I have struggled recently to understand what my heart and mind have been leading me to as a goal or destination. For a while I thought it was about enjoyment of life. Then finding satisfaction with what I have in my life. Then striving for excellence and virtue in the deepest sense. It’s kind of the point of this blog, a personal exploration into what my life and career are to be about. A way to discuss it with myself (although I have been too chicken most of the time to truly be honest on this blog) as I am in the midst of it. It’s interesting writing in this way, because I am writing these things so that I may remember them later. But there is also an acknowledgement that others MIGHT read it as well, even if it is you alone, Sandy. That keeps the tone somewhat odd at times … for me.

Anyway, maybe I’ll come to a different conclusion later, but it seems to me that what the “deeper” parts of me are asking for is Joy. Joy in the “fullness of Joy” sense … that is. Explanation is probably needed.

I believe that Joy is more than happiness, but contains it. I believe that we are, each of us, dual creatures. The body (or physical being) and the soul (or spiritual being). If Joy is to be “full” than it needs to encompass and account for that duality.

I think part of my problem or misunderstanding has been an over-focus on one over the other. This is definitely an area where specialization just doesn’t work. Bodily happiness/enjoyment and spiritual ecstasy/fullfilment/enlightenment must both be present to be truly “Joyful”. I have at times imagined that a lot of material comfort was the answer to my problems and quest for joy. At others, I have held disdain for personal comfort and imagined that only spiritual fulfillment could fill the empty parts of me. While the spiritual side has come closer to making me feel “settled”, it has still felt incomplete.

I also believe Joy has 2 behaviors or processes associated with it … appreciation and fitness. Meaning, sometimes Joy is felt when standing alone on a beach watching a beautiful sunset … in other words appreciating it. But the Joy may “fuller” if I am then standing on that same beach fully present to the sights, sounds and smell while also holding my wife’s hands and having our children there with us appreciating the same thing. In order to get to this “higher” level of Joy, I must be “fit” for it. My body must be healthy enough to truly appreciate the sensory information coming at me. My life must also be “fit” enough that I have qualified to have a wife that loves me, that wants to be on that beach with me … same for my children.

So when I join these two processes … appreciation and fitness … to our dual nature … physical and spiritual … I can begin to formulate a method of “getting there”. I need to slow down and appreciate this life and this world. I need to live my life healthily in all ways … mentally, socially, physically, etc. I also need to develop gratitude for life, or spiritual appreciation in the forms of kindness, compassion, charity, etc. And I need to be spiritually “fit” through prayer, study, service, obedience, etc.

I believe this game, “life”, is intended to be a complete experience, the end goal being the development of a “fullness of Joy”. And again, I don’t simply mean “being happy”. That mindset so often runs to the ridiculous conclusions of hedonism, self-fulfilling arrogancy, and a million other selfish and vain pursuits. But behaviors that run counter to true Joy are bound to bring us only sadness and despair. That is most likely why I find so much frustration in my work situation. I am not obeying the laws of “Joy”. I am going too fast, not appreciating the experience or continuing to spend time in areas that I lack to ability to appreciate. I am not focusing enough energy on keeping myself “fit”, both physically and spiritually so that I might deepen my ability to appreciate and understand. I am not serving enough and thinking about how I might help others with the talents I have.

Just a thought I had that I wanted to get down before I forgot … seems like an important one for me today.

Compassion has been on my mind a lot lately. It was a topic of study for me about two months ago and has continued at “top of mind” for me. It is also one of the definitions of relent that I discussed in my first post on this blog. Leo from ZenHabits has a post on cultivating compassion with a specifically Buddhist bent. I am not Buddhist, but enjoy many of their teachings and particularly how they teach.

One thing I love about the practice of compassion is how powerfully effective it is in nullifying wrongs done. And it works both ways. Compassion can be a great vehicle to receiving forgiveness from somebody you’ve wronged, certainly. But even more powerfully, compassion seems to have a soothing effect when you yourself are being wronged. Somehow, finding compassion for the source of your difficulties can eliminate the feelings and negative emotions generated by the actions. Ahh, the beauty of counter-intuitive “soul lessons”!

