Leonard Ng

Don’t Force Things, Flow with Them (Part 2)

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Polyphemos
Image by Aaron Wolpert.
Reading Ancient Greek: A Case Study

This year I set myself the task of reading all 24 books of Homer’s massive epic poem The Odyssey in Ancient Greek. This has been on my bucket list for a long time, and I’m glad to finally be doing it.

I’m now 20 books in, with four more to go — well on the way to completing what I set out to do. And I have full confidence that I will finish on time, because I’ve aligned myself with the principles of growth deadlines.

To recap, growth deadlines:

  • Make you better than you were before
  • Involve doing difficult things
  • Are based on sound knowledge and experience
  • Are flexible and resilient enough to withstand chaos

Let’s see how those points apply in this case.

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Don’t Force Things, Flow with Them (Part 1)

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mountain clouds
Image by Sergei Akulich.
A Cautionary Tale

Mencius (a Chinese philosopher) once told the following story:

Once there was a man from Song who, concerned that his seedlings weren’t growing, decided to pull them upward.

Worn out, he returned home and said to his family: “Today I’m exhausted — I’ve been helping the seedlings to grow!”

His son hurried out to have a look, and of course the seedlings had withered.

The Folly of Forced Deadlines

Inexperienced people often set deadlines they can never achieve. They say:

“I’m going to pack on 10kg of muscle this year.”

“I’m going to finish writing a novel in 3 months.”

“I’m going to make half a million dollars by December.”

Is it possible to accomplish all these things? Yes.

Are you likely to complete them, in good order and on schedule, if you’ve never done so before? No.

Why?

Because you can’t set reasonable deadlines until you’ve gained enough experience to know how long, under your own unique circumstances, you will take to achieve your goals.

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Why I Sleep So Much, And Why You Should Too

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sleeping cat
Image by Inge Wallumrod.
A Surprising Revelation

People often react with surprise when I tell them how much I sleep.

They wonder how I find time for everything in my life while still sleeping as much as I do.

And they also know that I can often be found awake at any hour of the day or night.

So how much do I sleep? The “surprising” answer: an average of 7-8 hours a day.

Matching Your Life’s Rhythms

Modern life often requires us to stay up late, whether because of major deadlines or because of major partying.

And forcing yourself to go to bed at the same time every night requires a level of regimentation that few of us are prepared to put up with.

That kind of strictness also fails to take into account the varying energy expenditures of each day. Some days we push ourselves harder, and so we need more rest. Other days we take it easy, and so we need less rest.

Trying to go to bed when you’re not ready to do so will only result in you lying awake for an hour or more, unable to get to sleep. And forcing yourself to stay awake after your mind and body have had enough will compromise the quality of your mental and physical performance.

Neither of these situations is ideal.

Instead, we need to become more aware and respectful of the unique rhythms of our individual lives, and then match our sleep patterns to those rhythms.

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Focus More on What Matters

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Focus
Image by Romain Vignes.
The Ethos of the Extreme

Today’s world expects us to go to extremes in everything we do.

Entrepreneurs wear the 90-hour workweek as a badge of pride.

Parents obsessively pursue every new childrearing fad.

The ideal body image, for both men and women, has become unattainable without strict diets and hours at the gym.

All reality TV competitions now repeat the same mantra: to the victor the spoils. You’re either the best, or you’re one of the rest.

This is not a worldview which supports balanced living.

Unrealistic Expectations

Ours is a world in which intense competition is praised, with all the glory going to the ones at the top. But at the same time the world also tells us: you can have it all.

You can watch all the shows, buy all the things, enjoy all the experiences. You can be a tiger mother, a brilliant careerist, an extraordinary athlete, and a lover who makes the earth move — all while travelling the world, speaking seven languages fluently, playing lead guitar in your spare time, and knowing your Pinot Gris from your Pinot Grigio.

Fear of Missing Out has become the spirit of our age. Faced with such unrealistic expectations, we have only two solutions:

either we spend our guilt-ridden lives endlessly trying — and failing — to measure up, or we take a stand and tell the world to mind its own damn business.

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5 Pain-Free Ways to Use Social Media Less

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Social Media
Image by Wilfred Iven.
The Language of Addiction

I Quit Social Media And This Is What Happened, scream the clickbaity headlines.

Social media cleanse. Social media fast. Social media detox.

Just look at the language we use when we talk about the issue. Cleanse. Fast. Detox. Quit. As though social media is somehow filling our lives up with digital toxins.

That view isn’t entirely wrong.

The Dark Side of Social Media

Social media sucks people in and keeps them there, resulting in hours and hours of time lost. In fact, social media sites are deliberately designed to be addictive: companies like Facebook want you to spend as much time on their sites as possible, so that they can sell you targeted ads.

A lot of the stuff being shared around is also just plain bad for us. Often it makes us angry, self-righteous, and judgemental. These qualities do not make us better people. They certainly don’t make for a better world.

Thus, if we’re not careful our precious mental space can get filled with an avalanche of clutter all day long.

And that can make it hard for us to think clearly, creatively, or wisely.

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