Entrepreneurial Sin #3: Thinking too much

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a planner. Planning is a habit that has had enormous benefits for me in the past. I recall, several jobs ago, when I was a Web producer and launched a Web site with a team of exhausted writers and developers. I spearheaded the content launch, which included integrating a content management system with the reams of content we'd been generating for months prior. Though the team was too busy to worry about making our VC-induced deadline, I fretted over it constantly. I was the thorn in management's side, asking, if we only have x weeks left till launch, we need to do y and z. I often sketched out workflows and had documentation--a map for management of what needed to happen to make our deadline.

We celebrated our soft launch at a San Francisco brewery and toasted our outstanding effort. One of the founders of the company remarked at how organized I was. "It's quite amazing," he said.

"Actually," I said, "it's quite chronic."

Sure, always being aware of where things are in a process is helpful in accomplishing a goal. But even after being successful as a planner, I knew that being so controlling of outcomes had a downside. Even though I had an answer for everything, but I wouldn't have called myself the happiest person in the world. I couldn't schedule Mr. Right to come into my life. Nor could I plan for anything truly visionary.

I love to blog because it is the single pursuit I have in which there is no plan, other than turning on my computer, drinking something heavily caffeinated, and allowing my mind to drift. Sometimes it drifts for a long time, sometimes for three seconds before I start writing. I never know how one of my blog posts will end. It's a purely ad hoc activity. On occasion, I'll think of a topic in advance, particularly for my other blogs where I have a prescribed beat, and always, when I do this, I lose the original impetus of my idea when it comes time to write about it, and I'm forced to either write something unsatisfactory or be something that I'm not--spontaneous.

This year I've been thrust into a pool of uncertainty--an entrepreneurial venture. While there were some absolutes during this process--the BlogHer Conference would have happened come hell or no funding this year--there were many other parts of this growing organization that have been uncontrollable. We could only watch them evolve and do right by them. We could offer up great color commentary. But to try to control the growth and evolution of the blogosphere as it enters adolescence would be just asking for it to rebel. I've had to remind myself that I am but a steward of a community, and an ambassador for it; I am part of it, but I am not the boss of it.

This realization was not lost on me while driving with H-band to Southern Cal for the holidays, a traveling Typhoid Mary, coughing, wheezing and blowing snot into a growing pile of damp balls of Kleenex. I was sick, but I was resolute about getting out of town. I needed to be transported from the environment where I am always working. I have an irrational belief that in periods of deep introspection such as this one, no fortune cookie or article in O Magazine is an accident. The fact that I was months behind in my subscription and was only now reading Martha Beck's article on indecisiveness helped me understand what the Universe had in store for me. I was supposed to stop planning, scheming, hoping, forecasting, thinking, for several days in order to come to some form of catharsis. But, being such a stubborn woman, my body had to make me physically incapable of sustaining thought beyond the next shot of Dayquil to achieve this state.

Beck's article was about the chronically indecisive, something I don't typically associate with myself, but as I continued to read the piece, the shoe seemed to gradually fit. Beck starts the article describing people who tend to find themselves in cliffhanger moments with themselves, ("I've got to commit to this relationship or end it.") While I don't relate to this particular situation, I relate to the tendency of creating ultimatums in an attempt to clean up the life's messy, split ends. (Not coincidentally, I just lopped off six inches of hair in an attempt to clean up loose ends; a typical reaction).

Oftentimes I find myself having to do "This" or "THIS", each one with its own set of damning consequences. And the pressure within this bubble of indecision grows and grows and makes me miserable. And though I suspect that I am partly responsible for the creation of this bubble, I can only imagine a gargantuan needle coming from someplace, held by someone else, as the solution to the pressure. And this relief is never gradual, but rather explosive, with a lot of time and energy and indulgent disclosure splattering on innocent people, as a result.

