Welcome to Ideothetic Flow, my newsletter sharing my reflections on finding balance, sufficiency, and security.
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Hi!
Happy Chinese New Year! I've always had quite a hectic chinese new year with many houses to visit and often ending late into the night. I hit a record the year I got married where we had 13 stops on the first day alone.
This year, we've streamlined our route to some extent, and managed to get home in time for the kids to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Another highlight of the past few weeks was catching the Ed Sheeran concert, courtesy of my good friends Mark and Val. I’m now switching my playlist over to the whole Taylor Swift discography in anticipation for her coming to Singapore next month.
Being more productive by being myself
One of my intentions for the year was deliberate competence. I wanted to take an intentional approach to being able to do more without adding more time or brute force.
The strategy I’ve been focusing on this month to achieve this is to lean into being myself. I'm focusing on things which resonate with me and listening more closely to my internal cues.
Logic is not enough.
A few years ago I read about the wonders of a zettelkasten note taking system. I tried implementing it, and found myself spending too much time organising notes, without using them for anything productive. The complex system also created a barrier to writing that led me to end up doing less. It was simply not a system which resonated with my style of thinking and organising.
Almost every day now I come across new ideas or advice that would be useful if implemented in my life. But, I'm realising that an idea making logical sense is not good enough.
I need to filter these by what resonates with my soul, I admit I'm not as rational as I'd like to think I am. If it doesn't truly resonate, implementing it would only feel like a chore, rather than being useful to me.
I can only be more of me
The same principle applies in trying to decide what to work on. It's easy to get caught up in the trends and trying to predict the next useful skill. I've started to find that chasing this gets nowhere.
I'm not going to have enough momentum to complete any project that I'm doing purely out of utility, and without passion for it. Im not going to become someone im not. My graveyard of unfinished things is testament to this.
On the other hand, when I find something that vibes with my spirit, I can keep going. Despite very little natural ability, I've somehow kept up 14 years of wing chun, and now have a little skill to show for it.
So my job is not to try and do things which would look great on my LinkedIn or Insta feed, but instead to find the things which somehow feel like have always been a part of me, which I can keep at no matter how hard they get.
Listen to my body
I'm also trying to be willing to listen to my body and follow its flow.
There's often a romanticisation of having an iron will, to ignore internal cues and pains to do the things I should be doing.
But I find that forcing through is often inefficient. Forcing myself to read something when I'm feeling bored and falling asleep, is as good as not reading at all. At the same time, when I catch my flow state, I can get so much done.
One big way I fail to listen to myself is in eating, when I overeat despite knowing I've had enough and am already full. If I listen to myself better, I might find it easier to hit my weight loss goals. I won't even get started on my revenge bedtime procrastination.
Often, feeling bored is not a sign of an inherent problem in me, but in the thing I'm doing. My body already knows its a waste of time before my mind does, and I could save myself that time by simply stopping.
Instead of forcing myself into productivity, I want to catch my good moments and ease off my bad ones.
Beware of the false self
One of the challenges in applying this is that I’m now living in a world that not only has alot of noise telling me what I should be, there is alot of noise trying to convince me that listening to it is part of my identity.
Social media algorithms and marketing catch my attention by playing into my identity, sending signals which I find hard to pull away from. These are often a poor substitute for actually realising my self. Watching reels of people with parenting tips might resonate with my own experience and seem useful in the moment, but its really a distraction from me using that time to actually go and be a parent.
Can I be too self centered?
A counterpoint to these ideas is that it can seem like I’m giving myself an escape route. Don’t feel like working in the moment? Then stop, because I’m “listening to my cues”. It can fall into a trap of justifying everything of “not being me”.
But, at least for myself, who worries too much about doing things “right”, this approach helps me to course correct to a more balanced and efficient way of doing things. In the same theme, it may not be for everyone.
I already accept that in life, some things need us to be able to push past our own limits to emerge as a better person. I think what I need is to make sure I’m not wasting valuable willpower pushing in the wrong directions, so that when the right moment comes, I am able to call on that willpower.
Other things
Elements by GMB Fitness
I recently finished the Elements Course by GMB Fitness. This has been quite life changing for me. Halfway through the course, I felt a significant difference in how I felt when chasing my kids across the floor, especially when needing to switching from standing to sitting positions multiple times in rapid succession. This in turn led me to be in a much better mood when watching the kids.
If you feel you want to work on some mobility (especially if you groan slightly when having to stand up from sitting on the floor), give this a try.
Captain Von Trapp
Joy had a phase where she was obsessed with the Sound of Music. If you ever seen it, I always found it odd that they made such a big fuss about getting the Captain to join the Nazi Army.
Recently, I was reading a book about the development of weaponry from medieval ages to the first world war, and learnt not only that the Von Trapp family is real, but also that Captain Von Trapp was the deadliest submarine captain in world war one!
I felt this was one of the most interesting bits of trivia I’ve learnt in awhile and wanted to share.
Searching for a new project
Last year I made an offer for conversation, which was quite rarely picked up, but I supposed that is to be expected in Singapore. For now I'm thinking of what offer I can make this year instead that might be of value to you - feel free to send me suggestions!
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, start a conversation, or simply connect over a chat. You can reply this email, leave a comment, or reach me at jameschanwz@hey.com.
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For tarot based reflections and journal prompts, check out @thecenterline_ on IG
Take care and have a good week!
James