In my time-off I’ve had a chance to deeply reflect. I started with strong intentions to build more self-awareness and improve as a son, partner, collaborator, and member of society. However, I found myself often circling on the same issues unconsciously, sometimes they would distract me. I made this simple exercise to better understand where my mind is fixated and left myself some advice. The exercise draws inspiration from Zen practices. It takes about a minute.
I sit at my desk, with my feet firmly planted on the floor and my back straight. I take three deep breaths and look at the image below. I have a soft focus like how a flashlight gently illuminates a wide area for about 20 seconds. Each object in the picture has a distinct meaning for me.
The pyramid, a view of the past.
Past-experience allows the building of mental-heuristics that can be accessed to solve problems quickly. However, over-emphasizing past-experience can also limit future growth potential. If I am constantly focusing on past achievements I don’t allow myself to achieve in the present. The greatness of the past came from hard work at a previous present.
The horizon, a focus on the future.
We place high-value on people who plan a better future and charge for it. I must be prepared for those plans to change. The future is non-linear. I will need to adapt plans but keep my goals constant.
The people, placing an importance on social norms.
Homosapiens are social creatures. We are not the strongest or swiftest. However, we do communicate and organize with exceptional depth. This depth can be overwhelming, if I am overly concerned with social situations, I can miss the learnings from the past and cloud my goals for the future.
The Zeppelin, mechanics of the day
Getting up, paying bills, doing email, chores, and etc. Everyday I must repeat these tasks and their effortless efficiency ensures I have time to do more in the present.
After 20 seconds of viewing the image I reflect.
If I view everything for roughly the same amount of time I remind myself that the fact that nothing stands out is a positive. I am trying to take in the whole image and holistically understand the many layers. A flexible and curious mind that seeks to make sense of intracices of past, future, and present around us is a prepared mind.
If I can’t focus on anything I remind myself that the image is mildly uncomfortable to look at it. The graininess is hard to view in today’s high resolution and color corrected world. Looking at myself in a raw form is hard, understanding what I fixate on is not fun. But it’s critical in pursuing continued growth. I try one of many forms of meditation and go back to the image until I am able to take in the whole picture. It may sound like a lot of “pre-work” before “real work” but I’ve found the few minutes I spend understanding my mind’s state in a day usually pays off in hours of better work later. This is my process. I hope it inspires you to create your own.