Momentos – Sept 2015

These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.

1

You know what’s scary for me now? What’s scary is that I’m all out of excuses. The past few years I could blame all that overland travel for getting in the way of big business success. Now I look ahead at a long and empty stretch of work days and weeks and months, time like bricks there for me to build.

2

Cycling south over the Halvemaansbrug, sky dark and air crisp, eyes dazzled by the Munt, beyond where Rembrandt once lived. But it’s not just the view that has me delighted in the moment. There’s also everything that came before. Having battled and defeated Resistance several times since sunrise, I feel courageous, alive.

3

So I’m caving in tonight. Tomorrow’s a workday but I’ve invited her to sleep over. I felt lonely and frustrated last weekend, lacking intimacy, while at the same time resisting this wonderful woman. I thought maybe I could neglect that side of my life for several months and focus entirely on work, but that just makes me miserable. Time for a change.

4

Now. After just four hours of sleep last night, would I still get up and clock in and do what needed to be done? Well, I wasn’t at my absolute best, but I got out of bed at 6:30 as usual and stuck to my schedule pretty good all through the day. I did my exercise, meditation, writing, client work. It was a good day, the kind dreams are made of.

5

My friend is late and I opt to enjoy the wait, first bantering with a few strangers then riding my bike like a whisper down along the Brouwersgracht. There’s a drawbridge over my shoulder and a little Asian girl cycling past all cute with streamers and pink shoes. In my head Buddy Holly sings about true love and rollercoasters.

6

I like to think that I’ll be selfish for just a few years more, then I’ll get serious about finding a partner. But maybe this selfishness never goes away. Maybe I’m not cut out for long-term monogamy. Maybe I’m not hard-wired that way. Though part of me certainly wishes I was. Sometimes I envy the guy who commits in his twenties and never wavers.

7

Battling the dragon four times a day. First there’s exercise, twenty minutes first thing. Easier not to do it. Then there’s writing. At least an hour after breakfast. Easier not to do it. Then there’s client work after lunch. Easier not to do it. Then in the evening there’s approaching at least one attractive woman and giving her a genuine compliment. Easier not to do it.

8

There are less people in the park these mornings. The leaves have begun to turn and the sky is that bit darker at 7am. I wonder if I’ll keep coming when it gets really cold. We only have so much willpower. It’s not an infinite resource. But I like these early mornings, alone on the grass, doing my stretches, watching the birds.

9

On the way to the park this morning, had to stop and admire the sky for a minute as I crossed the Singelgracht. It was a bruised horizon, reflected on the canal, with a slice of moonlight crowning it all. I stood and watched my breath disappear into the scene, until some dude on rollerblades zipped past me, wearing a bright green thong, a tight vest, and a very serious look upon his face.

10

I’ve written nine blog posts in the past two days. Done and dusted, just need videos for them now. By the end of the month I should be finished all my big freelance projects, can then focus on my own stuff full-time, writing articles and creating products that will help a lot of people. Trusting that the money will take care of itself. This path feels right.

11

I sit down with five women at the Waterkant and chat for a few minutes, get them all laughing, come away with the cute Bulgarian as a new friend on Facebook. Turning back to the guys, they’re somewhat in awe, but they didn’t see me flame out twenty minutes prior with a hot Brazilian. Plus, Facebook friends doesn’t mean shit.

12

First trip to Amsterdam-Noord, stepping off the free ferry alongside an ancient submarine and newlyweds posing beneath a bungee crane. It’s an old warehouse district, now home to quirky cafes and Europe’s biggest flea market.  We opt not to use our tech and head in a direction we assume to be north, looking for a sunflower maze.

13

Caught in two minds today. I didn’t venture outside, didn’t have any human interaction. Part of me wants to share these down days with someone, so I’m not alone on the couch watching TV shows everyone else saw years ago. But at the same time I enjoy the solitude, feel like I need the occasional day like this.

14

On the call with Caroline, and she tells me how to hold a butterfly. Close your fist too tight and you crush it. Leave your palm open and it flies away. The trick is to cup it in two hands, not too tight, not too loose. For the most part, I’ve gotten where I am by crushing butterflies. But what got me this far won’t take me further.

15

On a call with Andrew, helping me get more clarity on this limiting belief. I pride myself on the ability to make a plan and see it through. But that very tendency can often hold me back. I’ll have a fixed idea in my mind about how something should unfold, and that causes me to resist surprises, even pleasant ones. How to overcome this? Make a plan and see it through? Ah, fuck.

