Author: brianjohnson

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To Know is to Love

As documented in earlier posts, every time I move to a new city there is a period where I’m really anxious and uneasy and just struggling to enjoy my time there.

And then over time, as I explore the city more, learn what’s around and where I should go, and establish a route, I eventually relax and even grow to love the city I’m staying in.

The thought came to me on this trip that “to know is to love”.

It came to me in the context of cities, of course. Every restaurant I try, every street I go down, and every person I meet contribute to an increasing knowledge of a place and, with it: an increasing affection.

Upon further reflection, I feel that while the unknown may be enticing, you don’t love the unknown. You can only really love what you know.

So if something is new, you must learn everything you can about it and get to know it well in order to love it.

Nobody really loves anything or anyone they know nothing about.

But when you get to know someone or something, the love seems nearly perfectly correlated with your knowledge and familiarity with them.

This is somewhat related to a portion of dialogue from the movie Lady Bird:

Sister Sarah Joan : You clearly love Sacramento.

Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson : I do?

Sister Sarah Joan : You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such care.

Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson : I was just describing it.

Sister Sarah Joan : Well, it comes across as love.

Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson : Sure, I guess I pay attention.

Sister Sarah Joan : Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?

 

Besides being a brilliant piece of writing and possibly the most important and moving scene in the whole film, it’s a similar point to what I’m making.

When you pay attention to things – when you get to know them – you come to love them.

So assuming that these things are all true, I feel like there are a few key insights to be considered:

  1. You can’t really love something you don’t know
  2. If you want to love (or even like) something, you have to take the time to really get to know it
  3. The depth of your love for something (or someone) may be limited by the depth of your understanding or knowledge of them

So in the context of visiting new cities, I think that it’s important that I put a lot of effort into understand how it works and exploring everything.

Perhaps I’ve always understood this on some level, and that’s why I’ve always prioritized meeting people and building those relationships over doing touristy stuff when I travel, which I perceive as being superficial and not great for really getting to know a place.

But I think it certainly applies to relationships as well.

You can’t truly love someone you just met. You have to really get to know them first.

And then to really get to know them, you have to pay close attention and really see them.

I have a friend that is incredible at just noticing what makes people special. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this before. But if you ask him about any of his friends, he’s always ready with, “What I love about this friend” and then will follow up with the perfect story demonstrating what he means.

I’ve had him tell stories like that about me, and oftentimes it’s not even something I remember. To me it wasn’t important. But he noticed.

And that comes off as love.

You should always be looking for these things in other people. I’m sure I’ll never reach the level that he is able to do it, but I strive to really pay attention to others and notice what makes them special.

I’m sure these general concepts apply to a lot of things. This is really just the underlying concept.

But I want to keep this in mind and look for more examples of it in the world.

 

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People Who are Struggling at Least Have a Clear Sense of Purpose

This is sort of a weird thought with possibly no discernable value, but still interesting to think through.

People who are really, truly struggling just to live – like people who can’t even afford to buy food or shelter or those in war – have a very clear sense of purpose: survival.

Coming from a first-world country and a middle-class family, I’ve never had to worry about whether or not I’d have food to eat or proper shelter (although much of my childhood was spent in a home that would aggressively leak water from the ceiling when it rained).

When you come from that, the possibilities are endless. I’m guaranteed to have food and shelter, so then… What exactly is my purpose?

Obviously I’m not the first person to question this. Watch any movie from pre-9/11 America and the themes always involve a lack of purpose and rebellion against consumerism since, seemingly, those were the biggest problems facing all Americans at the time.

It’s incredibly silly, but a part of me envies that level of clarity in purpose. You don’t have to question your motivations for anything, you may not have to think long-term because you’re only focusing on surviving another day.

Now obviously, I’m romanticizing a terrible situation and I absolutely do not want any of that. And while I’m describing it as “freedom from the burden of unclear purpose,” it could more accurately described as “not having the privilege of choosing a purpose.”

I’m not a psychologist, but I assume that this envy of that component of things just comes from a more general unease. With unlimited options, I don’t feel like my environment pushes me towards anything.

I think many of us are now faced with the timeless question of, “what do I do with my life?”

I’m not sure we evolved to be equipped to answer that question. And it causes problems.

Part of me thinks that’s the real reason people still have kids. When you care for another life, you feel like you have purpose.

And from what I’ve read, parents are actually less happy than childless individuals, but they do feel more fulfilled. Maybe that purposeless void gets filled for them.

Maybe just having someone that needs you quiets that unsettled part of your mind that’s overwhelmed with a level of opportunity it isn’t equipped to comprehend.

