On The Shortness of Life
Reflecting on the shortness of life to develop new year resolutions with less planning and more feeling
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A New Approach To The Year, Live In The Moment
Time is finite and we should spend it accordingly. As the year draws to a close I reflected a lot on what to write about and decided against what I see happening quite regularly, which is yearly reflections, setting intentions for the new year, etc. While I think those exercises are valuable and the New Year offers us an exceptional opportunity to reflect on what we'd want moving forward, this year I found myself thinking that those reflections also make it easy to get caught in the cycle of doing and living in the future. Then, before we know it, time has slipped by.
The idea of reflecting on time in this piece came because I was hanging out with my 6 year old niece and I noticed something remarkable, which was her exceptional ability to think no further than the present moment. I had asked her a few times in the few days we’ve been in Brazil - what do you want to do today? The idea here was I wanted to hang with her and do whatever she found fun. What was surprising was every single time I asked her that question she smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders. This question to someone that has spent the better part of his lifetime planning, thinking ahead, and reflecting was at first baffling and upon a second look wonderful.
My niece is six and has the remarkable wisdom to live moment to moment. I noticed that this is very much unlike how I live, which is still, all too often, in the future - planning what’s to come as opposed to enjoying the here and now.
I've become more and more convinced this year that I need to re-learn that childlike ability to be present. It's frankly something I'd want to teach my kids how to hold onto extremely early in life. Obviously analytical and rational thinking have huge benefits, but without being present or immersed in the moment it is an incomplete way of being. I have found that reflecting on the shortness of time is a key way to spend more time in the "now" vs. in the future, and I will borrow ideas from Seneca, a Stoic philosopher, to help illustrate some key realizations I've had.
Time Is Precious, Guard It Ruthlessly
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it - Seneca
For me this idea was both heavy and liberating. Heavy with the responsibility I have to myself to use my time in a manner that is most well suited to who I am. Liberating at the same time, because the finite nature of time, and the finality of life, serve as forcing functions - with only so much of it, how will you live?
This question can't be answered explicitly, I think, at least not for me. It can only be lived out, moment to moment, as our understanding of ourselves and what draws us forward is revealed to us in each moment.
What became obvious to me earlier this year was I was spending my time recklessly, as if I had an infinite store. I said yes to tons of phone calls, worked on many different projects, and generally made time for everything, but myself. I did this without stopping to think of how each of those activities were making me feel either - which further disconnected me from how I spent my time.
Reflections on How I Was Spending My Time
"It is not that we have a short life, but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied, but wasteful". This line moved me when I first read it. It forced me back to the here and now, not the future state I was planning to get to.
It asked me to reflect on:
How am I spending my time today: Working on a bunch of things and spending no time on myself, on my family, on my friends, and zero time reflecting
How do those different activities make me feel: A great many of them are not enjoyable like consulting, working on B2B projects, or spending more than 20 minutes making lunch regularly. I have no fun doing them, and I'm not even sure what direction its moving me in.
What is bringing me energy: Thinking, writing about, and interviewing people on the topic of well-being. Working through ideas with people I admire, learn from, and enjoy being around. Spending time with my wife. Calling my friends and family. Working out. Working on my brain health and understanding. Meeting new people that share my interests.
What is draining me: Working on projects that fall outside of my interest area. Taking phone calls that I don't want to take. Not spending time with my wife and family. Not spending enough time outside.
What am I moving towards or what am I growing into: A source of warmth and strength for my loved ones. Developing expertise in well-being and how to make it more accessible. Learning something new daily, having new adventures regularly, and one concrete skill yearly. Building a strong family.
It took time and many weeks to refine the above ideas because at first blush, I could not answer those questions. Now that I have started reflecting this way I will likely never stop. The reason being, is I've realized, you need to pay attention to how you feel in order to judge how to best use your time. Additionally, you can only live life moment to moment and respond accordingly. As I have new experiences I learn more about what brings me energy, what does not, and I will continue to refine my behavior and use of time accordingly.
As a result of these reflections I have started to feel much more responsible to myself to gauge where my time is going and ensure that I am happy with how I am spending it. For example, I have gotten more comfortable saying no to things I don't want to do and being clear that it is not because I can't do them, it is because I don't want to.
How I Protect My Time
Strategy 1
Saying No - This is a muscle that I pay a lot more attention to exercising. If I ever feel bad about saying no, I remind myself that time is short and what would I do if I was going to die next year or in five years? This may sound extreme but it makes what I want painfully clear and gives me the strength to politely decline obligations I don't want.
