Thoughts on The Way / The Path

There is a concept that comes up a little bit in Musashi & other books like The Book of Five Rings which Musashi wrote called “the way”. Jocko also talks about “the way” or “the path” I don’t really remember where I first heard about it but the concept is simple (well at least my version & what I tell myself is simple). There is a way in which you can approach & live life, which will lead towards where you want to be. I often struggle & stray from this way, I’m probably off the path more often then I am on it. But I still find it a good guiding star.

I can’t really articulate what the way is but I think for me I feel best about myself and most on this path when I am putting effort into life. All aspects of it, the days when I know I’ve earnt what I have or have at least tried my best to pay for what I have.

An interesting part of this concept is that I have no clue where this path is leading, I don’t know what I want from life, I haven’t found my “why” or finished my search for meaning (not that I think you are suppose to finish it), but thinking of the way is still helpful for me. Perhaps this path actually helps find where you are meant to be & why you are doing it.

I think more realistically there is nowhere we are meant to be & instead to be focused on the path is to be focused on how you want to live your life. When I reflect on the way or the path I almost always have an answer of what I should or more often should not be doing. Should I be watching this… no, should I go for a run… yes. A lot of the time I know what I should do already, it just takes a second to detach and put one foot in front of the other. Even when I know it is the harder route, fundamentally somewhere I know it is the right thing to do.

To me it becomes a simple question similar to “what would Jesus do?”, (I think people ask themselves that IDK I’m not religious) it’s just “what would the best version of Liam do?”. What would actually be the right thing to do. If the people who you admire most saw you right now would they be impressed? I think life isn’t that complicated and we are just very good at complicating it (at least I am). I set these silly little rules & track these numbers & when they don’t go well I feel sad & sorry for myself. Often giving myself an excuse for poor behaviour and completing a vicious cycle which leads nowhere. To drag this a bit back to Musashi a quote that I think reflects this is “In reality, the Buddha’s Law is simple: Eat your rice, drink your tea, wear your clothes”. I have created this system which at times impedes me doing simple things because I see all the complicated things that have to be done or have already been done & can’t be undone.

It is definetly a strike against the elaborate spreadsheets I at times enjoy setting up & tracking things in. The biggest issue for me is the black & white nature of tracking things especially things you are not suppose to do (like watching youtube or TV) when you lapse it goes black. For me something that could have been a momentary blip tends to turn into an all day affair. My simple mind reasons perfectly that the box is already black and it can’t get any worse, so why not keep going. Pervesely the system I created to keep me accountable keeps me from getting back on track.

I don’t think I should lower the goals so the blips don’t occur or don’t get counted as blips. I want to strive for great days & those perfect days are achievable. I know I get a lot closer to perfect when I aim for it. The thing that in the process of writing this is becoming apparent is that getting back on the path is just as important if not more important than staying there. Because when I struggle the most is when I see myself doing the “wrong” things and straying from the path. Hopefully it is obvious by now I am struggling with this as much if not more than the average person.

I have a tendency to be hard on myself and take what I would consider closer to a Goggins approach than a kind approach. In some cases I get angry at myself to feel better about doing the wrong thing, because at least I am not happy about it. When in reality my emotions when I am off the path are pointless unless they are there to help me back onto it. I don’t think being kind to myself is a cure-all. It has lead to not getting started & being too content with where I am in the past. What we all need to be is as kind to ourselves & or as hard on ourselves as is necessary to get back on track.

This has divuldged from practicallity a little bit, but as a benefit I think I understand the concepts a bit better (hopefully you do to). How should I approach the problem of black and white habits leading to negative spirals? I guess I could not track them, but I like tracking them. Maybe I should track something else instead, who cares if I lapsed for a moment if I still feel like I had a good day & accomplished the most important tasks (I already have a metric for this, it doesn’t really help).

Really the one habit I struggle with is “no shit content”. I watch one thing & then that box goes black and my brain uses the “can’t get any worse” excuse to keep watching. To combat this I am going to shift how I track my content consumption, moving to an hourly tracker so I throw away an hour at a time not a day. It will also allow me to see progress even if I lapse & be able to generate more chances to get back on track.

Apologies for the foray into specific issues irrelevant to most of you, but maybe this helped you think about how you can change the systems in your life. In a perfect world I should just eat my rice and drink my tea, moving past my errors as quickly as possible. But I am an idiot and I like numbers so I feel a need to track things even if the process of tracking isn’t helpful (perhaps it is the tism coming out). Goodluck in trying to stay on your path & find out where you should be going, also read Musashi it’s very good.