I feel like I know people who are totally content to just be, and I envy them, too (to an extent). They just enjoy what they have and don’t seem to be bothered by any perceived lack of purpose in their life.

I think I’m someone who needs to have some kind of purpose. I need to be working towards something. But as my stretch goals and dreams have slowly become reality, I guess I find myself feeling a little aimless.

I was under no illusions that meeting goals would solve all my problems or suddenly make me fulfilled.

But perhaps I wasn’t fully prepared for what it would feel like to not have a lot of tangible goals left.

Sure, I have financial goals and some personal goals, but whereas in the past I felt like I was seeking an entire “life” that I didn’t know, I now sort of feel like… I have that life.

And like… It’s cool. But what now?

Where do I go from here?

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I’m Constantly Judging Experiences Which Lessens my Enjoyment

This an extension of a thought I had recently which was that I am way too focused on my own enjoyment of things instead of just enjoying them for what they are.

This new thought is related and very similar but distinct.

When I watch a show or read a book or experience just about anything, I feel like I’m still judging it. If I think something is corny, I’ll think about that and judge it. If I think it’s unoriginal or just bad, that’s what I’m thinking about.

And I think the underlying problem is that I’m not allowing myself to be fully invested in it. How can I get lost in an experience if I’m too caught up in my own experience to really enjoy it?

I’ve really been enjoying reading fiction books in Spanish for a while, and to a lesser extent, TV shows as well. And it took me this long to realize that I think it’s because I’m not judging anything.

I’m not asking it to be anything for me. It doesn’t have to be deep, or meaningful, or exciting, or thought-provoking. I only need it to be in Spanish.

And as such, I become much more immersed because I’m not judging it at all. I don’t care how “good” it is or any of the rest. Even if it’s terrible, I’ll still get my Spanish practice in.

As I’m writing this, I realize that this concept is extremely similar to one I noted years ago when I switched from dating with the intention of finding “the one” to dating more casually without any preconceived notions of where it would go.

I found myself enjoying it a lot more and able to just enjoy the other person.

In a regular relationship, I feel like there are all these expectations and you’re always searching for things you don’t like about the other person so you can ask the terrible question, “could I live with this forever?”

Now, I fully acknowledge that this mindset is problematic even if marriage is what you’re after. But I think it’s what pretty much everyone does. I would hope they’d realize this about themselves or, at the very least, stop asking questions like that and at some point simply accept their partner fully along with all their flaws.

But when I wasn’t dating with marriage as the “purpose”, things got a lot simpler.

I became far more patient of things that I didn’t like or would have deemed “incompatible” in the past. Because in the end, what does it matter? Nobody is perfect. And I probably wouldn’t have to deal with that problem forever since we won’t be getting married.

Once again, there is probably more to dig into there and my general attitude could certainly have been improved, but the important thing is the mindset shift.

Instead of focusing either on how the other person made ME feel or some nebulous concept of the future, I became someone who was able to just enjoy the company of another person without judgement.

To finally take the focus off of myself, and focus on someone else.

In my experience, it generally solves or even prevents almost all petty fights or even times where you’re just kind of annoyed at the other person. I learned that many (most?) of those are really just a judgement about the way the other person is. And that the thing they are doing, in isolation, isn’t even the problem.

It’s that the thing represents how they are, and the belief that this thing will keep happening over and over again.

Bringing it back to the original discussion at hand: it involves a shift from focusing on myself to focusing on external things.

I think that, as long as you maintain some level of focus on yourself and how you are feeling, you can never be truly invested in anything around you.

This means movies won’t be as exciting or moving, books won’t transport you to another world, and you’ll never fully enjoy the company of those around you.

Perhaps this is part of the appeal of some drugs; in particular: alcohol. Probably by way of simply decreasing the bandwidth of your brain (i.e. making you too stupid to focus on more than one thing at a time), you can stop focusing on yourself and instead focus entirely on something (or someone) external.

This could allow you to invest in and enjoy things much more.

I’m not entirely sure this is actually true but it seems plausible, at the very least.

I have heard that psychedelics completely dissolve the ego. This may allow you to completely immerse yourself in external things. I know this sounds counter-intuitive since they are usually used to go deeply inward and rework how your brain works.

But if you think about it, they seem to do it from a sort of third-party state. Like you’re looking in as a neutral party.

I’ve heard anecdotally that watching movies or playing video games, for example, is a pretty wild experience because it’s like you are in them. You become so invested that you truly experience everything as if it were real.

Which seems to lend credence to the idea that if you can just turn off the self-focus, you can become much more invested in everything around you and, hopefully, enjoy it a lot more.

And I think that I have increasingly lost the ability to do that and need to put in active work to get it back.

