“Were we to meet this figure socially, this accusatory character, this internal critic, this unrelenting fault-finder, we would think there was something wrong with him. He would just be boring and cruel. We might think that something terrible had happened to him, that he was living in the aftermath, the fallout, of some catastrophe. And we would be right.” -Adam Phillips
1: “Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Author Oliver Burkeman admired this quote from artist Chuck Close.
For years, he would write down insights that captured how he wanted to approach his work and his life.
Like the one from choreographer George Balanchine: “My muse must come to me on union time.” As in, he needed to be ready to work when the dancers were ready to be choreographed.
And the line attributed to both William Faulkner and W. Somerset Maugham: “I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.”
“Down-to-earth, no-nonsense, unpretentious.” That was how Oliver saw himself, he writes in his wonderful book Meditations for Mortals. “The kind that just got on with things, regardless of how inspired or fired up I happened to feel.”
The benefit of this thinking is that “it helps drain the drama from certain activities,” Oliver notes, “especially those we intimidatingly label ‘creative,’ making it easier to get over yourself and take action.”
The only problem? “It’s just that,” he explains, “it never seemed to work particularly well for me.”
2: Then one day, Oliver discovered a blog post by the meditation teacher Susan Piver.
The title of the post? “Getting stuff done by not being mean to yourself.”
Susan “was another fan, in theory, of Chuck Close’s inspiration-is-for-amateurs philosophy,” Oliver writes. “But she brilliantly evoked its unfortunate flipside, which is that it all too easily morphs into the barked internal command that we ought to be able to do whatever it is we’ve decided to do, whenever it is we’ve determined we’ll do it, precisely because no inspiration ought to be required—and that if we don’t, we’re a good-for-nothing worm.”
She writes: “I’ve spent a lot of time in my life trying to force myself to do things.
“Really good things. Things that are important to me. Things like meditating, journaling, going to the gym, and so on. I set schedules over and over. (I will rise at 5. Meditate, 5.30–6.30. Journal 6.30–7.30. Breakfast 8–9, and so on.)
“I fail way more than I succeed, which makes me really, really upset. I get angrier and angrier at myself, curse my lack of discipline, shame myself for watching Battlestar Galactica (again) instead of writing, delve into my psychology hoping to unearth the seeds of self-sabotage.
“It spirals out of control,” she notes, “until I either give in to lying on the couch or somehow manage to squeeze out a day of discipline according to schedule, whereupon I exhale a half-sigh of relief and immediately begin bullying myself to repeat this tomorrow.
“IT SUCKS.”
Pow.
Then, one day, Susan decided she would try a different approach.
She asked: “What would happen if I did what I felt like doing, when I felt like doing it?”
[Note: This question is another version of the idea we explored last week: “What if this were easy?“]
The first thing Susan noticed was that a wave of fear swept through her: “If I’m not vigilant about making myself do stuff, I won’t do anything.”
Interestingly, however, that’s not what happened.
Instead, she had a more productive day. She accomplished the things she usually yelled at herself to do.
“Only this time, it seemed effortless,” Susan recalls. “I had such a light heart.”
Should we be surprised? Maybe not.
Because “when we do what we feel like doing, we get to use our desires as fuel for action,” Oliver observes, “rather than constantly diverting energy and attention to overcoming them.”
3: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.
At the end of each week, we are exploring some of the life lessons Oliver shares in his wonderful book Meditations for Mortals.
Our assumption is that if left to our own devices, we’ll spend our day “scrolling slack-jawed through Instagram,” Oliver writes.
Maybe, instead, “scrolling slack-jawed through Instagram” is what happens “after we’ve told ourselves we can’t do what we want, because we can’t afford to or don’t deserve to,” he notes, “and we grow so resentful or annoyed by whatever we try to force ourselves to do instead that we reach for our phone as a distraction.”
Now, “some might object that it’s a sign of immense privilege even to be able to contemplate spending the day doing what we feel like doing,” Oliver observes. “And of course this is true, so far as it goes: almost everyone’s situation will impose certain limits on their freedom to follow their desires, and it’s much worse for some than for others.
“But it’s important to see that this objection itself is often the inner taskmaster in disguise,” he notes, “seeking to make us feel bad for taking advantage of whatever freedom we do have. There’s no prize for failing to spend your time as we wish, to whatever extent we’re able, out of a misplaced sense of solidarity with those who cannot.”
This train of thought leads us nowhere.
Instead, we can choose to appreciate what the philosopher Iddo Landau calls the “reverse golden rule”—not treating ourselves in punishing and poisonous ways that we would never consider treating someone else.
“As Susan Piver discovered,” Oliver writes, “what we generally find, instead, is that we do want to honor our commitments, pay your bills, keep ourselves physically healthy, and so on—because the person we are, behind all the screeching and yelling, isn’t a worthless layabout after all.”
Which is why he believes “it takes courage to ask ourselves the question that I suspect all those gurus promoting the ‘warrior mindset’ and ‘mental toughness’ are too frightened to ask themselves: How would we like to spend our time today?”
More next week!
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Reflection: Am I driving myself with harsh discipline and self-criticism, or can I trust myself enough to pursue what I want—and enjoy a lighter, more effective path?
Action: Choose kindness over bullying in my self-talk today; when planning my tasks, ask: “What do I genuinely feel like doing right now?” and notice what happens.