Stop and Shut the Fuck Up for a Second
The self-help book from Diamonster
Seriously though, isn’t that what recovery basically means? Stop and shut up (and listen). Listen to healthy guidance from others. Listen to the rhythms of your body.
Listen.
I need to surrender my attachment to jumping in, my attachment to jumping out at whatever opportunities I find.
I need to seek out advice and I need to listen, before I take an opportunity.
Not every business (or personal) opportunity is the right one for me. Some are beyond my current capabilities, at this stage of my (or my company’s) development. When I (or my wiser advisors) see that the opportunity is beyond my capacity, I need to surrender my attachment to it; I need to let it pass.
I’ve recently had to let go of two opportunities that together would have represented more than 4% of my annual sales. I took both the opportunities because at the time I was excited about the earnings. I didn’t think carefully enough about the projects and what capabilities they required. In both cases I delayed the property owners’ (my intended clients) plans for their properties; in one case I delayed them by more than a month.
I am grateful that the projects were stopped (or not started) before it became expensive. I lost some money but far less than I would have lost had I done both these projects and failed to do them properly in their entirety.
Listen. I need to surrender my greed; my hasty grabbing of what I find. I need to take time to consider. I need to be more humble, and more patient.
Being given something is not the same as earning it, for me.
Somehow I started believing, deeply, that if I was given something, that was all the was possible; my achievement was what I was given or what I drifted into; my achievement, my growth was not purposeful and directed; instead, it was random, more a product of chance than of purpose.
When I found or was given something (whether it was property, equipment, a job, or an opportunity), I tied my self-worth to that; I fear(ed) losing it, and when I lost that thing, it stung me. It hurt: a combination of shame and embarrassment; I wanted to retreat and hide, as though my humanity and my place and purpose had disappeared.
If I have something and I haven’t earned it, I’ve basically borrowed something, the same as with a bank loan or a credit card. It doesn’t matter if the thing is property (like a piece of equipment) or if it’s trust (like someone gives me when they give me a job). If I’ve borrowed something - if I’ve been given something before I earned it - I will always, always have to pay it back.
Sometimes I am able to pay it back, sometimes I am able to pay back the trust others lend me; but I have also had times - too many times? - where I have not been able to pay it back.
For me, being given something, or finding something, is not the same as earning it (and by thinking that, I have forgotten to build my capacity and my capability to do purposeful work, which I think is part of the problem I’ve created with my addiction).
Self-pity: the “escape hatch” I try to use to avoid life. I can avoid anything as long as I’m living in self-pity.
I need to surrender self-pity.
I’ve been feeling some self-pity today: “oh man I have so much going on this week and I’m not sure I have everything prepared for tomorrow, blah blah”. The crazy thing is the fact I have a lot of stuff happening is a good thing - it’s the whole point of having a business right? - so I guess I just feel sorry for myself because I am holding on to this negative idea, this “escape”: if I’m incapable of working through these tasks this week then it means I don’t have to try right? And if I don’t try, there’s no risk to my self-worth, because of course things didn’t work out, I wasn’t trying. (That makes sense right? )
Needing to see everything and cover every base at the same time. You can only cover one base (in baseball) at a time.
Needing to monitor everything and be aware of everything, all at once. (Or, put another way: worrying about everything, which distracts me from what I am doing, here, now.)
I have found myself feeling panicked about this week, in which I have a lot of projects scheduled to start (more projects than I’ve had before). Why am I panicking? I’m nervous of course - this is new territory for me as a businessperson - but that frantic feeling, like I’m scrambling to catch everything, see everything, cover everything: that frantic feeling, like if I’m not watching, if I don’t have everything in my gaze, it will fall apart. That’s the feeling.
I’m not 100% sure where that feeling comes from but I am sure that me being aware of everything, monitoring everything, is impossible. Worrying about these things feels like my addict ego (the worrywart obsessive thinker) trying to take over my thinking, but in disguise: he’s pretending to be a legitimate concern (“if you don’t do these things it will be a disaster!” - that’s what he says, and he’s trying to destabilize me, to create chaos, which is where addiction lives).
My addict voice is sneaky and it tries to make chaos in my life. It will disguise itself as a voice asking legitimate questions, but the truth is these questions - these worries that “everything will fall apart” - are not things I can control. There’s a million ways things can fall apart, anytime, anywhere. If I spend my life living in these worries, I’ll be paralyzed, and I’ll be alienated from the people and spaces that keep me going in a healthy ways.
Glad you are checking in, Matt. First things first. Saying stopp. Connecting with what is important right now. Reality check.
I was on a hike yesterday and started off with really no worries. Why even worry. Or thinking. The weather was perfect. I head enough food and set out for a good route. But decided to make it a bit longer as I didn’t want to take the same way back. So now in the uncertainty my mind kept making senseless calculations. No stopp possible. I checked the GPS. All was fine. But my mind kept running in circles. It’s hard to calm it down. I am happy when sometimes I succeed.
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