In general, I think I just sort of need to focus less on myself.

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What if my Waning Enjoyment of Most Things Exists to Force Me to do More Important Things?

I’m not sure how much I’ve documented this here, but I feel like, in general, my enjoyment of most of the things I used to love has decreased considerably. In particular, simple entertainment type activities like watching TV or movies or even listening to music is not nearly as enjoyable as it once was.

It could be that there’s something wrong, it could be it’s just part of getting older, or it could be something else entirely.

It’s possible that I have no ability to control it. And if that’s the case, then it doesn’t make much sense to dwell on it.

But there are some things that give me a sort of quiet satisfaction that I enjoy and keeps me coming back.

As it just so happens, most of those things are also good for me.

Things like studying or learning new skill or activities continue to be enjoyable to me and, over time, seem to be what I crave more than anything else.

Reading in general, but more specifically reading in Spanish is something I really like doing and appreciate more and more over time.

I still love all kinds of physical activity like disc golf, working out, and even just walking around my neighborhood. These leave me feeling good and productive.

And it’s satisfying in work when I accomplish things that progress my long-term goals. I maybe don’t enjoy all the day-to-day at every moment (and nobody does), but when I’m working on things that could lead to exponential growth and outsized results, I feel pretty good about that.

In general, it’s really just passive consumption of entertainment that I don’t enjoy as much.

And now that I’m taking a step back and thinking about it… I think that might be a good thing.

Why am I lamenting so much the loss of enjoyment of things that don’t bring a particularly high degree of value?

Maybe I’m not enjoying them as much because I know I have better things to be doing. Maybe I should lean into it and just only do these better things.

After all, they are better for me anyway.

So rather than fight it, I should probably just double-down on the productive and healthy things that make me feel good.

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I Need to Add More Pages About our WordPress Services

The thought occurred to me today that I really need to ramp up the content on my website and add a service page for basically every single possible WordPress-related service we provide.

I saw the following in the footer of a competitor’s website:

Screenshot of a competitor's website with a list of their WordPress services

Some of these are, from a human perspective, sort of ridiculous to list by themselves.

But as much as Google tries to get you to just “write content for people” and not to do anything to “game the system”, this is absolutely the way to get search results.

And of course these would all be linked together and linking to my main services pages which should further bolster them.

The goal should be to write these over time and slowly build them up. This will also show Google that we are very active

In addition to helping to attract individual clients to my site (which should still be a goal, and also it’s worth noting that I had two new clients reach out to me randomly this week), it will also improve my rankings and presence to hopefully attract more potential business owners looking to sell their clients or companies.

So I kind of just wanted to brainstorm some articles/pages that I could write:

  • WordPress Backups
  • WordPress Membership Websites
  • WordPress Maintenance (Do I have this already?)
  • WordPress Migration
  • WordPress retained Services
  • WordPress Security
  • Hacked WordPress Site Fix
  • WordPress Speed Optimization
  • WordPress Plugin Audit
  • WordPress Support
  • WordPress Elementor Developers
  • WordPress Diagnosis
  • WordPress Problem Fix
  • WordPress Restoration (like if their site broke or was deleted)
  • WordPress Best Practices
  • WordPress Helpdesk

That’s probably good for now. It will take me a while to actually write all of those, but it should be a good starting point.

Hopefully I can knock out about one per week and go from there. In time, it should lead to some nice improvements in my search results.

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Perhaps Periods of Low Mood are Critical

In my post yesterday, I commented how there is seemingly a natural cycle of lower moods and higher moods, and that it’s totally to be expected – even during very happy times – that sometimes you’re going to feel introspective and sad.

And perhaps that’s absolutely critical.

I’ve described how it sort of feels to me like maybe I haven’t processed any of the negative emotions or difficult situations I’ve experienced for a long time. I’ve written that perhaps it’s because historically I would just drink something or distract myself with entertainment or other things, and that maybe that just totally shuts down your natural ability to process these emotions in a healthy way.

But maybe it’s these times when you’re alone and feeling low-energy and possibly sad that this type of processing really happens.

It’s also the time when most people immediately seek a distraction, whether it be their phone, alcohol, drugs, food, or anything else.

Maybe just sitting with those negative emotions and putting some work into thinking about them is key to actually processing them, moving on, and staying emotionally healthy.

I’m not a therapist or a psychologist or a neuroscientist so obviously I don’t know for sure. But it seems like a pretty plausible possibility.

It would also explain why people are more depressed than ever and seemingly more emotionally crippled.

Maybe the key is to seek out those moments where you are feeling kind of down and just sit with what you’re feeling and process it in a healthy way.

