Nothing Undone

For a long time I was an unhappy person. My job wasn’t satisfying, I didn’t see my friends enough, I never had enough time. Now I have a job that’s helping me grow, I see my friends all the time, and I know I have all the time I need. I am, on the whole, a very happy person now. How all those things happened is a subject for another post; what I want to discuss here is this: what now?

When I was unhappy, I had clear goals. Become happy. Fix the problems. Life was hard and sad, but I had a destination. The happier I become, the harder that destination is to imagine. What more could I want? How good can life really get?

If I were content to just stay the way I am, this wouldn’t be a problem. But I’m not. I care deeply about personal growth, and at 24 years old I’m not ready to say my journey is over. But I’m not sure how to continue to grow without becoming discontent with where I am now. And if I’m always unhappy wherever I am, I’ll just be unhappy all the time.

I think this problem held back my growth for a long time. What happens, I thought, if I succeed and become happy? I’ll have nothing to grow towards! And so I sabotaged my own progress. I held myself back from learning and changing, lest I succeed and have no more learning to do.

Of course, there’s still plenty of work I can do. I’m just trying to learn to do it without being unhappy first.

Being unhappy is a great motivator. But who wants to live like that?

You already know that ubiquitous capture is one of the most effective tools you can use to stay sane and in control. Just make sure you have a capture tool with you everywhere you go. It’s a habit that takes a bit of training, but it’s usually not hard: take a stack of notecards with you, or put a capture tool on your phone. But there’s one place the capture tool has a hard time penetrating. Unfortunately, it’s probably where you have most of your really good ideas.

How do you capture thoughts in the shower?

If you’re like me, you do some of your best thinking in the shower. But the moment you step out, those perfect thoughts evaporate like so much steam on a bathroom mirror. How can you capture them before they do? Electronics short out in the wet environment. Paper disintegrates. What is one to do?

Enter AquaNotes.

The AquaNotes notepad is a pad of waterproof paper with suction cups. It even comes with a waterproof writing implement, commonly known as a “pencil”. Buy this right now, stick this thing on your shower wall, and wait. The next time you take a shower you will fill at least a page with ideas you would have lost before.

Best of all, these things are cheap. $6.99, shipping included, as I write this. Go ahead and use it; you can always get more.

Best of all, AquaNotes are produced by a husband and wife team. Mark first developed AquaNotes to keep track of thoughts he had in the shower, and then developed the Aqua LoveNotes line to leave love notes in the shower for his wife. This is not an evil conglomerate. This is entrepreneurship at its finest.

Do yourself a favor and give them a try. You’ll be grateful you did.

I had a really good time going to the gym last week. Unfortunately, I had to take a break as of last Tuesday. I have arthritis in my knees, which makes them vulnerable to too much exercise. Ironically, they were the primary reason I started going to the gym: to get them stronger. Once they’re painful, though, more exercise will just aggravate them.

I’m going to rest up my knees and get them back to normal. Then I’ll get back to the gym experiment, and start the clock again at 30 days.

Here’s the funny thing: once I stopped going, I immediately started to miss it. It was nice to wake up with the sun and get my blood moving before work. I’ll get back to it soon.