Today has been a bit of a difficult one for me. Today is my birthday. But, my wife and I received some disappointing news regarding an adoption we are currently pursuing, and I am frustrated by a group of people because of it. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself to have to deal with mental anguish on my birthday (poor me:). But even the thought of having compassion not only for the child we wish to adopt, but also those that are struggling to do the best they can is a balm. Bad news is bad news, but who knows what tomorrow will hold … and why not be compassionate in the meantime?

A lot of what I have recently read about and tried putting into practice has been about the simplification of life. Even when reading things I would not normally anticipate having this theme, there it is. So I’ve run a couple expirements lately in regards to this. With the 80/20 principle in mind I have begun to eliminate some activities and materials from my life. I’ve pared down my rss subscriptions quite a bit, with decided benefit. I’ve stopped much of my research surfing on the Internet, which has been a big help in a number of ways. And I’ve cut out about 3/4 of the time I normally spend in exercise, also with some pretty astounding results. I’ve taken a few other actions along the same lines, but these are those currently at “top of mind”.

In regards to the feed reading, I’m reading much higher quality stuff now and finding a lot more time for other, more important things. As I went through my feeds I discovered at least half of those I subscribed were ever read and a bulk of the ones left were rehashes of the feeds I was truly interested in. Net benefit: about 3 1/2 hours a week gained and a lot more “brain space” freed up.

As for Internet research, it’s kind of my thing. I love reading and learning and spending a ton of time exploring the mundane, the fascinating as well as the weird. Usually when somebody I know has a weird or obscure question, they will call or email me if I know anything about it. I’ll quickly jump online and find the answer if I don’t have it in my head yet, I hate not being in the know. So that being the case, this one is truly hard for me. But I am trying to limit my “surf time” to a few hours a week, instead of my normal “do it whenever I have a spare five minutes” routine. While I have still not been perfect on this one, I’ve been better and it’s actually been nice in a way. My mind is quieter, my thoughts more focused. I miss not having all of the different ideas, concepts and thoughts swirling and trying to find homes and connections. But it’s also nice not to have to deal with the incongruities and mental difficulties that also arise because of the “swirling”. Plus, I’ve saved a ton of time. Net benefit: haven’t tracked this one well, but probably about 8-10 hours a week and a lot more “stillness of mind”.

The exercise expirement has been truly fascinating for me. I have been a “do it daily” weight lifter since I was about 14 years old. By that, I don’t mean that I have lifted weights every day for the last 20 years. What I mean is that my philosophy has always been that to do it right and to make progress, you had to lift different body parts everyday and lift at least five times a week (but usually six). I figured that focusing on one body part each day would give me greater strength gains and size growth on each part and eventually on the whole body. I thought that this generally worked for me because of what happened between my 17th and 18th birthdays. As I ended my junior year in high school I weighed 150 pounds (I have been 6′ 2″ since I was 13) and hadn’t gained any significant weight in two years. I ended my senior year I was 195 pounds of muscle (I had about 7% body fat, not a bad index). I figured that my “do it daily” routine had finally kicked in after four years and that was that. I think I may have been duped. You see, I have not made any serious advances on this front since then, and I have worked really hard at times. It is likely that while my workouts helped, I was probably just due to mature at that point.

So anyway, the recent story has been very interesting for me. I have about 10 pounds of fat to lose, but that will come soon enough (I do cardio 3-4 times a week, and have cut my caloric intake by about 1/3 recently — also part of my 80/20 expirement). I have wanted to build bigger arms, chest and legs for a while now (my wife loves big arms, so why not try to please!). So for the last three weeks I have lifted weights max twice a week, but actually only once a week for two of the three. I do the whole body on Friday morning and an occasional light arms or trunk workout on Tuesdays. I have increased my strength on the bench press by 25% and added 1/2 inch to my upper arm. My legs are also seeing similar gains in strength and size. I’ve also made a change in the “how” of my lifting. Instead of trying to “power lift” a ton of weight in rapid bursts, I have lowered the pounds slightly and do a “five count up, five count down” movement. It really seems to be working and I’m making progress for the first time in about 15 years! Also, lest you think I am a “muscle head”, I’m not. I’m a soccer player and generally have that type of build. Net benefit: added strength and size and growing and about 5-6 hours a week.

