Man... Last night I spent about 6 hours on my homework. I had a terrible time staying focused and the subject matter was particularly challenging and frustrating.
The frustrating part came about because I could vaguely remember knowing easier way to solve the problems I was working on and patterns that I should be recognizing, but just could not.
Out of my frustration came an immense excitement about taking this class and the opportunity to really learn something new and exercise my brain in way it has not been exercised in quite a while.
Lesson #1) Food and rest is important.
I was going on 3 hours straight and things were not going so well. I was beginning to get frustrated, having a hard time staying focus, and time was quickly becoming very inefficient. It was almost like my brain just completely shut down. I was not processing any information and was not making any headway. My wife showed up just about at that time and we went out for a quick bite to eat. At first I was apprehensive and wasn't sure I should be taking a break until I had either accomplished more or finished all together. Pretty soon thanks to a little coaxing on her part I realized that was crazy talk. We had a wonderful dinner stocked full of fresh local veggies and good conversation. When I returned to the work, problems that were leading me into utter despair I was able to skillfully navigate. I am certain that this is pretty big problem in my life. It is very common for me to get consumed with work and other commitments to not take the time to really recharge and refuel. Its funny how you can't really BS your way through math.
Lesson #2) Attention to Detail.
I scored a 47 percent on my first quiz. Not because I did not conceptually understand the subject matter being testing. I absolutely did, however on more then half of the problems I had small errors that lead to an incorrect solution. With out details what is there? Typically in my life I have had problem with attention to detail. I would say that 90 percent of my former employers would agree. This problem extrapolates to many areas of my life and I think at its root is lack of presence. When I am fully commited to my lived experience in this moment errors like this tend to happen to a far lessor degree. However, when my mind and my body are in two seperate places errors like occured on my Math test abound. Its amusing to think about how little time we actually spend in the moment or trying to stay present and concentrated. It would seem that we would want to be here now, but it is so easy to drift...
Lesson#3 Judgment.
My ego is tied in with nearly everything I do and how I do it. The first thing I notice is how hard it is for me to tell people I am taking intermediate college algebra and just let what is be what it. When asked what class I am taking this semmester I tend to have to justify and back story what lead me to taking intermediate algebra and it normally starts with... "Well I took calculus in college, but it has been so long..." yada yada yada. The facts are simple and do not require a back story of any kind. These realizations really have made to look at how I defined my self worth when I was younger and how I still try to define it now. It is really refreshing to notice patterns where the ego is attempting to assert itself and then very comforting to try to soften those places where the ego is strong.
Lesson#4 Expectations.
Judgment and Expectations really fall hand in hand. They form a simbiatic relationship and when one softens, so does the other. I have a lot of expectations with what I should know. About an hour or so into my epic homework session the other night I began to be terrible frusterated as I was failing to live up to my expectations that I should be flying through the homework with swift skill and ease. It has been 8 years since I have succesfully taken any kind of math and those expectations are completley unrealistic. Not only that though, they also produce a great amount of suffering. Not just with Algebra but in all areas of my life. Expectations are resentments in the making. Whose to say what and how things should be? They are whatever they are and projections of my mind will have little controll over that. Whats more is expectations actually inhibit my ability to skillfully nagivate circumstances where things do not turn out how I think they should.
Lesson#5 procrastination... what?
I should probbaly mention that the whole reason for the epic marathon homework session/ lack of concentration/ hungry poor performance etc etc etc was because I was attempting to do a weeks worth of work the night everything was due. Some times it is really hard to change unless the pain of our current actions facilitates it. In other words, the real motivating factor behind change is pain. At least that has been my own experience. I am going to #5 at that for now, but I am certain it will arise again.
Be good.
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