working through the delayed onset muscle soreness with a Theragum (something I normally cannot tolerate with my past inflammation levels). I was doing range of motion restoration work. I thought I had it all under control. And then on Friday I saw my resting heart rate variably or HRV start to drop.

I thought oh shit I must be getting sick. Normally a dip in HRV is a hint that my inflammation in my spine will kick back up and all the exciting secondary health stuff like fatigue (from pain) and migraines (from the shitty circulation from the inflammation) will go in circles.

But it turns out that I’m not getting sick. My symptoms didn’t flare. Instead I was tired.

Honestly I’m a little pissed. Normally I only take rest days when I feel sick. I only feel tired when I am sick. This being tired and having my heart be strained because I was overworked physically is bullshit. Normally if I am tired it is because I am fatigued. I mean that feeling you have when you are sick because your system is going haywire. It’s not the same thing as tired. Being tired isn’t debating. Being tired is actually great. I just need to take it easy today because I did too much. Not because I’m sick. Thank god it is Sunday so that day of rest is well timed.