When Life Tries To Get The Best Of You

The world will always be out there, going on, "outside" of you. And there will be times when the universe seems to be really making things difficult for you - her foot pressing down on you, seeing just how much you can handle at any given time, on any given day.

Like today in my life, for example, I spent the last 4+ hours writing a blog post (my first "real" blog post) on Intellectual vs Experiential Understanding. I wrote it from the heart, with plenty of practical and real world examples. With each new paragraph, I watched the editor update to "Saved", presumably backing up to the cloud. I thought on how this could be the start to some regular writing for someone's eyes beyond my own. By the time the words were done flowing, and I proof-read and edited the bulk of it, I was very impressed with what I had come up with. The only thing left to do was remove a few lingering sentences at the end - unused scraps, leftover from the process. I highlighted them, hit "delete" on my MacBook, and that was it...the entire block - all 10+ sections were gone, examples, insights, styling, everything...right before my eyes. I immediately tried the faithful cmd + z to undo it but much to my anguish, it was the block that was deleted, not simply the text. How did that just happen? I had almost copy/pasted my progress into a note after the first few hours. I thought about what some potential options were to backup these posts in the future. But I didn't expect to get hit with something like that, just as I was about to taste the success of my efforts.

Such is life. There's always something right around the corner - sometimes it's the direct deposit you've been waiting on from the IRS for the last 4 months...and sometimes, it's technology failing you at the moment you feel you needed it most. And that right there is a prime example that I can use quickly sum up the 4 hours I previously spend showcasing the concepts:

Intellectual Understanding is knowing something "in theory". In this case, it's reading an article about the importance of backing up your work online, and how much of a setback it can be to have your work lost. It's a friend telling you how frustrating it is to be about to submit an online assignment, only for the computer to crash. You can understand it secondhand, and may even be able to calmly regurgitate the gist of a highly emotional situation to others because you don't have the same direct associations and attachments to it. It's frameworks and structuring. It's an idea or concept in the realm of the mind. It's where the term "book-smart" came from. It's what we do when we read a book, or attend a class, or watch a video and become aware of something we previously weren't aware of. But being aware of something is just the start. And being aware of what something is or how it works isn't necessarily always the starting point.

Experiential Understanding is the other side of the coin. It's experiencing something first-hand in the body ("experience" in this case is pertaining to your 5 senses and emotions). It's where the term "street-smart" comes from. You may not always know what it is that you experienced, whether you're missing the language or framework or something else, but regardless, you now have some additional life-experience. I may have been the experiencer in both examples above, but the experience from today feels a whole lot more intense than the one from almost a decade ago (did I just age myself?).

Neither one is better on its own. There will be different scenarios and situations where one may be more valuable or desirable than the other but, knowledge is always more versatile and applicable when they complement each other. Because the ultimate goal for most of us learning anything is to be able to apply it in some way - whether that be at work, in our personal lives, social circles, or through monetization.

But that re-hash of my first attempt isn't even the point of this post. This post now has a new point to drive home. Life is always going to throw curveballs at you. Whether it is a setback with a hobby, relationship, work, health. That, we can't control. What we can control is our reaction to it. And I'm sure the majority of us already "know" that...at least on an intellectual level. But do we truly believe it? If we do, and we work to develop enough progress in the skill of equanimity, then we truly can find an unshakeable peace. A peace from within. It doesn't mean we aren't disappointed when we experience something we perceive as negative. It just means we aren't totally thrown off course. And if we are, we bounce back quicker. It means we aren't possessed by our emotional reactions. And if we are, we aren't taking it out on the people around us.

It's not something that is mastered in a day - any skills, much like our lives, are a work in progress. But they can be started (and restarted) at any point. Everything is in a constant state of change. We don't wake up one day as a 30 year old. We are aging and changing every moment, whether we recognize it or not. And so just as we aren't the same people we were a decade ago, we aren't necessarily (and don't have to be) the same person we were a year ago. Or a month ago. Don't let choices or mindsets of your past define your future. So if there's something you've always wanted to try or pursue, or if you notice, or think of, or become aware of something in your life that is in your direct control to change for the better, try it - and see how things change for you and those around you.

I was pretty panicked and frustrated when I lost that last post. But I didn't explode, or take it out on my partner, or give up. I tried to get it back myself. When I couldn't, I reached out to support. I haven't heard back and so it may truly be gone. It may not be. If it is, I've accepted it. I feel alright. I'm at peace. And from that peace, I asked what this experience may be trying to teach me. And aside from the obvious lesson (backup your work), I realized that there is a much more concise and refined way to communicate the essence of what I wanted to say, and we have this reminder - in the end, things are still alright. I put in the work and got the experience of writing a post. I didn't get any of the direct "pay off". But I now know I can do it again. I have done it again. Even if the words or the message are different, I applied my knowledge and the essence of it remains, undistorted. From the loss or "destruction", there was new creation and creativity - a transference.