Antifragile Posted April 3, 2015 Posted April 3, 2015 Hey, this is my account of what I experienced during two months in Chile after leaving behind my home country and family. I have no expectation of replies but am happy to receive comments and will happily answer questions. Letting go of old, embedded modes of thought and behavior is a painful experience. In a very real sense how we think and behave makes up a significant part of our identity, and so giving up a long held belief or a cherished way of doing things can feel like agreeing to fully conscious limb surgery: it might be necessary, but boy does it hurt. This is exactly what I have been experiencing over the past few weeks as a participant at the Exosphere Bootcamp. Throughout most of my adolescence I have been hesitant, if not afraid, to spontaneously express my feelings and thoughts for fear of being perceived as unintelligent or impulsive. Whenever I am in the company of people I respect I become overly careful and conscious of what I wish to say and how best to express it. I don’t want it to be this way. Conversations with good people should serve as a canvas upon which I may draw freely, giving shape to my innermost thoughts and feelings. And I’m slowly starting to get there. Where I previously would behave as if I were navigating a minefield, with the slightest misstep triggering a deadly explosion, I am now adopting a more relaxed attitude of experimentation, tinkering with topics to touch, exploring ways to modulate a conversation’s tempo and graceful ways of exiting it. I have started the long and painful, but ultimately invaluable, process of letting go of my fear of failure. I have chosen to set my sails after a newly born North Star and reorient the way I make consequential decisions. Facing the storm rocking my ship instead of navigating around the most minuscule clouds rewards me with the satisfaction of setting my own course, though it may be a difficult one. Life is just a series of problems. Reframing them as challenges puts the rudder firmly in my hands. Perhaps the greatest advantage of this new mindset is that I begin to see opportunities where before I would have seen only danger. So far I have initiated: The organisation of Exobase Hamburg Daily morning walks with a new friend Taking on branding, layout, visual design and user experience of the onFire application my team developed for the Coding Challenge Starting my personal website at moritzbierling.com A 21-day learning experiment by the name of Tinkering Tales Preliminary Logo Design Initiatives I have agreed to: Writing and editing profiles of all 31 participants of the current Exosphere Bootcamp Leaving my home country and starting a new life and my career in the strange country of Chile on the other side of the world Exercising my newly discovered and underdeveloped discipline muscle may be tiring but it is the good kind of exhaustion leading to greater strength down the road. At last I feel like I can safely begin to lower my shield, take off pieces of my armor, and stick my antennae out of the crusty shell I hid in. Hello? Can I come out? How I make decisions big and small has changed accordingly. The idea of “Tempo,” presented by Venkatesh Rao in the wonderful ebook by the same name, has helped me to trick my brain. It provides a very clever framework for overly analytical people like myself to overcome both overthinking (“analysis paralysis”) and compulsive planning that before would have prevented me from taking action. I now understand that everything we do is part of a narrative we tell ourselves. Having this insight leads to both good and scary consequences. Scary, because it challenges our carefully curated and scientifically constructed perception of truth, which is useful but ultimately yet another narrative. Good, because we begin to understand how much control we really have over how we construct our reality. Choosing to tinker with heuristics has been highly beneficial to my overall mental health. Unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and generally taxing situations still lead to agitation, but the anxiety associated with it is beginning to fade. Setting up a “just do it” attitude as the default approach helps me to conserve precious willpower which is put to much better use in deciding how to handle the bigger matters. Another resource I have come to appreciate more is my time. I believe this comes as a direct consequence of loving myself more. For the first time in my life I am surrounded by a community of great people intent on bettering themselves, their relationships, their skill sets, and ultimately helping others do the same. I’ve come to experience what true community feels like – sharing my story and listening to others share their stories has brought me to believe that I am not the only one who feels like a misfit or an outcast. Seeing the other participants courageously taking off their “I am okay” bandages, showing their wounds and caring for those of the people around them proves a point to me: healing is possible – but only if we are willing to commit to living a genuinely loving life. “Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” M. Scott Peck It isn’t true love to keep telling your significant other “No, really. You don’t look fat in that dress!” When that is not your honest opinion you are trying to avoid conflict and the discomfort it brings. You are taking the easy way out. You are choosing not to do the painful, difficult, and mortifying struggle of working through the problem. Of course it takes time. Of course it takes effort. Of course you will feel exhausted. But you will go to bed with a sense of accomplishment. Fatigue on the other hand will keep you up at night. It results from having to expend significant mental effort on erecting and maintaining an obviously false narrative, forcing you to keep track of all the different versions of all the different little lies you tell to all the different people in your life. Honesty is simple, yet difficult. Lying is easy, yet complicated. I have found that telling the truth to people’s faces might lead to conflict and at times fundamental disagreements in the immediate circumstance. In the long run however it awards you two distinct great-to-haves: You can drop relationships from your life with people not willing to work through the pain with you. You gain respect not only from the people that survive contact with your newly unearthed authentic self, but more importantly you gain self-respect. Being honest with myself has given me a very good internal sense of self worth because I know exactly what I care about, what I can and cannot do, and what I will accept in my relationships going forward. “Honesty is the first virtue.” I feel a new faith developing in my self. A faith that whatever comes there will be a way to deal with it. A trust that, even if things turn out worse than my worst case scenario, I will be able to get back up, dust myself off, and start afresh. I feel like I am among kindred spirits. 1
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