Eric Tian

Some common phrases and their possible meanings:

“I don’t have time to do this” = This is not a priority.

“I can’t do that” = I don’t believe I am able to do that.

“That is unfair” = My expectations did not line up with reality.

But also:

“I don’t have time to do this” = I very much want to do this but I have too many responsibilities that I am powerless to overcome.

“I can’t do that” = I am too physically, mentally or spiritually broken to do anything you ask of me.

“That is unfair” = What has happened here is a breach of any form of justice. I deserve more than this.

If we look hard enough, we can make any person look like pathetic. It’s easy to critique another’s actions as being hypocritical and then mock them from our morally superior pedestal.

But we often forget that we all live in our own narratives. One person’s “excuse” can be another’s “only answer”. To the person who sees “I don’t have time” as This is not a priority, anyone saying “I don’t have time” may just use it as an excuse for inaction. Yet, to the single mother in an abusive relationship with multiple children, the story isn’t so easy. Perhaps to her, “I don’t have time” isn’t a matter of choice, but of necessity. She may be powerless to escape her awful position. It is awfully arrogant to paint this mother as a hypocrite.

Perhaps people would be happier if we gave each other the benefit of the doubt more often.

I used to have a proclivity for excessive apologies.

If I felt an interaction fading, I’d say sorry for being so boring. If someone helped solve one of my problems, I’d say sorry for being such a failure. If someone was unexpectedly generous with their efforts, I’d say sorry for wasting your time.

If someone told me to stop apologising, I’d say ah okay… sorry.

But recently, I’ve found that in many cases it’s much better to replace “sorry” with “thank you”. For example:

• Sorry for being so boring -> Thank you for spending time with me.
• Sorry for being such a failure -> Thank you for helping me with my mistake.
• Sorry for wasting your time -> Thank you for your efforts!

There are two main problems with excessively apologising. First, it conditions you resent yourself. You begin to see yourself as incapable, worthless and always to blame. The moment you change your dialogue to “thank you”, you begin to be more grateful for the situation. It also removes any guilt from the interaction which the other party might be uncomfortable with. The event hasn’t changed at all, but the feeling is completely transformed.

Second, too many apologies begin to lose their worth over time. If you apologise for everything, it’s impossible to tell when you are being truly apologetic since you do it so often. It’s like a form of inflation. On the other hand, if you reserve your apologies for genuine moments of heartfelt apology, the effect is much more profound.

Of course, there’s a time and place for genuine apologies. If you have truly wronged somebody or want to show sympathy, “sorry” is a great tool to show this. But for the other times, it might be worth considering whether our response to a question could be rephrased as a “thank you”.

Sometimes people ask me where I get my writing ideas from. The question often comes after I’ve suggested starting a blog so they can share their ideas with the world. “I’m just not sure I have anything to share”, they confess. “If you asked me to write something now I don’t think I could.”

My follow-up question is always, “how do you take notes on your life?”

The answer is often, “I don’t.”

Interesting ideas can be kind of random. They can hit you anytime: during meditation, walking, showering or on the brink of sleep. Problem is, if we don’t record the idea down it gets lost, disappeared into nothingness. We may as well have never thought of it at all.

If we’re interested in examining our thoughts, it’s critical that we practice being receptive to them. And a great way to do this is to develop a habit of rigorous documentation. There are many ways to do this, but my personal system predominantly uses words in both digital and analog formats.

The digital format is with Notion. It’s simply a page titled the page of that month and contains every random passing thought that interests me. This is my first line system of roughly shoving ideas in, making sure they don’t escape. New months get a new page. I always have this Notion tab open on my computer so I can reach it if I’m online. If I’m out in the world, I pull open the app on my phone and quickly jot something down. Notes from podcasts and audiobooks go in here too.

The analog format is with my journal. This is where most of the organisation happens – where I think about the scattered ideas that have hit me and try and connect the dots. Where did that idea come from? Why did I respond in that way? How can I apply this to my life? This is a much slower practice with pen and paper that requires time. But usually, it’s this deliberate reflection that makes the biggest difference.

Going back to the start: the vast majority of my posts here were first written in my journal. When I sit down to write, it’s very rare that I have to conjure up something from nothing. There’s usually a lot of page-flipping and reading my notes, wondering if this idea is worth sharing, too personal or requires further development.

It doesn’t really matter how you take notes on your life. I know people who draw, take photos or record videos. They might only occasionally write words down. That’s fine. The point is to find a way to record what you’re seeing, thinking or doing right now so it doesn’t get lost when you need to give a recount of your life.

Now, some people with sharp brains and great memories might think, “Okay, I resonate with this goal of living an examined life. But recording things down? Surely you can just remember things?” To which I’d answer:

Yes, it’s entirely possible that you tightly hold onto an interesting thought and never let it go. This often occurs in “lightbulb moments” we hear about, usually in the shower, where an idea hits you so strongly that it knocks the wind out of you.

But firstly, there are countless interesting thoughts that are so very subtle; ideas that just tickle your soul. If you’re distracted and numb to this, the thought will disappear into nothingness. The second problem is that your memory is falliable. Nobody’s memories are perfect. We’ve all forgotten things before, whether it be names, dates or events. You have no idea how many thoughts you swear you’d remember have been lost.