"I can't do this to other people," I say to myself, so I maintain the bubble, letting the stale dilemma putrefy and muck up the walls of this bubble, obscuring my view of life outside of it. The bubble becomes my universe. Usually during these times there is an inkling of understanding, perhaps spiritual awareness, that the bubble is an illusion, but I'm stuck in it regardless.

I got into our WRX sick as a dog not because I needed a "vacation" in the traditional sense, but more because I needed a smack in the face, or a more forgiving point of a needle that would relieve the pressure of my indecision without destroying what I've built for myself--the blueprint of a calling. I felt I had a foundation, but was afraid I was using the wrong materials for building my future--extreme work hours, complete immersion in my work with little else to sustain me. This felt like choosing to build with bricks in the earthquake-prone Bay Area, sure these materials individually are strong building blocks, but it was a bad beginning.

In her article, Beck divides the indecisive into three camps: those that do nothing about their dilemma and let the natural rhythms of life take over. This faith-based solution relies on the body's natural inclinations to gravitate toward the "right" answer and eliminate the "wrong" one, much like waiting for a splinter to be naturally expelled from the skin, or for a cold to pass.

The second camp is the Do Anything camp. These folks dig for the splinter, or spam their bodies with drugs in order to cure themselves of what's "wrong", often wreaking new havoc in the process. I've certainly taken this road, the road of action, which often seems infinitely more preferable than just sitting and watching a situation get potentially worse. I'm not much of a gambler and often prefer this option to faith. Rarely do I see action as a gamble, even when it is.

The third camp is the "Do Something Completely Different" Camp. Taking this road is often effective; the burnt out Wall Streeter who starts her own nonprofit and thrives, for example, would belong to this camp. But this option becomes ineffective when it becomes chronic: witness the ever-changing, continually reborn, constantly metamorphosing people in your life. The ones that quit their jobs in a huff, decide to join the Peace Corps, then, dissatisfied with that decision, they decide to overthrow the government that keeps them down. While the desire to contstantly question the status quo can be admirable, it becomes more of an escape, an inability to be in the moment. I've been dangerously close to this tendency in my everlasting quest for the ultimate job. I'd move, shift industries, try new gigs, insist on more meaning with each iteration, until eventually, there's only me just learning to be still as the only alternative.

Beck prescribes something much less wearying, satori, which is defined here as a "spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism":

Satori roughly translates into individual Enlightenment, or a flash of sudden awareness. Satori is as well an intuitive experience...The only way that one can "attain" Satori is through personal experience...Preparation for Satori CAN take a long time, but the actual experience is a very fast one. ...Total Enlightenment does not come until many Satoris of different depths have occured. When you go through Satori, and have this experience, you will no longer see the world in the same way. You will have a different perception of life; everything will be united into one non-dual whole.   

While satori sounds pretty cool, sitting around for it sounds like waiting for Godot--the Doer in me cringes at the thought of sitting around in hope of a spiritual orgasm. Isn't there SOMETHING I can do to help spur it along? Some sexy lingerie or something that I can wear to at least increase my chances?

I like what Beck has to say about the arrival of satori:

"I can't tell you how your satori will arrive. All I can tell you is that if you keep struggling with ambivalence, then relaxing, then struggling again, resolution will come. You may invent a solution no one's ever seen. You may realize that not deciding--ever--is perfectly okay. Or you'll feel free to do anything at all, and then do (something else). The alternative you select will  be inconsequential next to the realization that your frustration came not from a difficult choice but from the way you thought you had to choose."

Of course, the question that comes next for someone like me is, when have I suffered enough for satori? I sit and wonder about this while we drive south, coughing over and over, blowing snot into another Kleenex. The suffering is tremendous, I like to think, but in the end it is bearable because colds don't last. I'm so still and weak I feel frustrated and unresolved--and secretly grateful for the chance not to think.

Martha Beck satori Zen Buddhism entrepreneurism

Comments

[Joy]

Your engine has been running at full force since you were a little kid. If getting a cold forces you to slow down and mentally shut off for a while...then maybe sick is good. I never thought I'd say that since I hate the thought of any of my kids being sick.

