The Mess

Making magic from mess.

Category: Journey

Posts about the jouney of creating and maintaining The Mess NZ.

  • Potentially pointless

    “You have so much potential. I hope you don’t waste it.”

    Dad, that’s not what I needed to hear. I needed you to ask “what piece is that? I really like it.” Or perhaps “Your playing is really improving, I enjoy listening to it.” Now my playing is tainted with a need to succeed, to reach some height, some purpose – all of which I have no idea what they are.

    The fact that my piano playing was (and has to this day remained) a personal challenge, emotional expression, escapism, and has for the most part been kept to the ears of myself and my closest, should be enough. Shouldn’t it? Is it ok to play for the sake of playing, enjoy the sounds and feelings of the music, and the strange pseudo-spritual connection to the composer and their intent, taking over my thoughts and body? My soul says yes. My mind says “of course not you fool, so I’m just going to remind you of all your failures and self-professed short-comings while you play unless you’re either locking in and going to be a concert pianist, or you give up and go so something that will actually help us reach our potential”

    What even is potential?

    I’m a bit of an electronics/physics nerd. One way of visualising potential in electronics is imagining a hill or a valley. A ball is on the top of the hill, or the ledge of the valley. The potential energy this ball has available to give, is determined by the height of the hill relative to the “bottom”. The other way around, how much energy would it take to push the ball back up the hill?

    What does that have to do with me becoming a concert pianist to make my Dad not think I’m wasting my potential? Is that the target I have to reach? Is that the bar that’s been set for me? And how the heck did he know that’s my potential and I still don’t? Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe potential isn’t this thing that I should be.

    It’s Meaningless

    Potential is meaningless as a target.

    Potential fundamentally, and by definition, is NOT a target. It’s a capacity, a requirement, an amount of work that can or needs to be done, and can be used and expended.

    What happens when you use all of the electrical potential in a battery? It goes flat. If it’s non-rechargable you throw it in the bin. If it’s rechargable, you can recharge it, and it gains all this potential back, and it can roll down the hill again.

    What happens when the boulder is at the bottom of the hill? You need to push it up there again – if you want it to gleefully roll back down, for whatever reason. I don’t know. Was Sisyphus happy? Albert Camus certainly thought so with his conclusion “One must imaging Sisyphus happy.”

    Doesn’t life often feel like slogging away at rolling a boulder up a hill, a brief respite at the top then pushing it down the hill and watching all that momentum expend itself, then come to rest at the bottom?

    So what did Dad mean?

    I conject that my dear Dad wasn’t consciously aware of what he actually meant when saying he hoped I would reach/wouldn’t waste my potential. He certainly hadn’t read this definitive blog post on what potential actually is.

    What he may have been implying by saying I have “huge potential”, is that in his opinion I’m sitting on top of a very high hill. That I have a lot of energy to give to the world and holding onto it, not pushing that boulder down the hill, is wasted and perhaps (what it felt like to my 14 year old mind) selfish.

    At the time, sitting there playing music I thought I WAS using all my potential. What else could I be doing at that moment? It’s funny thinking about it now. In my little head back then I actually had the right answer! I was in the moment, I was doing what I could then and there, and that’s all that I ever could have been doing. So no wonder Dad coming in and saying that he didn’t want me to “waste potential” was confusing and frustrating to hear. It fundamentally didn’t make any sense.

    Results are not guaranteed

    It’s scientifically psychologically and physiologically testable that “action” only happens in humans when there is some “potential” – either positive or negative. Perhaps we have the promise of money, love, dopamine. Perhaps we have the threat of no money, loss, or a lion waiting to eat us.

    Potential is a slope, either up or down from where we are now, to the place that we need to – or better yet – know we’re going to be whether we like it or not. The steeper the slope, the greater the difference between now and this destination – in other words, the greater the potential, and the greater the likelihood and drive for action to take place.

    It seems to me the way to maximise potential, and maximise the likelihood for action (motivation), is make that slope steep somehow. How do we do this? Do we set ourself lofty goals and targets that are huge beyond our wildest dreams? Am I going to gain one million blog readers by the end of 2026? Be a concert pianist?

    NO! …. aww…

    The results, the outcome – any metric that is outside of your control to make certain – are not good motivators to get moving. The promise of results is not what is going to give you the potential to act, to do, to move. Why?

    A result that is not met doesn’t exist!

    They are phantoms. They are intangible. Results and outcomes may be useful for assessing the work you’ve already done, perhaps learning for future attempts, but they are NO good to make you do the work.

    “Aha!” You may say. “My boss says if I don’t meet these targets, then I’m in trouble, ergo I work hard to meet them.”

