Stressors & Relaxers

Two months after I hoped I would be in my high-performing state, I finally feel I am. My thoughts now naturally wander to places I like. I'm thinking better, doing better, and feeling better.

Some of it can be attributed to the "me time" I have had since Aditi was on vacation in India. But I want to attribute a lion's share to the small changes I've been trying to make since last year. Puts Atomic Habits into a very real perspective. You don't see it coming, but you can look back and see all the good work you put into build-up over time.

Last year, around this time, I was stressed out. I had fewer responsibilities than now, but when I look back, I remember having thoughts when, while driving to my office, I had thoughts of just skipping and continuing to drive down the road to wherever it took me. No destination. That's where my idea of a long road trip originated from. I was insecure, unsure, and anxious.

Now, 1 year later, even though I have more responsibilities - I bought a house, got a promotion, am leading a new project, and managing more people - I feel much happier, more relaxed, and more content.

So what changed? I reflected. 

And I found that I was keeping a lot of stressors with me and was not giving myself any relaxers.

I was trying to control things that weren't in my control. I was trying to help people that didn't want to be helped. I was dwelling a lot on communication gaps like when people wouldn't understand what I was trying to say. I had stopped improving. I had stopped learning. I was stagnant. All of these and more were my stressors.

What are my relaxers? I've talked about it previously. Music - I wasn't listening to it much. Creativity - I wasn't making anything new. Me Time - I wasn't having any. Water - I wasn't spending much time with it. Thinking - I couldn't do much because I wasn't getting time to myself.

And that's all there was to it. Life will always send stressors your way. That's what life does. Things are going well, and then they suddenly don't. The key to getting through is to not let those stressors build up and continue to visit your relaxers. Things that make you happy. Put one step in front of another and keep walking. Until a solution is in sight. Until things again change for the better.

Now I'm listening to music nearly every single day. I've been woodworking and gardening. I have time to think and write these blogs.

Solutions

So this came out of absolutely nowhere. A random email added some coal to the old steam engine, which led my train of thought on an entirely new path.

So, I was thinking about how to resolve a particular problem that was unfolding in an email in which I was copied. And I wondered how sometimes, you just have to let things unfold for them to resolve, just give it time and let others catch up. This led me to think of an analogy coz I do that best. And the nearest thing I could think of was how you irrigate a farm from a canal (the old-fashioned way). You make way for water to go through pre-made channels before you open up the gate and let gravity do its thing. You put the effort upfront, let nature take its course, and fix/guide only if the water(problem) is not going the way you want it to. Let others work for you while you guide and keep them on the path.

Then I thought, can this approach be used everywhere? Not really. Works in this case, but if you're gonna move rocks, you can't just build them a path. For that, you gotta build transport. So just by changing one variable in the problem statement, the solution is no longer applicable.  Taking the irrigation problem, if I introduce a volume cap to it or add a KPI on how quickly the water reaches the furthest corner of the field, I would have the change that solution or introduce changes to it at least, like adding a pump somewhere or building a network of pipes. 

If I change the problem entirely, the solution would have to undergo a complete overhaul too. And that's where the skill of problem-solving comes into the picture. Understanding that not all problems are created equal, evaluating the variables involved, and coming up with the best solution that accounts for it - it takes patience, perseverance, and a calculated risk. And that combination is rare.

Dispositions, Outlooks, and Moods

So I had to look up the definitions to refresh my mind even though I knew what I wanted to write about. And I pass that on to you as well :

Disposition is defined as a person's inherent qualities of mind and character

Outlook is defined as a person's point of view or general attitude to life

Mood is defined as a temporary state of mind or feeling

And that's our topic for today. Of late, I have been in high spirits. Higher than I usually associate with myself. I've had a good state of mind, I've been looking for improvements, and I've been tackling issues with a smile on my face. As I explained to someone on a call in January - Sometimes, we are able to dictate a change in our dispositions, and other times the dispositions make us do what we do.

I have a mood tracker, and it has six options: Angry, Sad, Meh, Neutral, Happy, and Ecstatic. Last year, I was consistently neutral. And I wasn't exactly happy. No surprise. This year, I decided to force myself to think better, give myself more leeway, and let myself feel more happy. That meant that for the first few days, I consciously reminded myself that I needed to rate myself Happy or above. After 15 days or so, now I don't have to force it anymore. I see that prompt about what my current mood is, and my brain automatically responds, Happy!! And I am. More so than last year. This, I consider, is partly responsible for my feeling of being in higher spirits.