Honey, I think you're in the process of some true evaluation...not that you haven't always been. I'll be happy if you can just tune a few things out long enough to "just be." I really don't want you getting sick to make that happen. Hope you're having a really wonderful and relaxing time. Happy New Year sweetie!

BTW...this is a terrific post. I miss you not being able to post as often because of other commitments...just as much as you miss it.

[jen]

I've found I get sick if too much has been happening physically and mentally. Like you, I think, it's the only thing that will make me not do anything else because I'm physically incapable.

Rest up, you deserve it, and try and switch off that brain occasionally to just let it be and have fun.

[Recruiting Animal]

You didn't say how long you end up blogging for, spontaneously. Just curious, this is a long post; how much time did you spend on it (if you don't mind saying).

[Linda]

Jory...I do not know you but my son does so here is one of the things I think you need. A big hug!

Now that I have the urge to be a Mom out of the way:

I am a 53 year old woman, owner of my business since 1979, and started in a male-dominated business in which several clients, when discovering they had been 'assigned' to a women, asked for a man.

Here are a few things I have learned:

When you discover you are unhappy with your lot, for whatever reason, you'll feel immediately better when you plan a way out. You say you are a planner by nature so this is a good fit.

And I do mean plan a way out...not of everything about your situation. Just the parts that are not working. If it is overwork, plan for your nonworking life. Spend as much mental energy building your non-working life as you do your work.

People who are passionate about their work have a real hard time, I think, keeping it in perspective. We have to 'work' at it. '-)

I just read 'The Magic of Thinking Big' by David Schwartz in preparation for a break-through workshop on further development of my business. One of the affirmations I took away:
"I manage solitude for the pay-off in better health and greater success."

I am not a regular blogger so excuse if this comment is too long. Sometimes it takes time to give a proper hug.

And finally, sometimes a cold is really just a cold.

Hugs!

[Brian Keith]

Alan Watts- the wisdom of insecurity.

Get well soon!

Oh, and Zen and the Art of Archery, where a european went to Japan to learn archery and found out that you can't force it. Really.

[Matt]

Even as you struggle with your own life, I am regularly impressed with your ability to "Pause" and put your (and all our) struggle into a literate perspective. I read the Beck article and it seems to come down to "let it come to you" - of course, that's often the most difficult thing to do.

Stop struggling, stop rabidly searching, stop "making it happen" - let it come to you. And allow yourself the inner calm and space to realize when it does.

Good luck. And please keep allowing us the interesting view into your process.

[Colleen Wainwright]

As a former card-carrying member of the White Tornado Brigade, all I can say is that even with enlightenment, you will be who you are: you will just remember more quickly that this is behavior you do not need to choose, and as you get better and better at it, you choose more quickly and life becomes a bit easier.

But as one who had her epiphany delivered some four years ago in a hospital bed, I will say two things which may or may not be helpful:

1. There is always work, (thank Buddha)

2. Be careful what you wish for :-)

[Troy Worman]

Thinking Too Much? Ah... Yeah. Spot on. But isn't that part of what makes you such a wonderful writer? As you allude, your affliction, I think, the thinking too much thing, mustn't be terribly uncommon. But few have the constitution to put it to paper, much less articulate it so elegantly as you do. This might explain the stalkers. Alas, you are awesome and lovely, dripping snot or not.

[Meri]

This strikes such a chord with me. I just took the (extremely difficult) decision to NOT start my PhD this January, after looking back on 2006 and realising that it was literally the first year in a decade that I wasn't seriously ill. This coincided with it being the first year that I wasn't trying to hold down 3/4 jobs + studying + multiple committees/activities.

Sometimes slowing down is the right thing to do too, eh?

[genevieve]

Jory, it can be astounding how easily ideas and directions will come to the most conscientious creative people if they let things drift a little bit sometimes. (And I almost left an 'i' out of conscientious then :))

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