    Yes – subtle difference. Is it the result making you motivated? Imagine if you had those targets but your boss said “Hey, if you don’t meet these targets that’s all good, no stress at all, doesn’t mean anything” – do you think you’d put in the same energy? The contrarians of you out there may say “YEAH I WOULD BECAUSE I’M NOT A SLACKER” but even that proves my next point.

    Maximise your potential

    If you want a surefire way to maximise your potential – stay focussed this is subtle – don’t give yourself a goal or a target to reach but instead:

    Give yourself a responsibility and/or a deadline.

    The responsibility could be external. Being accountable to someone else is extremely motivating as it taps into our social animal and our sense of duty and purpose in society.

    It could be totally internal. An example? Me writing this, right now. Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I’ve got a target of engagement I want to meet? My million readers by the end of the year? No way. I’m doing this because:

    • I know that if I write more, I’m going to get better at writing (that’s not a specific result) and I want that.
    • I put a website live on the Internet, and I told myself I’d keep the content fresh.
    • I gave myself a requirement to write a post every 2 weeks.
    • I don’t want another project dead in the water.
    • I know I enjoy writing once I get going.
    • I was bored, and I didn’t know what to do with myself before bed, and I wasn’t tired yet, so needed something to fill in the time.

    That’s it. That’s enough to get me writing and re-writing this and posting it for all (the millions) to see. I was mincing around the house not knowing what to do. Then I remembered I had this post that “needed” to be done. This created a slope of potential which happened to lead down the stairs to the dining room table where I’m typing these words.

    That’s it. That’s the secret. That’s all it takes.

    Some of those reasons like “not wanting another project dead in the water” sound pretty sad. To me, that’s incredibly useful. I’ve lived a life of not finishing projects – jumping around all over the place, and getting disappointed in myself if I didn’t follow through. Avoiding those negative feelings is actually quite motivating! My past failures have built up my future potential to actually stick to something for longer.

    Also note that some of those “motivators” are self-assigned, and some are through learning. “I gave myself a requirement”. Am I letting down anyone externally if I don’t do it? Not yet… Just me. At the moment, that’s enough of a responsibility I have to myself to create a potential to write.

    In summary

    You’re reading this post because I achieved the impossible. I reached my potential. I set up a website, and told myself I’d post about once a fortnight. I have lived 42 years and failed probably twice as many times, which feels bad and I don’t want to feel bad. I got bored before bed, had a list of things I could have done, but the slope of potential tipped me towards finishing this post.

    And I’m done. I’m pushing publish. I’m going to bed a happy, fulfilled man who feels like he’s achieved something. I’m going to wake up to a million readers. Or not. It doesn’t matter.

    I also know that in a few days, I’m going to start thinking about writing another post. I’ll start jotting down ideas to get ready to fulfil that 2 week turnaround responsibility I’ve given myself.

    I’ll push the boulder back up the hill, and watch it roll down again.

    One must imagine me happy.

  • What it takes to change.

    Fear, especially when I’m “comfortable” in life, is my biggest hurdle to making a change. It took a global pandemic, loss of my Mum, my daughter moving to a new city, a diagnosis, and a dose of luck to end up in my current job. What will it take for me to dive into something risky and new which puts everything on the line? It that even morally responsible?

    The decline.

    I’m sorry. Covid MAY have been my fault. I pretty much prayed for it.

    I’ve had a history with the church – which is a story for another blog post – but just before Covid struck the world down, I remember distincly one night praying for something drastic to happen, something world-changing that would force a change into the life I really wanted. Something, anything to trip the circuit breaker and give me a chance to start anew. I was starting to feel pretty darn tootin down about my own self-worth and strength, so the consequences of asking for such a “miracle” on the rest of the world were far too quiet to consider, over the yelling of my ego’s self-pity-party.

    A couple years before that I went through a divorce. I somehow managed to scrounge enough money and convince the banks I was good for a mortgage. So then I had no money, plenty of debt, spiralled into depression, hated my job, wasn’t too fond of myself, and was doing everything I could at work to do anything other than what I was employed for. As well as sometimes-pilot, I was the IT guy. I computerised everything – built software to manage the school, online learning… Even convinved them I could build a flight simulator. Yes, a physical, certified, pilot-training flight simluator. It sucked – both the trying to build it for far too little money, and the simulator… I cringe thinking about it now. If I could try again NOW I bet I could do…. NO stop it.

    The bottom.

    My boss was incredibly understanding. I had been, for the 10 or 11 years prior a good employee, and I was a good pilot and flight instructor. He wasn’t going to throw me out on the streets, but we did need to talk. I ended up getting part-time work as a videographer at a local production company, and going part-time at the flight school. I ended up talking to the doctor about my depression, and talked about treatment. Contacting my aviation medical examiner and telling him about my depression was a solid reminder that while honesty is legally the best and only policy, sometimes it doesn’t lead to the most ideal outcomes. Until I went though psychiatrist assessments, and the medication and my mood had stabilised, I legally couldn’t keep flying. The flight school were going through their own politics now, money was tight, and I had to reduce from part time to “contractor”.