What I noticed additionally, though, is that since I made this change, I approach things differently. I talk to people more positively. I accept the issues & challenges thrown towards me, and instead of letting them drag me down, I look for the positives and the next step forward. I feel & hope this has also rubbed off on the people that I converse with. 

So what caused me to write about it? 

Today, I arrived in the office, as usual, full of high spirits, looking forward to what I can achieve today, and trying to add some new habits to organize myself and my work better. Then I received a call, and the other person was not in a good mood. And that rubbed off on me, and I started feeling as if I was getting dragged down. And it triggered the thought of how different people's dispositions, outlooks, and moods get passed around. If I'm talking to someone with a smile on my face, more often than not, irrespective of what the other person is feeling in their life, they would feel better. However much we deny, we are all connected as species. 

We run away from each other if there are conflicts because our survivalist instincts kick in, and we want to preserve ourselves. But give us a safe space and a happy crowd, and we will all connect. Look at how concerts typically go. Like-minded people all enjoying something they all love. Together.

The challenge a person thus has to live a happy and positive life is whether they are able to change their outlook, improve their disposition and rub off on the people around them to create a happy & positive environment for everyone.

Firsts

So, I've been thinking about this one for a while. A thought occurred to me while I was driving back home from the office, and I wanted to pen it down. Two weeks ago. And I didn't. Why? As I got home, I got busy with other routine tasks; making dinner, working on my garden, playing AoE, and writing the blog took a backseat.

However, recently, I had a couple of sessions with a therapist. Partly because I've always wondered how that works and partly because my new employer offers some sessions as a free benefit. After two sessions, I feel that the experience is slightly underwhelming - I've found it an excellent place to open up and talk without reservations, but there are some small things that could've made for a better experience which I'm not gonna talk about, in this blog. Getting back to the first digression - One of the things she said in the latest session - "When it feels that there are things bottled up, give them an outlet, write it down." - stuck with me. That, for me, for a lot of years, had been this blog. This is where I would come and pen down my thoughts without hesitation, without thinking about who's reading, without a care in the world. And so here I am today.

Now, getting back to the original topic and the thought from two weeks ago.

Firsts.

We spend the majority of our life in schedules, routines. Work to home, home to work. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at specific times. Working Monday to Friday(for IT). Yet, that's not what we look forward to. That's never our focus. That's not what makes us happy. In fact, that's not what we even look backward to. That's not what we reminisce about. We don't go, "Oh! Do you remember that 70th day when we went to the same place for lunch, and nothing different happened? We ate, talked casually, and came back to the office?" Because we have a tendency to brush past the monotonous, barely paying any attention to it. What we look forward to, or remember, mostly are the firsts. The first kiss, the first time your heart jumped after seeing a beautiful girl, the first paycheck, the first trip somewhere. Some may generalize and say we look forward to our vacation every year when we go to the same place and do the same things. But do you really? Do you not crave going to a different place, even though that feeling of your comfort bubble draws you to the same place? And then, do you not, during your 5th or 7th visit, go, wait, I don't think it was like this earlier. It used to be better. This restaurant used to serve better food, and this beach used to be more clean.

So where am I heading with all this? This behavior shows that we all crave change in our life. Change is what makes our life better. Change is what makes our life worth remembering. We would remember the first time going to a specific office building and loving it. We won't remember the 1072nd time when we visited the same building since you've been desensitized towards the beauty of the building, which hasn't changed. You have changed in those 1072 visits. Law of diminishing value. What excited you the first time doesn't excite you anymore. However, if you switch employers or locations and go to a new building, it's a second that's also a first, and you may feel excited about it.

Even when most of us maintain, "We don't like change - why can't it be how it was?" We all crave it. The "Why can't it be how it was?" is because it's the nth time something is happening. And at the end of it all, when you look back, you will remember the times something changed. You won't remember all the days the stock market ticked up 1%. But you'll remember that one time AMC & GameStop surged coz of Reddit investors. We are good at remembering anomalies much more than mundane ones. And so, my thought is that for a life worth remembering, you oughta have enough anomalies in it so you can reflect back on it and say - "You remember that time when.."