Design your world

Mental states and mindfulness are how we control our world; inside someone else's box, or one of our own design.

Life in a box

Like it or not, we must always work within a set of constraints. Our life may be considered a box, and we may be inside that box. If you perceive this, you may be living the life of a victim. This is purely a perspective, because how you view things is the difference between being a victim and the author of your own destiny. Weather you choose to work for others, or yourself, this is going to be the case.

External Factors

In life, we must acknowledge factors outside our own control. Failing to recognize these factors is to feel like those factors are the bars of our prison. We are stuck on a planet, it has gravity, it has a day and a night. We breathe air, not water, and we don't have wings on our bodies. All of these things are beyond our physical ability to directly control, yet we find ways to leave our planet, defy gravity, stay up late at night. We can go under water; we can fly if we get on a plane.

In the mental microcosm, we have rules that are imposed by external forces of society. Governments impose regulations. Businesses have to comply with regulations and balance it with the need to deliver value for shareholders. Businesses may also have seasonal or geographic restrictions.

Choosing to work for an employer or yourself will mean that you still have to work within the restrictions of the external forces of society. Ultimately, employers impose restrictions on us as individuals that are driven by all of the external forces. These same forces define the scope of what it means to be a solopreneur as well.

Acknowledge these constraints, then design your world to operate within the framework of restrictions that are out of your control.

Design is destiny

Take charge of your own destiny by authoring and designing your world. Acknowledge external realities first, then design your mental space so you can be free.

Embrace the most powerful tool at your disposal: adaptability.

Humanity has the ability to adapt to almost anything. In adapting you may not be able to reach maximum optimization, but there are forces in the world that will be beyond your control.

In doing so you can design a life that accesses the flow states of creativity & self-direction. Regardless of if you work for others, yourself, or not at all, you can design a life you choose to live. To imagine you have no options is to choose victimhood. To imagine you can explore options and use your brilliance and creativity to craft your own life is self-actualization.

Adaptability is strength

Some can work within external constraints more easily than others. The ability to recognize constraints, and then design a life within those constraints is the height of intelligence. If you think about design engineers, they work within the bounds of physics to create electric motors that function better with every generation. They create batteries that last longer and go further. They design rockets that are larger, more powerful, and reusable.

Over the past 100 years, we have seen people optimize for the constraints of their world. To continue the analogy of the engineers in the previous paragraph, manufacturers of cars that have been using internal combustion (ICE) engines have barely innovated. They allowed the constraints of the stock market to squeeze them into the least amount of innovation possible to deliver value and returns for shareholders.

This means that for over 50 years, we have seen very small and only slightly incremental improvements in ICE vehicles. This means that when a new innovator comes into the market, they act to suppress the achievement because they feel like victims because they are no longer innovative, but just stuck in the same old tech.

To become adaptable in your own life, it is time to recognize the impossible to change factors, and then identify what assets you have to adapt and thrive.

Seeking flow for maximum creativity

Building a life you design requires you to understand the fundamental constraints, and see them not as restrictions, but the things you can count on. Most constraints that are not mental are actually pretty firm. Certain types of work will have an impact on your freedom or your income. Being a doctor requires you have a patient. Being a chef requires you have foods to prepare, and customers to consume them. Being a manufacturer means you need materials, and again, customers to buy your products.

The most creative thing you can do is to deeply understand reality, and then bend it to your will with what you can control. The most productive way to design something is to be able to step into flow. There are many ways to do this, and most frequently, it comes from something physical. It could be walking, working out, performing an athletic feat.

It also comes from gaming, especially certain types of video games, like of all things, Tetris! You don't have to live in these things long term. But visiting that flow state "tunes up" your brain. It is interesting to know that flow states are really not achievable in most working situations. Too many distractions, too much complexity, not quite enough repetition. Flow takes practice, and a focus that is so deep that you often forget the world around you.

Flow is elusive so find it where you can

Make your purpose to find flow in your inner and outer world and learn to cherish your life. Knowing that flow is elusive, you will have to hunt for the things that trigger it in your life. There are many people that have methods to get there. Be it gaming, doing that athletic thing you love, or playing some form of music, it is something you can go find.

It will take some level of experimentation, and it may be that you spend a lifetime with only a few incidents when you are so deeply in flow, that you lose sense of time. But those moments exist in your life. Think back to your childhood. You probably found it in the playground once. Or in a race. Do what you can to re-experience it at minimum in your vacation or down time.

Design a life you will love

Once you can find flow and drop into it repeatedly, then you have found the design tools you need to build that life you love. Flow is one of the optimal states of experience. If you know how to get into it, then you can build a life where you can extract profound joy from your life.

Once you know your key, you should put time on your calendar to drop into that flow state regularly. This could be a daily run, a gaming session after work, or climbing a mountain on a weekly/monthly hike.

How then can you set aside the time in a way that you will repeatedly achieve this state?

It comes down to you giving yourself permission to do that thing. You have to see it not as an indulgence, but as a priority. This IS the joy of your life. Discounting it as trivial is how you deprive yourself of that joy. Letting someone outside of your brain prevent you from having this time is to become a victim.

Make this your single-minded focus.

Don't let other's opinions of your flow time cut you out of engaging in it.

But remember one thing, it is somewhat elusive. You cannot live entirely in a flow state, so respect that constraint too. It may be addictive to try to live in that state. But in reality, you truly cannot live it all the time. The more frequently you hit that state using the same method, the less powerful the beneficial feelings come to you. Chasing that feeling can be like being a drug user seeking a high.

If you respect it, cherish it, and pursue it within the constraints the world imposes, including avoiding addictive behaviors, then you can extract the maximum joy from your life.