Example: Getting an email to have a phone call while I'm visiting my family. I can totally take that call, but when I reflect on whether or not I want to, I don't want to take it, nor will it make a huge difference if I take it then vs. when home. So I'll say no whereas I might have said yes before.
Strategy 2
Testing Before Committing - It has also shown up with me being more deliberate about what I commit my time to. I realized that I have the tendency to get excited and commit to projects before fully maturing the idea and deciding whether I want to spend my time in that manner. As a result, I've been clear up front about what I am willing to commit to, which gives me the opportunity to feel out if I want to spend my time that way.
Example - I am incredibly lucky to be working with someone on a project that is equally interested in testing an idea in small increments to better understand if he wants to keep working on it. When we first tested our mental fitness session for founders we committed to one session to see how it worked and how we both felt. We're circling back now to mature the idea but it allows us to both gauge how we're feeling and doing before committing.
Strategy 3
Ruthlessly Cutting Out Obligations - I've taken stock of what I am currently spending time on and ruthlessly cut out what I was doing because I felt I needed to vs. what I wanted to.
Example - An example of this is I was involved in a few projects and consulting relationships but I realized it was not moving me towards where I wanted to go and be so I finalized my obligations and made it clear that I needed to move away from those projects.
Reflecting on the fact that time is finite has forced me to take stock of how I had been spending it. This has pushed me to ensure that I enjoy how my time is spent today and develop strategies to guard against spending it frivolously moving forward. Once I had this baseline of cutting out what I did not want - a key question for me was how do I decide where to spend my time moving forward?
Gut Check Your Planning With Feeling
And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name - Seneca
Don't Look Outwards When Deciding How To Spend Your Time
I think the above quote is a bit harsh as no one has the right to judge another's use of time, however the sentiment of not envying another for what they have done or are doing is one I feel rings true and a distraction from spending your time in a way that best suits you.
This may be obvious to many of you but I've realized that looking outwards is a poor recipe for spending your time in a manner that befits me and who I am.
I say this because I have so often looked at a Mark Cuban or Jeff Bezos and thought - hmmm, how do I learn from them and follow in those footsteps? I'm sure I'm not alone in that idea but I've come to realize that at least for me, its a ridiculously bad way to model how you should spend your time.
Paying Attention To Yourself Reveals How To Spend Your Time
I believe, that whether we like it or not, we each arrive on this earth as individuals with unique temperaments, abilities, and correspondingly develop unique wants and dislikes. As a result, there are things we are pulled towards and others that we are repelled by.
For example - as I've taken stock of how to spend my time and paid attention to how I feel in each moment I've had many realizations. Here are a few examples:
Love Binging Ideas to Life - I absolutely love wrestling with ideas and sharing them with others. Writing has become a great outlet for me to lean into that. Working with teams in an early stage setting to develop an idea into something real is another great outlet for me.
Love Connecting With Others - I feel an enormous responsibility and delight in strengthening my relationships with the people in my life. As a result, it has become clear to me that I need to feel I'm contributing in that regard in the different environments I find myself in - home, work, play.
Use Feeling As The Counterpoint to Planning
Resolutions and planning ahead are critical in my opinion because it is something that can provide direction on how to move forward. I shied away from New Years resolutions this year because, for me, what had been missing in my life was the counterpoint to planning and thinking ahead, which was paying attention to how I feel moment to moment as I meet people and react to the experiences I am having.
The more I pay attention to the moment, the more I have been able to develop a clear understanding of what makes me feel great and what I want to move towards.
Paying attention to that feeling is the "gut check" to rational thinking. I've had that feeling many times in my life - like when I met Isabella and when I decided I wanted to get married to her. Or when I visited UVA on my university road trip. Or when I met my business partner Alberto. Or when I started to meditate. Those decisions not only seemed right intellectually, but they also felt right, in my gut and in my body.
My big takeway has been to really listen to myself and how I'm feeling as the counterpoint and gut check to what I'm thinking. Reflecting on the shortness of time has forced me to pay attention to those feelings and opened up my eyes on how I feel moment to moment.
I had up to this point taken stock of how I was spending my time and an idea for how to continue gut checking its use. What I was not sure of was how to decide which new experiences to pursue?
Live Today & Indulge My Impulses
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately - Seneca
Lean Into Your Impulses - The last takeaway for me has been to lean carefully into my impulses. I know that sentence can sound a bit contradictory but if there are things that feel right or feel good - like writing this newsletter, or going to Brazil, or meeting with someone random I am much more likely to do it.