    I seriously thought I was done for. It was the lowest I’d been in my life. I couldn’t stay focussed on a single thing for more than 10 minutes, had no motivation, and thought I’d have to go bankrupt.

    Prayers answered.

    Then Covid happened. Suddenly I was managing the online distance-learning while people were at home. That was awful. I had a little more money coming in. As we went in and out of lockdown, my mood started to stabilise a bit. I think, in part, due to the novelty of the situation. This taught me that yes, I get bored REALLY easily. Day-to-day grind and repetition is not for me. I like certain routines – going for a walk to a cafe each morning, but that’s like 20 minutes. I’m talking about doing the same job for 8 hours a day; the best hours of my day. I flew a little bit again after being cleared, and really enjoyed it for a while.

    However I was still contracting, still weary, and still restless and frustrated at myself for going round in circles. One day, quite out of the blue, my boss (the boss of the flight school) said to me “Hey, do you remember Nathan?”

    “Yes.” I had met him several years before when I worked with him one-on-one to try and “link” our flight schools. I got on well with him, and he was impressed with our systems and software.

    “Well he’s looking for a software developer, and asked me if you were still around.”

    Ticket outta there.

    And there it was. My ticket. I had a phone call with him, and the other developer Sam, and was off running. Shortly after that Covid locked us down again, so for two or three solid months, I coded my heart out. I got paid. I slowly climbed out of the red, and wasn’t going to go bankrupt. My “dream” job – as long as I deliver and work a certain minimum number of hours, I can work whenever, and from wherever I want. I felt more free than I had ever felt, even if I weren’t allowed to really leave the house. I started live-streaming again. Dare I allow myself to feel it, I started to feel happy.

    I didn’t pray for that.

    April 2020. This probably deserves its own write-up, but my Mum died suddenly in her sleep without warning. It destroyed me. I had lost my dad 9 years prior. My daughter had moved to Auckland with her Mum. I felt so alone. I felt so tired, defeated, and depression came back with a vengeance. After all the jobs taking care of Mum were done, sleeping on the couch in the living room of my house instead of my bed. I think it was because that’s where I found her, in her bed. I think partly, I just needed the TV on, and the space around me. I’m pretty sure at one point, I only got up for the bathroom and a token bit of food (that an amazing friend delivered to me) for a stretch of about 5 or 6 days. I really don’t remember.

    When I woke out of that stupor, and lockdowns became less frequent and restrictive, I decided I needed to patch up relationships, and move closer to my daughter. I immediately started looking for a place in Auckland, and started renting out my home in Napier.

    The rest is history. I’ve been here 5 years now, and with my partner for 4 years at the time of writing this. I’m still doing software development, I still enjoy it and love the team, but… I KNOW there’s more for me now.

    I’m afraid to ask.

    It took divorce, my daughter moving away, covid, then the loss of my Mum for me to change jobs (passively, I might add – semi-lucky, as I did make the network, but getting cold-called is pretty darn rare), and move city. I’ve gone through this in my head many many times. Flagellated myself over how weak I was, proud of myself how I got through all that where I am now – it was complicated.

    Now there is a balance, where I’m kinder to myself, and far happier in general than life than I was previously. Life’s little downs are on the scale of a day or two, rather than weeks. I know I need to ride those waves out, and I can take some positive steps to moving through them. Generally, life’s good.

    But I’m still bored. So the question is the title of this post.

    “What’s it going to take to change?”

    I’m afraid to ask. Why though? There is nothing in this universe that requires a set of events like what happened before, for me to step up and start making changes in life. It’s all fear. It’s all situation that I’ve put myself into one way or another. Each choice has put me in this place where I’m afraid to lose any amount of income, as I’m living down to the wire of what I earn. Each choice I make whether I write another blog post, stream, do some work on a project, what projects of other people I engage in – that’s ALL my choice. I have a lot of power to choose, every hour of every day.

    What will it take?

    So what am I going to choose? I’m so lucky to be able to ask that question. Is it so bad, working each day on a job that you’re good at, but become so-so about in enthusiasm? It it “delusions of granduer” speaking, that I feel like I’m capable of more – making this workshop where I’ll shove all my tools I’ve collected over the years and swing the doors open to the public? Is it crazy that I think it can work, even though there’s so much that might not?

    What’s it going to take, for me to make a change?

    It’s going to take me stopping asking all these questions.

    I think that’s it, honestly. Stop asking the damn questions, and instead, choose every day. Choose consciously what I do at each moment. Make it deliberate, and considerate. Lamenting, worrying, fretting, regretting – NONE of those things will make a change, they will only increase the frustration about stagnancy.

