Quitting vs Re-evaluating

I think I was first introduced to the idea of ethically there being no difference between action and inaction by Peter Singer’s famous essay: On Famine, Affluence and Morality, in which he argues that the wealthy who do not give to the poor have culpability for the outcomes of this inaction.  It’s an interesting thought experiment and naturally lends itself to questions of where exactly to draw the line.  In regular day to day local politics, we often see this in action.  Where should the income tax strata be set?  Are we in favour of universal basic income?  What do we define as poverty level for the purposes of subsidized housing, food assistance, tuition grants and so on?  These are all questions on the basic theme of: how much should the haves help the have-nots?  And who are the haves and have-notes?  And how much of the having and not having is due to luck, character, privilege, and hard work?  Obviously, there is a broad spectrum of opinion in this area leading to the lively political and social debate which characterizes the western world.  We are not generally agreeable to allowing mass death in the streets, nor do we feel that income over a certain level should be taxed so heavily that it discourages the generation of more income.

Our personal economy

Today I want to talk about how to apply these concepts in your own personal life.  Each of us has about four thousand weeks to get all the stuff done we want to.  Conceptually, we all have projects which are the haves in our internal economy.  They always get the time and attention they need.  And we have projects which are the have nots.  No matter how many times we place them on our top ten list, we never seem to get to them.  Unlike actual real life humans of course, the have nots of our personal projects may or may not be deserving of the basics of life; we may be better served by explicitly deciding to stop feeling bad about not getting to them, and instead acknowledge that, at least for now, they are not where we want to spend our attention.  Failing to bring intention and insight to this decision mires us in vague negativity and is not in integrity with our inner values.

So the food for thought here is: do the “have” projects need more time and attention, or should your internal governance structure tax them a little more heavily in order to direct attention onto some of your “have-not” projects?  In other words, how much more Netflix do you need to watch in your life and how many more slices of cake or new outfits do you need?  Can you restructure the way you think about self-care to be more in line with making wise decisions for your future self and not in terms of denying yourself harmless pleasure?  When you are not meeting your own internal goals, sit with this discomfort rather than abandoning the goal, ignoring the inconsistency or telling yourself a story that you are not the kind of person who can follow through on goals they set for themself.  Maybe you will decide to modify the goal, or maybe you won’t, but deliberately generating insight into this process and not being in a hurry to take action will likely serve you better.

TL;DR

Months ago, I set an intention to spend time daily on blogging.  I have never blogged every day in a week and I have a once weekly publishing schedule.  Instead of feeling bad about not meeting my goal, I am going to reflect on the fact that I have published more than 6 months of weekly blog posts and adjust my blogging goal to be – generate one post a week.