Sweep once

It’s incredible what you hear and see when you are awake. Yet, it’s only when I’m working odd shifts and sleeping odd times that my creativity flows enough to pay attention. In any case the Buddhist proverb is spot on right now:

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

I self study, and right now I’m into some interesting stuff, Strategy, Stoicism, Ego, and Anti-Fragility. Without really knowing it, I’ve stumbled upon some authors that I’d love to make personal mentors. Particularly, Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferris, and Nassim Taleb. I don’t know how I initially came across Ryan Holiday, but his books all fly by and the topics are awesome. I quote him constantly. Trust me I’m lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator opened my eyes to the way the news/marketing works in the modern age, and then I was hooked. I blazed through Growth Hacker Marketing, The Obstacle is the Way, and finished Ego is the Enemy today. To be fair, I did get some on kindle, but not unlike The Matrix, I’ve been using audible to get the ideas into my brain faster. I’m no longer wasting commutes to work, they are personal development time. Ok, enough with the free advertising for awesome writers. Instead, here’s an idea that stuck and was played out today.

Ryan brought up the idea of cleaning up your life, in terms of some self-help group for workaholics. The very Zen idea is that one does not simply sweep once and expect the floor to remain clean, you must do it today, and tomorrow, and the next day. It is an ongoing thing. This harkened back to my kung fu training as a teen, and immediately resonated with me as something that “I wish…”

You see, it’s my chore to keep the floors clean in the house, and I love to stretch out time between cleanings, only to realize it’s a large, large task once the floors are very dirty. Nobody wants to make a habit of an arduous task, but the proof/the improvement/the growth, is in doing that thing anyway. It may suck, but do it anyway. This is such a great lesson for me, to teach my increasingly spoiled lil kiddos, and heck, anyone wanting to complain. That’s life. You don’t get to sweep once, you must keep on sweeping…

#FFW