Maybe then you can get past it and recover better than ever.

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There is a Natural Ebb and Flow to my Mood Throughout the Day

As documented throughout this blog, I have a daily questionnaire that I fill out to track things like how I’m feeling, how productive I’ve been, what I weight, etc.

But one thing I haven’t really thought of much until today was the fact that I tend to fill out this questionnaire around the same time each day, which greatly biases the answers.

Some questions have numerical answers and are established using information from the previous day, which makes them inherently more resistant to this problem. Others, however, ask about the situation in the moment I take the survey.

So for example, one of the main questions is, “On a scale from 1-10, how are you feeling right now?”

And over the years, I’ve noticed that the answer to this doesn’t change much. Something like 90% of submissions are a 6, with an additional 9% or so being a 5.

But this shouldn’t be all that surprising.

I almost always get my day started with a routine. Sometimes it involves running, but it almost always ends with tea and some low-key studying before submitting the questionnaire.

Either way, I’m virtually always calm and alone when I take it.

When I think about it, this nearly eliminates the possibility of any high-values, which typically happen when I’m socializing or doing something particularly exciting.

This obviously limits the usefulness of the survey question, but more broadly: it makes me realize that every day has predictable low-periods in mood and periods when it’s likely to be higher, and that’s okay.

I’m going to be in a lower mood when I’m alone and not doing anything fun; that’s to be expected.

Or even in periods when I am less happy, there will still be predictable periods of time when I’m particularly unhappy. I think the key is to understand that it doesn’t mean that “deep down I’m actually truly unhappy” if that’s how I feel during the parts of the day when I’m alone and not doing anything fun.

Because you have to consider the rest of the time.

Much of the time I am socializing and engaging in activities that improve my overall mood. And those are important parts of my life that can’t be ignored.

Overall, I think this just helps me understand how I’m feeling and what significance that has in the grand scheme of things. It’s not only okay but expected that I’ll have low points throughout the day. But I should focus on the high points that will also come.

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Willpower & Motivation are Resources to be Cultivated and Used Strategically

We’ve all heard that you shouldn’t rely on the nebulous idea of “motivation” to get things done or achieve success, but I think that’s a very facile precept that should really be expounded upon.

In general, I think it’s a good idea, but we need to clarify a few points.

Note that I’ll basically use “willpower” and “motivation” interchangeable here, but I’m really referring to the same thing.

I think motivation is like a superpower that you have, but it’s not inexhaustible.

The reason people say that is because some people tend to only get things done when they have large amounts of motivation, and then they have no discipline or structure in place to keep going once it inevitably runs out.

And so yes, I agree with the statement that motivation should not be solely relied upon to get things done.

So how should it be used?

Just like any other resource.

It should cultivated, fostered, and spent or used strategically where its impact will be the greatest.

There are many implications of this paradigm, so I’ll go through them one at a time.

First, willpower must not be wasted. 

This could mean a numbers of things; you shouldn’t use it to accomplish pointless things, it shouldn’t be underutilized, and most importantly: I think that you should set up your day-to-day life to minimize its use.

The most obvious way to do this is what all the self-help and productivity “gurus” tout, which is to establish habits and routine. And this is, in fact, great advice.

Not only will these things keep you productive during extended periods where you have no motivation, they will also amplify the impact when you are motivated.

Think of it like a discount. The same task takes much less motivation because it’s already a habit.

And once you’ve finished your habits, you have much more motivation leftover to tackle additional tasks.

Building habits is, by far, the most important thing you can do for productivity and for maximizing the impact of your motivation and willpower. I’ve talked a lot about it in the past, though, so I don’t need to go into much more detail here.

But in addition to habit-building, it’s also important to plug any obvious willpower “leaks”.

So, for example, let’s say you’re trying to eat healthier. You could buy all the same things at the grocery store like junk food, and then leave it lying around your house every day.

The end result would be that throughout the day, you are constantly seeing the junk food and having to use up some willpower to avoid eating it. You won’t have much of it left for other activities, and you may even run out at some point and give in and eat the junkfood.

So what’s the solution? Easy!

Just stop buying it to begin with. Grocery shop right after eating if you have to, and only buy healthy things. You won’t have any unhealthy options left in your house to be tempted by, and the net effect is that you aren’t using up your willpower on something stupid.

This same concept could apply to lots of other areas, too. Besides obvious ones like not having alcohol lying around if you’re trying to quit drinking, you can also do things like blocking distracting websites on your computer, uninstalling unproductive apps on your phone, and removing activities from your life that you greatly dislike.

The net result is that you’ll have much more consistent motivation leftover to use in areas where it makes the most sense.

