Graduate school is getting busy. As you know from previous posts, when life feels overwhelming for me, I tend to consult mindfulness and or Buddhist literature. I came across this:
"Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, 'You idiot! What's wrong with you? Are you blind?' But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you is actually blind. He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: 'Are you hurt? Can I help you up?' Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion."
This is how I would like to treat myself and others. I have been blind to myself. As I have been mindful, something I've noticed is that when I have a lot on my plate, I tend to think about it too much. My favorite Buddhist monk Ajan Brahm, who I discovered on YouTube, says wisely, "Thinking about things is hard; doing them is easy." This has helped me live in Ontological Mode, interrupting obsessive, worrisome and ruminative thoughts from proliferating and instead arriving to this moment, putting my full attention to wants going on now, whether it's biking to class or washing the dishes. Single-tasking, hijacking the brain's default neural network I spoke of in the Mindfulness post below. This way I'm treating myself and my like like they really matter; like every action and breath are important.
When I do this, I notice that it actually increases my productivity because I do each task more carefully, with all my attention there instead of simeltanously as I am thinking about what else I have to do, which only slowed me down and fostered more, mental mindless "everyday mode" chaos.
This is how I would like to treat myself and others. I have been blind to myself. As I have been mindful, something I've noticed is that when I have a lot on my plate, I tend to think about it too much. My favorite Buddhist monk Ajan Brahm, who I discovered on YouTube, says wisely, "Thinking about things is hard; doing them is easy." This has helped me live in Ontological Mode, interrupting obsessive, worrisome and ruminative thoughts from proliferating and instead arriving to this moment, putting my full attention to wants going on now, whether it's biking to class or washing the dishes. Single-tasking, hijacking the brain's default neural network I spoke of in the Mindfulness post below. This way I'm treating myself and my like like they really matter; like every action and breath are important.
When I do this, I notice that it actually increases my productivity because I do each task more carefully, with all my attention there instead of simeltanously as I am thinking about what else I have to do, which only slowed me down and fostered more, mental mindless "everyday mode" chaos.
The grocery analogy really hit home for me today; more on a general "that is why I want to help others" level than anything else; still a great read. Do you find the process of single-tasking easy when your mind is feeling the pressure of things that need to be done?
ReplyDeleteSingle-tasking makes it easier actually, paradoxically, because I'm doing each task more fully and productively, trusting that I'll take on the same tasks with the same productivity. It's slower when I'm thinking about a million things at once.
DeleteI think at this stage of the game for me, doing things are also hard. But maybe it's because I think about everything I have to do, and wonder how it will all get done which is thinking about things from the multitasking mode I'm trying to get out of.
ReplyDeleteexactly!
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