026: Do a little more

529 words.

Set out to do a little bit first. Then when the flow starts, push out a little more than you needed. Something about learning: you show your improvement only through iteration.

Insert example here. Such artifacts are the ways I wish to add value through writing (considered using ‘to writing’, but that begins to denote a self-centred focus to this exercise. I’m rambling here.)

It feels like a short one today, most likely from the lack of sleep leading to a slowdown in the flow of thought. Another indicator of the importance of the sleep. I’m not sure why I keep doing this to myself, the whole reading of phone thing before turning in. It’s really taking away time and energy from truly appreciating the peace in the mornings.

There’s a dark side to doing a little more, where there is a perennial dissatisfaction at what most would consider enough. Just thought that imposter syndrome lies at this end of the spectrum, and nothing light lies there.

‘Do a little more’ can become a useful mantra in career things, that we go the extra mile, add in the finishing touch, make sure what’s done is really done. A sign that we place joy and focus on what’s done is done right.

‘Do a little more’ is one of these ideas that reaps impact only in the long-term, where compound interest applies to create massive change only when we look at the thing at the end stage. Until then, the ones who do a little more need to reap their fuel from their own ways.

‘Do a little more’ can mean waking up at 5am every morning to practise your craft, even though you don’t see your craft working out anytime in the near future. The ones who succeed is no other choice but to continue plugging away. They do it not because of the light at the end of the tunnel, but simply because they have to.

Rediscovery of old articles from before my note-taking added such joy. The one who read them then and the one now are clearly different people. There’s some appreciation of the gift to be had too. Whatever that you read/watched/listened to built you into the one you are today.

There’s a quote I read somewhere, on knowing there is growth when you cringe at your past self. I can’t remember who the source is (running contrary to all the note-taking I’ve been doing the past 3 years), but it stuck with me. It sticks because I cringe at my past every day, and I realise the implications of it.

I miss the boundless energy and ability to jump hurdles (metaphorically) in the past self, but maybe that is a reflection of how what I’m doing now is not the true inclination of the current self. Inclination changes, yet circumstances are slow to change with it, should the inner change be unrealised. There is a fair bit that made a swap unnoticed under my nose, and now the conscious self is scrambling to go with it.