I am really pretty jazzed about this whole thing. I am currently trying to figure out where else I can “cut and release” wasted energy and time. From these three things alone I have gained about 20 hours a week in additional time. Of course, that is often filled with other useless, time wasting activities, but I’ll figure it out eventually.

If anybody actually ever reads this, do you have any experiences with “addition by subtraction”? Please share.

I have been considering doing a blog of my own for a while (of course, who hasn’t?). I have long read about the benefits of blogging … for journaling, for connecting, for venting, etc. Well, I’m taking the leap as I make a number of other changes and hope to use it as a place to log my progress, thoughts, reminders, and inspiration.

You see, I hate being an entrepreneur, not that I believe any other work choice is any better. In fact, I think it can be the best way to deal with the problem of work and life and the life/work balance equation if done right. It’s just that I have recently hit my breaking point. Working 70 hours a week, not making the progress I know should have been made, seeing less and less of my family … all of this has combined to leave me wondering why I don’t run away to some remote island, live on the beach and scavenge for food. Well, the answer to that question always come back to my family.

My wife and I are blessed to have four great kids and my greatest desire is for them to grow up with the best and most correct views on life … what it should all be about, and how to best live the kind of life that will bring happiness and fulfillment. Does that all sound a bit cheesy? Well, it’s what I’m goin’ for nonetheless.

So, I Relent, why?

Well, the word relent has come to have a few meanings for me. First, it fits with my current view of my life as an entrepreneur. I, RELuctant ENTrepreneur, have real misgivings about the “commercial” world and my heretofore place in it. I believe business can be a great force for good, offering products and services that can benefit the lives of consumers and jobs to those struggling to support their families. I also believe that my life has become too “commercial” with an overabundance of time and attention given to the making and spending of money. My mind has become so dominated with these issues, that I have all too often forgotten how great my wife and children are and how good my life is outside of the “what do you do?” issue.

Also, the definition of “relent” is most often associated with giving up, which is what I am going to do. Not giving up on life or the dreams I have for my family, but I am giving up on my cultural training and upbringing. I was raised to believe that the more you worked, the better person you were. The more time spent on the “busy”ness of business, the more successful you were. I don’t think I believe either of those propositions anymore. While working has its benefits (and an overabundance of leisure is probably more dangerous than an overabundance of work) I no longer feel like work is the “end all, be all” of existence. And I know that I have spent too much time working on those things of lower importance and effectiveness over the last ten years of my life (wow, a decade and nearly a third of my life given to the wrong things, ouch). And indiscriminant busy-ness has shown itself to the anti-thesis of success in my life. So yes, I relent, I give up, but I believe that what I’m giving up is not worth much anyway, and that what I’m giving it up for is of far greater value, excitement and interest. And this will, I hope, be the subject of this blog. How do I go about living a new kind of life in a new way (for me at least)? I have a number of ideas on how to do this, none fully fleshed out, and a number of inspirations and guides that I’ll share as well. This blog itself is one of the expirements I hope will bring me along in my goals. I hope that by writing and thinking about these issues I can remain motivated and focused on my “end game”.

Also, I love the primary definition given for relent in the Answers.com dictionary. It is …

To become more lenient, compassionate, or forgiving. To cause to soften in attitude or temper.

This has also become one of my recent goals, both for my wife and children’s sake as well as for my own.

So there it is. I, RELENT. If you have found your way here and are up for it, please leave some comments or email me — tom(at)irelent(dot)com — with your advice, story, or criticism. Thanks. Tom.