The next concept is that you should do everything you can to maximize production of willpower.

Entire books have gone into detail both defining what “willpower” is and also how to maximize it. But in general, I think you need to get the basics of a healthy lifestyle right.

Eating right, sleeping well, avoiding excessive stress (even though short-term stress can help you power through things), and keeping yourself happy are all important to maximizing willpower.

If you’re unhealthy, chronically stressed, or depressed, you probably are going to be severely lacking in motivation and willpower.

Next, you need to use your motivation and willpower on important activities that will have the greatest impact.

You could use it all on tedious tasks that probably could be automated or outsourced. Or you could even do nothing with it and just give in to entertainment even though you’re very motivated.

But instead, you should be using it primarily on high-value activities that are likely to improve your long-term earning or productivity potential.

At the start of this year, my motivation was fairly high. I was being productive in basically all areas. I’d finish my normal work for the day, and then I’d proceed to make great progress on my long-term business goals and some personal ones.

And that was basically every day.

But then, starting at the end of Spring, all of that motivation seemed to dry up. I’ve discussed and speculated on the causes of that at length in other posts, but the important thing now is that I got to see first-hand what the difference was for me between being very motivated and having no motivation.

And it was stark.

Basically all of my efforts beyond just the regular day-to-day stuff completely dried up. I never did any of the business initiatives nor the personal ones. And it has been a little depressing.

This goes to show just how important it is. With it, things go so much better.

It showed me that while it is important to have habits in place (which kept me generally on-track), willpower is still incredibly important and can greatly amplify the impact of your efforts.

It’s starting to come back now, I think, and I have big plans for it. I’m really hoping to make the most of it and get all of my other initiatives back on track.

I want to focus hard on my long-term growth initiatives in my business and really focus on acquiring other companies. It will probably require a lot of manual effort but I suspect that it will be worth it in the end.

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I Think I Really Do Need to Relax

So I’m starting to just generally feel better, and my sleep has improved, and in general things are just better. And I think it’s just because I’m finally relaxing and don’t feel like I have to just keep going nonstop.

I think that for several months, I pretty much just felt a constant stress and anxiety. I had a bunch of projects going simultaneously with aggressive timelines and constant issues, and I always had the looming problems of half-planned trips that not only required urgent planning attention, but would also take me away from being able to address everything else.

And I just felt it, constantly. I couldn’t truly enjoy anything because in the back of my mind I was constantly worried about the other things.

It was a physical reaction. I assume that it was just the regular stress response, but spread out over months without any breaks. As we know well, that leads to chronic inflammation and other problems. It’s definitely not a good long-term state.

But I’m finally starting to feel better.

I think I do really just need to relax. Obviously the solution isn’t to just “relax”, since that may be nearly impossible depending on the circumstances.

But I need to be careful about my circumstances to make sure I CAN relax.

I certainly need to be careful about what projects I take on, and especially the timing of them. I had some overlap and that proved to be a problem.

They also overlapped with trips in which I had no internet and wouldn’t have time anyway to manage them, which is far from ideal.

Going forward, for projects that need constant management, I should only ever take them on if I’m going to be fully available with plenty of wiggle room on either end.

And if I’m burnt out, I need to be okay just taking a break from traveling or whatever else I’m doing. I think that the next month and a half will be quite restorative.

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I Need to be More Open to Feedback and Criticism

A friend was giving me some suggestions on some of my marketing efforts and part of my website, and I realized that my natural reaction is to get defensive or dismissive.

I’ve created a business over the years in which I don’t need to rely on anyone and rarely have any genuine discussions with anyone about how to run it. I’m in charge and I decide pretty much everything.

But I wonder how much of that is just sort of a defense strategy to avoid facing any criticism? Perhaps in my quest for total independence, I’ve gone too far and now dismiss all external suggestions.

And that’s a bad thing.

Many of his suggestions were good. And I really should be actively seeking advice from others if I want to keep growing and succeeding.

I’ve never liked feedback or criticism but I feel like that’s something I should probably address. Because I need that feedback. It is extremely helpful.

This might just be a personal thing that I need to focus on and work on over time. Hopefully I’ll eventually start actively getting feedback from others in some way and make improvements based on that feedback.

It may be the only way forward!

Especially since I had a major disappointment yesterday. I had been in talks to acquire a fairly large website host and it looked like an excellent fit. I found out yesterday that they decided to go with another buyer, which was a huge blow.

I feel like I need to channel that disappointment and do better all around and improve. I need to get tactical with my efforts and really start hammering home my efforts to acquire other businesses.

It’s nice when they come to me, but I don’t think I can count on that every time. I need to start aggressively seeking them out, I think.