[antifragile 4 🔥] crowding out bad habits, making space during insane days, Modern Family on appreciation, Marcus Aurelius on comparison
#19: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.
Despite what the news says, today is an incredible day to be alive. 🌎
Welcome to the 19th edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.
It’s a weekly 4-item newsletter from The Antifragile Dad created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind. Some weeks will have a theme, others will meander. Expect it every Friday.
Here’s this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:
an idea💡 on crowding out bad habits
a practice 🧘🏻♂️ of making space in an otherwise insane day
a Modern Family scene 🎥 on appreciating the time we have with our kids.
a quote 🏛️ from Marcus Aurelius on comparison
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1.) an idea💡 on crowding out bad habits
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
-Simone Weil
I ended a previous newsletter with this quote and it popped back into my head while discussing bad habits with a fellow dad.
He was looking at Twitter too much (again) and was scheming on ways to address the problem.
Maybe delete the app?
Maybe block it with Freedom?
Maybe simply some more discipline would do the trick?
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve personally been down this road. Here’s how it normally goes:
Bad habit reemerges 👋
Become aghast over reemergence of bad habit 😱
Lambasts self for lack of discipline (bad Chris!) 😠
Channels Jocko Willink and creates scorched-earth plan to eviscerate bad habit 🔥
Enacts Operation Scorched Earth (LETS DO THIS 🚀)
(Two days later) Turns out scorched-earth plans are hard to sustain. Burns out from plan 🥵
Uses original bad habit as comforting mechanism 🙈
Return to Step 1 ⏎
But what if “sins” (bad habits) are simply attempts to fill voids?
If that’s true, then removing the sin (bad habit) ain’t gonna fix the problem. You need to get filled up with something else.
Enter the alternative method; Crowding them out.
Filling your life up with something(s) that you, for lack of a better description, fucking love.
Do you know what my most successful strategy is for not looking at Twitter/Instagram/news compulsively only my phone?
It wasn’t deleting the app.
It wasn’t Freedom.
It wasn’t summoning my inner Jocko.
It was becoming obsessed with triathlons.
I loved every inch of it - the movement, the discipline, the health, the gear, the strategy, the history, the metrics, the culture, the community. Planning, training and recovering took up a massive slice of my daily mental pie (too much if you ask my wife 😅).
And almost overnight (and completely unintentionally) the dopamine hits from compulsive Twitter/Instagram/news lost their teeth. They just kind of, went away. Poof. There was no room left for them.
This solution, as all the best are, is a win/win.
You get more of something you love, and it leaves less room for something you don’t.
But how to find that thing you love?
I trust that you already have a few ideas. Plus this post is already way too long (didn’t I promise a short newsletter?).
Crowd out those bad habits instead of trying to white-knuckle them away.
Shout out to Matt L for the inspiring chat.
2.) a practice 🧘🏻♂️ of making space in an otherwise insane day
Entry in my journal: Jude and Adley must have colluded. Because otherwise, how in the fuck could it be possible that they decided to cluster feed & grow 2-year-old molars on the same day?
As a dad of young kids, it’s easy to go from one task to the next to the next to the next without taking a breath until you collapse ass-up into your pillow at 11PM.
Between kids and work and house and family and fitness and groceries and shit, did I lock the back door? - days can feel like one, long StressFest.
Expressing this to Jenna one day, she had a suggestion passed on from a friend.
This friend insists that no matter what, you find 10 minutes in your day and break it into:
5 Minutes of Silence (Meditation if you want)
5 Minutes of Brief Journaling (Focusing on challenges + how you’d prefer they go next time)
Honestly, if you just take the first 5 minutes it’s worth it.
It might not seem like much, but intentionally breaking up your day - especially the crazy ones - has a powerfully refreshing impact.
Take a minute (or 5, or 10) and make some space.
Shout out to Jenna for the rec!
3.) a Modern Family scene 🎥 on appreciating the time we have with our kids.
4.) a quote 🏛️ from Marcus Aurelius on comparison
Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility. For thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such thoughts as these, What is such a person doing, and why, and what is he saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving, and whatever else of the kind makes us wander away from the observation of our own ruling power.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Book 3
Translation: Stop comparing yourself to others, dummy. Live your own beautiful life.
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Two last things for you this week:
Find 5 minutes to break up the day - it will be worth it.
Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥
With love,
Chris