    So that’s it I guess. I’ll choose, instead of waiting for the Universe and life to choose for me. Weird. I’m not that spiritual, but I did a Tarot reading with a friend semi-recently and that’s basically exactly what it said… I need to take the wheel because if I don’t, Jesus/the universe will. Stuff will happen, but if the latter happens it, it’ll be messy.

  • What’s next?

    The secrets to failure AND success are both doing nothing.

    From paralisis by analysis, to tiredness, to the need to eat sleep and exercise, to relationships, family, friends, depression, ADHD, work – there’s just so much I can pick from to explain why I don’t get started on something, or finish something. A veritable buffet of barriers to block achieving my dreams. I am actively figuring out ways to make this stuff simply not matter.

    Motivation – according to psychology, it may not actually exist – at least in the way we often think. Just Google it. It’s not so much something we “get” or hold on to, but a by-product of other aspects of our life and psychology: health, discipline, routine, friendships – and oddly enough – boredom.

    Boredom? Yes. Too much stimulation = too much dopamine = crash out. You need to have down-time. Time where you’re sitting there, not on your phone, not doom-scrolling, not with constant stimulation, but even 5 minutes outside looking at the trees, or cars in the street, or whatever. Reset that dopamine. When dopamine is low, and you’re bored, and you feel like you’ve got no motivation…

    THAT IS THE TIME TO DO!

    This is a tough bit – you have a choice. When you’re bored, and dopamine is low enough for you to move again what are you going to do… Get your phone to read motivation blogs? Or work on your dreams?

    When I put it like that, at least to me, it seems obvious. But we ARE energy-saving lazy sacks of semi-autonomous meat. It takes conscious effort – not that much – but a LITTLE effort to get up, sit in our “work place” (see below), and take another step towards our dreams and goals. This effort can be overcome habits, repitition and practice – in other words, doing this over time.

    Open for “OMG I’VE HEARD ALL THIS IT DOESN’T WORK”

    Ok. Sure. Maybe. And you’ll love to hear this too: they used to be my words. Nothing more infuriating than hearing that right? Look I GET it. When you’re in a place of frustration from being stuck in a rut, WISHING you JUST HAD SOME MOTIVATION, it feels pretty hopeless. Please remember – I’ve got nothing to sell you. I’m not selling motivation courses, therapy, collecting social media subscribers. It’s just me, my journey, and my words to you.

    So real-time check in: I’m feeling really good right now! If my motivation was a 3 before writing this, right as I write this writing my motivation is right around a 7 or 8. Isn’t that peculiar… Well it is to me, in this moment now!

    I don’t feel motivated to act.

    That’s right! You’re getting it!

    Motivation is a signal that comes from actions moving things forwards. Motivation doesn’t come before action – it comes after action. Don’t feel motivated? It’s because you haven’t acted.

    Collect ideas

    Do nothing

    Get bored

    Act on idea

    Feel motivatied

    The process to “getting” motivated

    If you want to feel motivated, you need to do something – but only after doing nothing. Don’t believe me? It’s what I’m doing right now. I didn’t really WANT to write this. Over the last couple of years I’ve created some methods and routines in my life to help me do something I don’t want to do – something I’m not really motivated about. Like:

    • I jot down ideas I want to work on or write about as they come up, and keep them readily accessible. Pro tip: Don’t worry about organisation – just put the latest at the top.
    • I have a comfortable “space” I can sit in comfortably for 10 minutes. Not slouched on the couch – but at the dining table, on a dining chair, with good posture.
    • Make a cup of tea. It takes me about 10-30 minutes to drink a cup of tea, depending on how motivated I get…
    • Pick something from near the top of my list and start.

    I thought this was going to take me 5 or 10 minutes. It’s like 45 minutes later. And I feel great. I can now post this (lord knows it ain’t perfekt) close my tablet, go upstairs and… Well I don’t care. Because I’ve done something. And it feels great. And I remember that now, and the next time, and the next time…

  • Start. Somewhere…

    We have to start somewhere. Why not here, now?

    Here’s the proof – WordPress twenty-twenty-five theme, lightly customized, but I decided to put it live. Is it ready? 🤷🏻‍♂️ You can be the judge of that. If you’re here and reading this, then I guess it was. It was ready for you.

    The alternative is I didn’t put it live, because I hadn’t landed on a theme I was in love with. I over-thought that this site looks like too many others. I wasn’t 100% clear on the layout, menus, even direction of this blog.

    All of that is still true.

    But here we are! And thanks for reading, welcome along 🤲🏼 What is this place? Well it’s the blog for The Mess project. You may have been late enough to stumble across a “ready-enough” homepage to learn what that is. If you’re here earlier than I could have possibly imagined for some reason, I’ll end this hello-world post on a brief teaser description:

    The Mess is a not-for-profit, open and collaborative community where ideas for those in need can come to life.