But Think Carefully About Commitments - I say carefully because something like this newsletter was a bigger commitment so I spent a lot of time thinking, writing drafts, and figuring out whether I wanted to commit a few hours each week to writing it.
It's Easy ToPut Off Doing What You Want- However, I would often put off things I wanted to do - like meet with someone or plan a trip or test an idea because I believed something needed to happen before I could do it. For example, I need to finish what I'm working on before I answer Gianmarco's phone call. Or, I need to read more about mental fitness before I test this idea I have. Conversely, I would continue doing things I really did not want to do because I felt like I had to or needed to do it. Like traveling as much as I did or meeting with certain people.
Don't Be Ruled By Your Brain - I've realized that you can rationalize pausing almost any act or initiative. Additionally, you can rationalize the need to keep doing almost anything, but the reality, for me, was that I was robbing myself of the present moment by not living it out the way I wanted and paying more attention to how I felt.
Use Your Feelings To Decide What To Act On - For example - I hated traveling as much as I did, but the reality is I probably could have figured out a way to travel less if I had committed to that idea. Second, I spent too much time in the earlier part of this year on calls I felt like I had to take. These are small examples but I'm sure we all have areas of our life where there are things we wish we could do and things we wish we could stop doing. Reflecting on the shortness of time has given me a kick in the butt to act on those impulses.
Bringing This Idea Into The New Year
“There is nothing the busy [human] is less busied with than living - Seneca
Here are some key steps I've formulated that have been useful for me as I enter the New Year to make sure I am using my time in a way that benefits me:
Creating A Time Inventory - What were the main activities that took up my time this year
What do your days and weeks look like? How often did you talk to people and with who? How did you spend your time when you were not working? How did you spend your weekends? What did you do on the holidays? What time do you wake up? What time do you go to bed?
Take Stock of How Each of These Activities Made Me Feel
Example 1 (Weekly date night with Isabella) - One of the most incredible things we have implemented and brings us so much closer together as well as being tremendously fun. Makes me feel good.
Example 2 (Having Phone Calls Scheduled Every Day of The Week) - Feels horrible, no time to think, no time to be creative, and no time to work on what I want.
Ruthlessly Prioritize
What felt really good? Do I want to keep that? How will that show up in my life?
What did not feel good? How do I remove that or diminish it over time?
What do I really want to do that I have been putting off? How can I test it easily?
Gut check your revamped vision for how to spend your time. How does it feel?
Daily Habits You Can Implement To Sharpen Your Use of Time
Mindful moments - Ask yourself throughout your day how an activity, tasks, or conversation makes you feel?
Say No - Before instantly committing, think about whether you want to not just whether you can. If you need time to consider something, ask for it. Exercise your no and consideration muscles.
Journaling - Write regularly about where your time went and how you enjoyed it. Some practices I like include a weekly and quarterly review where I can ask myself:
What brought me energy? What drained me?
What am I moving towards?
What do I want to do that I have been putting off doing?
What do I not want to do that I have been putting off getting rid of?
These tactics balance my instincts to plan, organize, and think ahead. They keep me grounded, in the moment, and create more awareness around how my planning is resonating with me.
Live For Yourself
“This was the sweet, even if vain, consolation with which he would gladden his labors—that he would one day live for himself. - Seneca
To summarize, this New Year, for me, has been about reflecting on if I am living for myself. In Seneca's book, he comments on Augustus who is considered one of the greatest Roman emperors. He remarks that Augustus's writings were filled with his yearning to live in leisure and for himself. The point Seneca makes here is how can someone considered among the most accomplished of humans feel unsatisfied and shackled?
It was a scary thought for me when I reflected on how I was using my time and asked myself the question - to what end am I living and how will I feel when I arrive?
I've realized that we don't need to give ourselves up to get what we want out of life. In fact I'd argue that we have a responsibility to lean into who we are and accept that responsibility in its fullness. One of the ways to figure that out is to remind ourselves of the shortness of time and pay close attention to how each moment moves us. This year, my intention is to be more present, and pay close attention to each moment, to ensure that how I'm spending my time is fulfilling me.
I hope these ideas serve as a useful counterpoint to all the planning, organizing, and resolutions in your life. I wish you all a wonderful start to the year, lots of love, and may your reflections bring you clarity of mind!
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To Living Well,
Alvaro
Weekly Live Well Recs
Read of the week 📖: On The Shortness of Life- Seneca