One of the saddest things about life is how little of it we remember.

From Nathaniel Drew‘s Skillshare course Document Your Life: 4 Methods to Live More Intentionally:

1. Keep it simple. Don’t think too hard about it. Want to take a photo? Use your camera phone. Want to journal? Just write one sentence. Progress starts small.

2. Date everything. You’ll be thankful you did when you look back on it in the future.

3. Be as clear as possible. Similar to 2. Don’t assume you’ll remember this moment later – write everything down. Names, places, colours: tell it as if you’re talking to a stranger.

4. Make sure you enjoy doing it. Never do anything you hate.

5. Make it accessible. Make it easy to document your life at any moment. Keep your tools small, simple and something you’d want to have around. Get used to carrying a camera or a journal with you wherever you go.

6. There’s no right way to do it. You can look to others for inspiration but ultimately, it’s up to you. The only “correct” way to do it is the way you’re happy with.

7. Think long-term. 20 years from now, you’ll be glad you started today. The mundane events today might be life-changing in the future. Record it down.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a story of getting things just right. In the fable, Goldilocks enters a house and sees three sets of porridge. However, one is too hot and one is too cold – only one is just right. She then comes across three chairs but one is too big and one is too small – only one fits her properly. Finally, she goes upstairs to sleep. There are three beds and – you guessed it – one is too hard and one is too soft. Only one is just right.

Austin Kleon recently took this just right idea and formed The Goldilocks Theory. Instead of porridge, chairs or beds Austin applied this to creativity and suggests that creative work happens when one finds a balance between being too happy to work and too depressed to work. I thought it was brilliant.

This theory rings true from personal experience. When I got my offer for medical school, I was so happy that I didn’t study for my final exams. Life was too good to work. But when the coronavirus lockdown hit and I was forced to study in sub-optimum conditions, I didn’t want to any more. Life was too dull for work.

Perhaps all levels of procrastination can be boiled down to one of these two reasons. On one end, sometimes we’re too happily engrossed in another activity to think of work. We’ll work when this excitement dies down. On the other hand, maybe we’re too anxious and depressed to start anything productive. We’ll work when we’re in a better frame of mind.

This theory is useful because if true, we can catch ourselves when we’re being lazy and ask ourselves: which end on the spectrum am I at right now? Is life too good to work, or too depressing?

But more importantly, we can ask ourselves: is this a problem? Because sometimes, it’s fine to be unproductive. A period of mourning may be the antidote for growth; a period of ecstasy may be a highlight for decades to come. Denying one of their emotional highs and lows to do more work is putting the cart before the horse. Isn’t the ultimate goal of work to feel good?

Related: The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman

Anyone who knows war films will know the movie Braveheart, a 3-hour historical epic about the life and sacrifice of a man named William Wallace. The film is based around the overthrow of King Edward in the 13th century and features a lot of fighting, politics and screaming. Classic war stuff, right?

But in his interview with Jordan B. Peterson, the producer of Braveheart Randall Wallace said something surprising.

I’ve been asked why I make war movies and I say, “I don’t. I make love stories. I want to know what you love enough to sacrifice your life for.”

When we think of war stories, we usually imagine what’s on the surface; the fighting, blood and the politics. We rarely think that behind all this violence is one of the purest of all emotions: love.

But if you think about it, all conflict is really about love. It’s about what you care enough to stand up for.

A child might love his sweets and yell for it. A teenager might love a cat and sacrifice money for it. A businessman might love power and neglect their health for it. And in perhaps the greatest sacrifice, a soldier might love his country enough to sacrifice their life for it.

War is love: what a strange but beautiful oxymoron.

From Derek Sivers’ extraordinary book Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur:

I was in Las Vegas for a conference, taking a taxi from the airport to the hotel. I asked the driver, “How long have you lived here?”
He said, “Twenty-seven years.”
“Wow! A lot has changed since then, huh?”
“Yeah. I miss the mob.”
“Huh? Really? What do you mean?”
“When the mafia ran this town, it was fun. There were only two numbers that mattered: how much was coming in, and how much was going out. As long as there was more in than out, everyone was happy. But then the whole town was bought up by these damn corporations full of MBA weasels micromanaging, trying to maximize the profit from every square foot of floor space. Now the place that used to put ketchup on my hot dogs tells me it’ll be an extra twenty-five cents for ketchup! It sucked all the fun out of this town! Yeah, I miss the mob.”

Sometimes MBA types would ask me, “What’s your growth rate? What’s your retained earnings rate as a percentage of gross? What are your projections?”
I’d just say, “I have no idea. I don’t even know what some of that means. I started this as a hobby to help my friends, and that’s the only reason it exists. There’s money in the bank and I’m doing fine, so no worries.”
They’d tell me that if I analyzed the business better, I could maximise profitability. Then I’d tell them about the taxi driver in Vegas.

Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?

Related: The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman

A quote from Leo Tolstoy, quickly emerging as one of my favourite writers of all time:

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that. We may say of man that he is more often kind than cruel, oftener wise than stupid, oftener energetic than apathetic, or the reverse; but it would be false to say of one man that he is kind and wise, of another that he wicked and foolish. And yet we always classify mankind in this way. And this untrue.

Men like like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.

Related: Two Conflicting Rosebushes