I go to sleep to the sound of ocean waves on the Tide app. For my whole life I’ve stayed around places that had a body of water nearby. Whether it was Abu Dhabi or Mombasa, there was either the Gulf or the Indian Ocean nearby. Nairobi on the other hand is a different story. There’s a river but let’s not talk about that as it has been the bane of many investors’ existence in the last few months.
But that’s not the point.
In a different life I used to spend weekend mornings walking along the Corniche overlooking the Gulf and then I would return home and join my parents at the round kitchen table for breakfast.
These weekends, my routine is the same. I still exercise. I still come back to the same kitchen table. I still make the same breakfast but everything else has changed.
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A friend of mine asked me once for tips on how to write a book. I said, “Your problem is you get intimidated by the final product — the book. Think of it in terms of blocks. Ask yourself a question, do the research/interviews required to answer it, then go to sleep. Tomorrow ask yourself another question and add another two paragraphs.”
That’s how you write a book.
Last I checked, the book we’re coauthoring titled Rethinking Education in Africa is 10,000 words.
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Now these might seem very random, but the thinking around them is the exact same thing.
Think of your life in terms of blocks.
Because our phones have turned into extensions of our hands, they make us believe that we exist in a spatial and temporal domain that is way wider than we actually exist in. Suddenly, there’s a divulge of information that comes our way.
And suddenly, we’re expected to care.
The problem with that is at some point it gets a bit too overwhelming, and our minds are not wired to function this way. Dunbar theorized that people are able to maintain 150 relationships on average. The funny and sad thing about this is our facebook friends are much more, and the real friends we call when we’re having a really bad day are less than 3.
On either side, we’re very far away from Dunbar’s number.
Let’s look at the temporal domain. There’s yesterday and its regrets. There’s tomorrow and its worries. Then there’s today. Whether you’re trying to integrate a meditation practice in your life, or you get into flow when you’re working on something, the importance of living in the here and now needs to be emphasized.
Then you evaluate your life in terms of blocks; intellectual, physical, spiritual, and relationships.
- How did you grow in each block?
- How did you regress?
- What can you do to be better today than you were yesterday?
And that’s how you grow.
By reading one book at a time.
By connecting with one person at a time.
By going for one run at a time.
By making one healthy choice at a time.
Everyone familiar with the Kaizen system knows the impact of compounding small positive changes. There’s no need to overdo things. The only trick is to do this consistently, whether daily or weekly, and that’s where the difficulty lies. Because most of the time we’re not going to feel like it.
The only mental hack I’ve always used is I tell myself, I’ll set the timer for 5 minute.
That’s all.
Just 5 minutes.
Of course, two hours later I’ll look at the time and the post — like this one — would be done.
How does this tie up to the first paragraph?
Some blocks will be added and others will be removed. For me the blocks that stayed the same were the exercise, the table, and the breakfast. The blocks that didn’t were the country, its weather and my parents’ presence.
I always say, “You are the triple integral of your values, experiences and environment.”
Each of these is a block that can be broken down into smaller blocks. The more you think of this, the easier it becomes to go through life because you’ll start to learn which blocks are important and which aren’t.
You’ll move things around.
Add some.
And most importantly, remove others.
Image taken in Diani Beach, Kenya