Inaction and Acceptance
🐸 Inaction:
One of my favorite youtube channels, better ideas, has a motto that I love. "Inaction is a slow death." It reminds me of the concept of entropy in physics; The measure of the disorder of a closed system always increases. If we leave things as they are, they will disintegrate; one problem will transform into two, and so on. By default, the needle of our lives ticks towards disorder, and our job is to work against this disintegration and make our life orderly.
In The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Holiday talks about knowing when to act and when to let things be; practice passive resistance. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. For example, In a marathon, you need to preserve your energy. You cannot go all out if you feel great on mile 11. That will end up exhausting you (which is no fun). This is an example of poor action. In our desire to do more we actually might end up doing less. We should optimize our actions to maximize goal achievement. In the running example, one thing to do could be to hold your nerve and play the long game.
It isn't ideal to have a big emotional reaction to relatively small things. This reaction could make us take actions that end up putting us farther back. We always have the option to just sit with things, go on a walk and come back to them. I have experienced this often while coding. Sometimes, I get stuck on a problem in the evening. It is hard to put it away because I want it solved now, but I find it miraculously easy to return to it in the morning. Often, the problem feels trivial after a good night's sleep.
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🧘🏻♂️ Acceptance:
It is a superpower to work your best on something and then accept the results without any judgment. In other words, willing acceptance of the consequences of all our actions. I think this is the definition of courage. Taking risks inspires fear. This might be because we do not know how things will end up. Practicing acceptance can negate fear of consequences and inspire us to take more calculated risks. Even if things do go unexpectedly, we can learn from them and try to not make the same mistake again.
We should be careful with our goals. Being happy and at peace is not a goal, but a starting point. Attaching happiness to goals might not be wise because we will inevitably fail some goals and succeed in others. Passion can become poison if we let ourselves be defined by it. Also, it pays to be flexible with plans. Plans are subject to change. Today you know something, tomorrow you know something more. A rigid plan is of no use in the long term.
Happiness does not come from achieving goals, it comes from the tiny moments in everyday life. Self-acceptance and self-improvement are mutually exclusive. They go hand in hand but shouldn't depend on each other. We don't need a purpose in life to be happy. Life is beautiful in itself.