16

Inspired by Caroline, I’ve stopped setting a key habit each day and now set a key intention instead. The idea with an intention is to invite something into my life, something beyond my control, like an opportunity or a gift. This morning the intention I wrote down was, “easy money”. Twelve hours later I was offered $100 for a half hour of work. Hmm.

17

I hand over my papers and wait. In ten minutes I’ll be out of here with a nine-digit number allowing me to reside indefinitely in this safe and liberal city. There are a lot of people in the world who would kill for the same privilege. I have it handed to me with minimal fuss because of where I happened to be born.

18

Another storytelling night down at Mezrab. I’m holding back for now so as not to distract from the work stuff, but I can see myself getting up and speaking frequently at such events in future. There’s something about live performance, the magic of a story well spoken and well received. With practice, I know I’ll excel at it someday.

19

Crosswalk green and an old couple step off the curb. The man turns back to wait for his wife, and almost gets mowed down by a young woman blasting between them on her bike. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look back, doesn’t give a shit. Two minutes later I’m outside my apartment and see the same lady locking her bike. I feel I should say something, but I don’t.

20

I wake up after five hours sleep and think fuck it, no way I’m going to meet this guy now. I text apologies and go down for another three hours, awake to sore responses. The man’s not happy. “Your loss,” he writes. But I don’t feel bad. I should never have agreed to meet in the first place, sure, but I didn’t know in advance how exhausted I’d be. Gotta be kind to myself first.

21

The coaching has been going pretty well, have had three clients for a couple of months now and they all seem to be making solid progress. So much of it is just listening and reflecting. You don’t have to have all the answers. Mostly you just have to ask good questions and let them find their own way. It’s different every time.

22

We talk about dating and I tell him I’ve been a lot more active lately going out and approaching women, but I haven’t been writing much about it. Why not? Because (a) I’ve written plenty about that topic in the past, and (b) I guess I feel somewhat embarrassed that I’m still working on this, that I’m not yet satisfied, far from it.

23

She’s from Spain, very cute and very petite and wearing a giant scarf. I met her here on the side of the street twenty minutes ago. Can’t remember the first thing I said, doesn’t really matter. We’ve hit it off and already exchanged numbers. Slight hitch though: she’s since become quite upset, and now she’s crying.

24

Andrew Maxwell put it well in an interview I listened to recently. To paraphrase: it’s not so much failure that we’re scared of as it is success. There’s a dark comfort in failure, because when you fail you get to stay the same, nothing really changes. But success equals transformation, and transformation equals uncertainty. And uncertainty is scary.

25

It’s about midnight as I park the bike and wander through Rembrandtplein. I pass a bunch of cool cats hanging about, looking like they stepped out of a fashion magazine, so I stop and tell them they look like they stepped out of a fashion magazine. That’s just the warm up. I won’t let myself go home until I make a beautiful woman smile.

26

Approaching a woman on the street is ineffective at the best of times. The odds of finding someone who’s a good match for you and hitting it off are pretty slim. So why do I still push myself to do cold approach? It’s a habit that keeps me feeling like a man of action, someone who goes after what he wants and isn’t afraid to express himself. It’s like reps in the gym, getting ready for the big game.

27

Looking back at my habit tracking for the month, there’s a pattern emerging. Contentment is high during the weekdays, when I’m focused on work and in my routine. And then it drops off on the weekends. I think much of that is down to later nights on weekends, less sleep, and spending more time being reactive rather than proactive.

28

I find the gym to be a weird scene. Granted, nobody goes there to be social, and I don’t either, but it seems most people go out of their way not to acknowledge each other in that environment. Even the gym rats, who see each other in there at the same time each day. I might have to become that overly-friendly guy who insists on saying hi to everyone.

29

There’s an elderly woman on stage singing about a rabbit and a canary and sometimes making up words that are neither Dutch nor English. She’s accompanied by an electric guitar and an accordion. The stage is backed by a glass wall, beyond which we can see cars, bicycles, boats, buses, trams, trains, and the occasional airplane cutting through the night.

30

The guy sitting beside me is in his fifties and opened the conversation talking about primary fields and the multiverse. Then he began rocking back and forth vigorously in his chair, frequently muttering something about stupid people, and informing us of his key takeaways from fifteen years studying the Bible.