I forget what year it was exactly, 2012 or 2013, that I first fell in love with constraints, with doing short experiments in lifestyle disruptions. I do remember that it all began with a meltdown on BART.
In those days I lived 7 miles from work in Oakland. Some days I rode my bike, some days I took BART (the Bay Area's subway/metro). BART is notorious for breaking down or being delayed for other reasons, like shooting people.
One day I rode the BART in to work, and it took an hour (it should be a ten minute trip).
The next day I rode the BART in to work, and it took 45 minutes.
The day after that, I rode the BART in to work and it took over an hour. I could have walked to work faster.
While I stood there sweating, touching three other people with my nose uncomfortably close to some dude’s armpit, I resolved that I would swear off public transportation completely for an entire month. The only exception was if I needed to get across the Bay to San Francisco, which I couldn't ride my bike to.
So I did, and it was absolutely lovely. I rode my bike 14 miles a day, rain or shine. I learned how to pack a set of dry clothes so I could change at the office. I got in better shape. My stress levels went down. I saved money (even though I didn't care much about that back then). And I loved not having to decide if I was going to take the BART or not, because I'd already made the decision.
That was my aha moment. I'd made a somewhat arbitrary and time-bound rule for myself, and had learned things and improved as a person as a result. I wasn't interested in never taking the BART again, but it was a great experience, and as a result I took the BART less in the future.
This was a very exciting revelation for me. I could make more totally arbitrary rules for myself! And maybe learn more about myself and improve and grow in other ways!
So I did. That year I did maybe a half dozen monthly challenges, ranging from abstaining from alcohol to not eating out at all. The structured nature of the practice petered out after a while, but I've done little monthly challenges here and there.
Since getting in to frugality in a big way a year ago, I've decided to resurrect the practice. I always struggled to concisely communicate the practice to other people though, because none of the words really captured how I thought about them.
"Monthly Challenge" is the closest, but I don't know, it feels kind of "Social Media clickbaity hey guys let's all do this dumb thing together and pretend like we’re having meaningful social interactions" to me, so I don’t love it.
I turned to the online thesaurus, and started tunneling through words: challenge, experiment, search, pilgrimage, quest, journey, mission, operation, achievement, pursuit, campaign, sortie, --
SORTIE. What's that?
"A sortie (from the French word meaning exit or from Latin root surgere meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint. The term originated in siege warfare." Wikipedia.
Oh, I might be on to something here. This captures it beautifully.
In my life, when I'm comfortable and cruising, I'm in a sort of lifestyle strongpoint. I know how to do things. I'm secure in my actions. But I'm also not moving, not gaining ground. I won't lose, but I also can't win.
To gain any ground, I must leave the security of the known and enfortressed inner sanctum of my life and try new methods of living, new habits, constraints, or objectives.
The implication is to favor proactive movement and initiative over a reactive stance of waiting to see what happens. I'm not interested in just dealing with whatever life throws my way, because I live in a culture that I find in many ways disagreeable. I don't want most of the things that will be flung at me in due course of living a 21st century North American life - or rather, there are other things that pique my interest more. So I must adopt a strategy of offense, of initiative and movement, of rapid learning and intentional direction, if I am to gain the sorts of experiences that I desire.
That said, if I roam completely naked and unsupported all of the time, I'll quickly become exhausted by the constant vigilance that demands. I must learn to strike a balance between rest and recuperation within the fortress of my habits and familiar environs on the one hand, and intentional movement beyond the walls in order to see what creative mayhem I can kick up on the other.
I must, in other words, practice the art of the lifestyle sortie: a quick focused raid or assault on some intentional target in my life with a specific and narrow aim that will expand my zone of competence, resources, learning, and experience. Whether what I do for each sortie becomes a habit for the rest of my life is irrelevant; each experience adds to my overall understanding of my self and the world around me, enriching my perspective on the world and equipping me with more tools with which I can approach my life.