Serenity Someday
Something interesting happened to my happiness/anxiety levels the other day.
Before starting to spend so much time in Alaska, I had a long list of projects for my place here in the desert. I wanted to build a workshop/kitchen/motorcycle garage, a shower block, a walipini style greenhouse/wastewater treatment system, modular sleeping pods, a garden, a solar dehydrator, a food forest -- the list goes on.
I’d still like to build those projects someday, but since I've decided to spend more time in Alaska I've let go of the aggressive construction schedule I had in mind.
Once I’d made the decision to shelve those projects I immediately began enjoying my space more.
I realized that I'd been doing that thing we all do where we defer happiness to the far side of some achievement.
I had been thinking "I'll be happy when I've got a great rammed-earth motorcycle workshop", "I'll be really satisfied when I've got a beautiful passive solar shower structure, and am not taking showers from a bag hung from a Joshua Tree", "when I build that walipini greenhouse, man, then this place will be really great."
I'd fallen into the trap of not being happy with what I had, because I was assuming my life would be so much better after I'd gotten the things I was planning on getting.
Once I let go of those projects, however, I was free to just look around and think about what I did in fact already have. My unfinished studio with OSB floors and no window trim. My solar shade structure that needs comfortable seating and structural upgrades. Serenity that could stand to have the solar panels tilted to reduce maintenance. My Joshua Tree grove bathroom.
And you know what?
My setup is awesome. Exactly the way it is.
I wake up every day and look out at the sun hitting the tops of the Sierra peaks. I'm warm enough inside even when it's cold out. I'm sheltered from the ripping winds. Even in the hottest months I can get respite, shade, and cooling breezes while relaxing in my hammock in the shade of my solar panels. I walk directly out of my compound and have the entire Sierra Nevada mountain range as my hiking environment. At night I watch the Milky Way rotate through the sky, and keep an eye on Mars and Venus, and listen to the coyotes yip and howl over the next ridge.
I don't need anything to be different. This is enough. This is more than enough.
In what ways are you deferring happiness right now? In what ways can you internalize gratitude for what you have, and allow yourself to just appreciate your present state?
Practically Speaking
How Not to Fix A Car (overthinkers read this)
How to do something you don’t feel like doing: I’ve been procrastinating on recording the audiobook for Deep Response. I got sick of it and told my Mastermind Group that if I didn’t have it done by the time I head back to Alaska, I’d send each of them $100. (There are 7 members in the group.)
And just like magic, I started getting it done.
The cool part is that the pain of doing it is far less. I used to hem and haw, tell myself I really ought to start doing it, but then I’d do something else and feel kind of guilty. With $700 on the line, all that mental friction went away. I just started Doing The Thing. Simple.
Further Reading
How to Want What You Have by Timothy Miller
What is Self-Actualization? Article on sloww.co. (My current mastermind project is a deep dive on self-actualization theory and practice.)
Quote
Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over. - Hayao Miyazaki