Numbers

205.9

I’m a financial analyst by vocation, so numbers are a big part of my life.   As a result, I find that I look for quantification of activities probably more than most people. It can be a problem, actually.  

The reason is that I rarely embark on any endeavors that don’t involve numbers in some meaningful way.  I don’t want to start lifting weights unless there is some numeric goal attached, like number of pull-ups, or maximum weight on a bench press.  I don’t want to just ‘lose weight’ (that number is my present weight) – I want to go from the number I am now to a goal weight, or a goal loss of pounds.  Those number might actually be meaningless, but I know that they are better than I can do now, even if I don’t know if it’s really attainable.  A target of 160 pounds is better than I am now, but I doubt that’s reachable while staying attached to all my limbs. 

26:01

There I go again – that was my time on this mornings 5K (a Turkey trot in my town). As I often do, I had multiple quantitative objectives for this race: a goal time (27:00), an expected time (29:00) and a minimal acceptable time (31:00).  All of these were just numbers, and should not have determined my enjoyment of the race, or the fun I had getting ready for it. But those concepts aren’t quantifiable, can’t really be measured, and therefore take second chair to the clear delineations of time and distance.  I think this is actually a problem most runners have, but I get to deal with it in my personal and my professional lives.  

70.3

And there’s another one.  I would like to run a half-Ironman distance triathlon next year.  I want to know the satisfaction of having done that disatance through swim, bike and run.  But again, it’s quantifiable, as will the distances of all of my training sessions.  Time is less important here, but the distances are fixed, and each is a hurdle I will need to get across.  

45

One more number that defines me, at least for now.  I’m not getting any younger, and my body is really trying to tell me this.  Actually, it’s saying a lot of things, including that I’m carrying extra weight, I’m getting older, and slower, and that in some facets of my life, my best years are behind me.  

The numbers are getting harder, more relentless, and becoming more of an obstacle.  They may have already been an obstacle for a long time – shifting my focus from areas of my life which are more subjective and less goal-oriented.  As a ‘closer-to-type-A’ personality, I find fluffy goals of ‘have more fun’ or ‘be more relaxed’ as too general, too airy. After all, how will I know if I ever achieve those goals?  There won’t come a time when I’ll say that I’ve had enough fun, or that I’ve achieved enlightenment through relaxation.  But the days are coming when the numbers will become unattainable, and I’ll lose the (perhaps illusory) sense of control that the numbers provide – both in telling me where I am, as well as where I’m supposed to be headed.  Until that time, though, there are a few numeric hurdles I have yet to conquer.

Waffling without a breeze

There's an old Bedouin proverb that came to mind recently:

Me against my brother
Me and my brother against my cousin
Me, my brother, and my cousin against our neighbors
Me, my brother, my cousin, and my neighbors against the stranger.

But what do you do when your biggest conflict is inside of yourself?

I'm not going split-personality here, trust me, but the most significant battle I have is with myself lately.  It's the struggle between who I want to be, and who I actually am in those quiet moments of decision.  The me that says I should exercise more, and eat less, and be more social, and the other me who is just fine not doing those things, and wasting time on the internet, or with TV, or just doing nothing - filling up my time with things that don't matter.

In large part, it's the challenge of laying down the foundation of who I want to be tomorrow, working against the reality of who I want to be right now, and what I find worth doing today.  I'm not normally like this, but the last few months, I've seen myself making short-term decisions rather than long-term investments.  I'm even seeing the negative effects of my recent 'not-as-good' decisions, and don't seem to care enough about them to change my approach, at least not yet.

There's a concept in business called an emergent strategy - it's the strategy that you actually pursue, not the one you plan. I've always been a planner, and lined up my days and weeks toward a future goal, but suddenly that doesn't seem as important.  My personal strategy is giving way to a very different emergent strategy that feels like living day-to-day.   I know a lot of people who do that already, and are very happy just dealing with the 'today's, but that's never been me.

Maybe I'm just a bit rudderless right now.  I've achieved a lot of what I planned to do in the last several years, and I haven't seen sights clearly on a new set of goals.  If I spend a little time on vacation this week thinking about where I want to go, perhaps that will provide the guiding star to help direct me.  Then I can trim my sails and head off in the right way.  Until then, I'm going to founder a bit more in the doldrums.

But not for too long.