'sacrificing your alternate selves'
I remember reading "How to Live" by Derek Sivers a few years back during COVID. The two phrases that really stuck with me, and thoroughly absorbed into my brain, were:
- "When you sacrifice your alternate selves, your remaining self has amazing power."
- The best decision is the one you stick to.
Sacrificing alternate selves hits a bit too hard; I have a lot of interests, curiosities and I want to satiate them all, though in practice that is impossible. This causes some mental gymnastics through incessantly asking "what if", searching constantly for what is best even if good is right in front of you. The best way I have to explain this feeling, or state of being, is "friction".
It took me a long time to realise that this friction, that arose from constantly longing to satisfy unmet intellectual needs while refusing to accept the very real limits on my energy/time/motivation, was contributing to real burnout. The worst part was that I was being burnt out doing nothing at all - just thinking about all the stuff I could be doing was cognitively so heavy that I was simultaneously incredibly unproductive and exhausted.
This mental sword hanging over my head seems to reappear once in a while; in periods of unsatisfying goals, ruts, and stagnation it comes back with a perceived vengeance. The only real way that I've made lasting progress on smoothing down the sword (and reducing friction) is to follow Derek's advice and commit to a significantly fewer number of things.
Start by sacrificing your alternate selves; choose the one that matters to you. Once chosen, work backwards and start small.
Want to be a writer? Write 5 minutes a day. Want to spend time with the greatest minds of history? Read 10 minutes a day. Want to up your energy levels? Run 5k everyday until it's easy.
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." John F. Kennedy, 1962