Month: February 2018

Context

As someone who was born on within the last few years of the millennial generation, I use the internet a lot. I am continuously connected to the magic of the world wide web. Often I will be on one of my most frequented sites: Reddit.

Reddit is a unique website with an older look to it and for this story you need to know a few things about it. First, people post things, and other people can comment. Second, when people post they choose what subreddit they want to post in. Each subreddit is dedicated to a specific type of content. Users subscribe to the different subreddits that best suit their tastes, and as a result, each user gets a personalized stream of new posts about the things they like. Similar to how people follow others on Twitter to create their updated feed, users of Reddit subscribe to different subreddits.

Story

This story occurred a long time ago, but I only just found out about it recently.

Four years ago a user by the name of “maxstolfe” posted something in the GetDisciplined subreddit labeled “I just don’t care about myself.” It was a fairly long rant about life where “maxstolfe” complained about having no purpose, motivation, and in general felt like his life was meaningless, and he couldn’t make progress doing things he wanted to do.

In reply to “maxstolfe.” A user named “ryans01” created a masterpiece known now as No Zero Days. “Ryans01” essentially broke down a step by step plan for how to get from where you are now to where you want to go in life. What’s a zero day? I will let “ryans01” explain it.

“A zero day is when you don’t do a single thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. Didnt’ do anything all day and it’s 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. When you’re in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behavior is keeping the vortex goin, that’s what you’re used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn’t happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS.”

This concept of a zero day was not only personally revolutionary for me, but it also became rather popular with the Reddit community. In fact, an entire subreddit was created for the topic. Now over 48,000 people are connected to this unique subreddit all joined in a commitment to become better people than who we were before.

For me, the concept of a zero day is what I think of when I need motivation. When I don’t want to get anything done, it’s late, and there is an assignment due tomorrow, I think about no zero days, and I get kicked into gear. Even if it’s not perfect work got done.

It’s crazy to think about a community larger than the undergrad class at University Park is coming together on a regular basis because of one man’s post four years ago. We are all capable of amazing things, but the only way to get them is by making sure we don’t have any zero days!

Now pardon me, but I have some more reading to do.

 

When I was younger, I wanted to put two things on my resume: Black Belt and Eagle Scout.

Only one of those things happend. Hint: I never came anywhere close to being a black belt.

In fact, I never even had any formal martial arts training. (I mean I had a few lessons when I was small, but I am not going to count that as I don’t remember much of anything.) As such the dream of attaining a black belt faded away into the distance. What I had not realized was that martial arts is half physical and half mental. Strength and muscle memory are required to advance, but the martial arts are also a mind game.

Joe Hyams is an author who spent a significant portion of his life dedicated to the martial arts. He studied under some of the greatest masters of his era including George Waite, Ed Parker, and Bruce Lee. His idea for writing the book came from how Zen is taught in martial arts classes–Short lessons and stories. He wanted to recapture the teachings and format them for nonmartial arts readers.

Zen In The Martial Arts is a short book. It contains only 133 small pages to express its message and themes.

The book is broken down into a variety of short stories. Each short story contains a lesson that Joe Hyams has learned on his journey through the martial arts. The techniques taught in the book range from mental exercises to ways of thinking, and even different behaviors. Little did I realize that I would learn how helpful some of the techniques can be first hand.

At the end of fall semester freshman year of college and during finals week no less. I fell ill with phenomena and had to remain hospitalized for three days. On the second day of my stay in the hospital, the doctors decided to aspirate a cyst that was inside of my right lung. This operation was to be conducted while I was fully conscious.

WARNING MILDLY INTENSE DESCRIPTION AHEAD

The procedure would involve me receiving a small amount of anesthetic in my chest and then the radiologist would insert a needle straight through my chest, puncture the lung wall and finally end up inside the cyst in my lung. The radiologist would then withdraw some of the fluid inside the cyst for analysis and then remove the needle.

Now I am a brave person but having a sharp metal object puncture your lungs (Even when done by a trained professional) is not exactly what I do on the daily. I was in need of guidance. That’s where Mr. Hyams pulled through for me.

Un-Thinking Pain

One of the martial arts masters that Hyams was seeing had to undergo surgery. The master refused anesthetic. Instead, he decided to go through the whole operation conscious with his senses undulled. When the operation was complete Hyams asked how the master had done what he did.

“Regulate your breathing, fix your eyes and mind on something else–perhaps a rock or a spot on the floor or ceiling. Concentrate on that object, savor it, taste it, give it color and smell the dimension. let it absorb all your thoughts and concentration, and the pain will diminish.”

When I was lying under the CT scanner with a needle about to go into my chest, I thought back to the old zen master’s quote and found peace in a tiny bolt on the ceiling. I let the bolt encompass my whole being. To this day, months later, I can still picture it perfectly in my mind. The tiny imperfections, how it was slightly corroded on the left side, how specifically the nut fit over-top of the washer.

Then the operation was over.

I was shocked. The focused concentration had worked so well that the time of the operation had even slipped away from me.

I didn’t intend this blog to become a list of book reviews, but from me to you, I highly recommend this book.

How I Read Books

When I read books I use a style of reading that I have adopted from my uncle but it depends on why I am reading.  In general, though, my strategy is to highlight, highlight, highlight, and then highlight some more.

For me there are three main types of reading:

1. Educational reading. If I am reading for an assignment, I highlight.

2. Enrichment reading. If I am reading for my personal knowledge, I highlight.

3. Pleasure reading. If I am reading a story for pleasure, I don’t highlight.

Highlighting for me isn’t as simple of a process as you might think. The first step, of course, is to physically highlight in the books I read. The second step is to type up every phrase I highlighted into a document on my computer.  The third step (if necessary) is to condense down the highlights, by going through the word document and only picking out the best of the best. These quotes get put into a final word document.

What exactly am I doing and why? 

The idea behind the highlighting and typing system is repetition. When you highlight something you need to go back and verify that the thing is indeed something you want to highlight and then you have to physically highlight it. What is even more important though is the typing process at the end. Going back a the end of each chapter or at the end of the book to type everything up is what truly solidifies the information in my mind. Not only does the act of typing solidify the information, but then I have a handy document from which to quickly browse through for the best quotes from a book or to refresh myself on the content of that book. The system truly is great even though it is time-consuming.

I am warning you, this system is not for everyone. Some people just don’t learn by typing things up, and others don’t have the time to dedicate to reading, yet alone highlighting and typing.  If they read a book at all its a great occasion to be celebrated. Reading has always been a big part of my life since childhood so while I may not always have time to read as much as I want, I want to do it right when I can.

This brings me to my final word of concern. If you do decide reader to take up this system be warned. You need to follow through in order for it to work. Its a careful system of checks and balances. The act of highlighting is easy and many people highlight all over the place. I am judicious with my highlights because I know that everything I highlight will need to be typed up. If I don’t think something is important enough to type up by hand then It clearly isn’t worth my time to highlight it. Make what you highlight special and important information and that information will stick with you.

If on the other hand, you highlight willy-nilly and then don’t type it up you lose the repetition. If you don’t highlight enough you have missed out on other important information.

And that’s how I read. Try out the system if you want and then let me know how it works for you!