[Mad Hatter] Don’t squash the banana

[Mad Hatter]

Placeholder so I won’t procrastinate further. 
 

 

 

(I swear there’s a point to the challenge title that’s more than an excuse to post banana gifs)

[Alanna]

But... what if you want to make banana bread? or banana pancakes?? 

 

[Epsilonte]

 

[KB Girl]

🤔

[WhiteGhost]

[sarakingdom]

 

 

 

[milythael]

You must be "this much banana" to post here.  Criteria accepted.

[Harriet]

[Waanie]

[Stronkey Kong]

[PaulG]

[Scaly Freak]

[sarakingdom]

[Alanna]

[Tobbe]

I was randomly linked this today and just had to go find your thread to post it in

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

This thread is so glorious I kinda don't want to ruin it by writing anything. 😄 

 

But fine, it's about time! So the challenge title actually comes from a climbing blog post turned book turned podcast series*, which I recently binged and really got me rethinking not only my approach to climbing but goals in general. The series is about hard truths, or the lies we like telling ourselves about why we're not improving at climbing. I say climbing because that's where the focus is, but I found many of the lessons applicable to anything really. And there were many lessons that hit home. 

*The blog posts are purposefully inflammatory, the tone in the podcast is a lot more nuanced and interesting IMO.

 

Let's start with the challenge title.

 

Don't squash the banana is about commitment (tl;dr to break a banana in half without squashing it you need to commit). I'm at a point where committing to anything has me reeling back. To the point where every time I've sat down to write down some goals I'd automatically turn to another online puzzle. 🙈 I don't know if it's FOMO, or not wanting to fail yet again, or not wanting to make sacrifices, or because goals are really arbitrary and "don't matter". But goals don't need to have a point, and I hear they're pretty good for the brain too (those sweet sweet dopamine hits!) 

 

But more on that some other time, it's not really what the article is about. For me perhaps the most relevant thing is the part about basically self sabotage.

 

Quote

Your day didn’t go exactly as planned.  Let me guess… you had every intention of getting on your hardest route yet, but a whole host of issues teamed up against you and kept you from it.  You didn’t bring enough food or water, and felt hungry or dehydrated.  It got dark too fast.  Your skin hurt.  Somebody was projecting it and hanging all over, and you just couldn’t wait.  You forgot your good shoes at home.  You didn’t get to bed until too late.  You forgot coffee that morning.

 

I do this ALL the time. I have an idea of things I'd like to do, but then I end up for example working all day, getting tired, not eating or drinking enough. Or the other day, when I wanted to sneak in a quick climbing session, after having already walked for 2.5 hours in the heat with only an ice coffee as sustenance. I left after 20 minutes since I was struggling with the easiest of warm up climbs. 🤦‍♀️ 

 

Which leads nicely to my first goal, which is to stop getting distracted by work. It's the least of my priorities. No coding past 3. And if do get distracted or end up in a late discussion I'll simply work less the next day.

 

Also post a plan for the next day. 

 

The plan for tomorrow/later is to:

• Post some concrete goals. (Right now I need to go to bed before it starts getting light(er) soon otherwise there's a risk I won't sleep at all haha!)
• Write more musings on one of the podcast episodes (this will be a bit of a journaling challenge because things are looping in my head and writing it out helps)
• Find an art class (freeform art goals don't seem to work right now) 
• Stretch my lower body (it feels uncomfortably stiff after lots of recent walking)

I'm purposefully only adding really easy things to the list today so I can do them even if vaccination side effects will kick in. 

 

Phew, initial hurdle complete!

[Scaly Freak]

Wow, lots of introspection and difficult insights there. I like your challenge approach, and applaud you for facing the difficulties head on. 

 

Now, careful with that banana!

 

[Alanna]

7 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Don't squash the banana is about commitment (tl;dr to break a banana in half without squashing it you need to commit).

 

You had me fooled with your "handstands" tag - I thought the banana reference was about handstand form (although maybe you do want to squash banana-shaped handstands 😆). Instead it's a really cool metaphor with a sneaky physics lesson tied in!

 

You may feel like your recent challenges haven't been successfully, but you've obviously thought a lot about why you haven't been making the progress you want and figured out what's holding you back. That puts you in great shape for this challenge and I'm looking forward to seeing you break some bananas!

 

 

(but if life gives you some metaphorical squashed bananas, I still suggest making metaphorical banana bread)

 

And of course those of us with wonky sleep schedules need to stick together.

[Waanie]

I love the metaphore! 

14 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Which leads nicely to my first goal, which is to stop getting distracted by work. It's the least of my priorities. No coding past 3. And if do get distracted or end up in a late discussion I'll simply work less the next day.

How are you going to do this? Set a timer, or something else? I might also be a workaholic myself .

[Harriet]

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Don't squash the banana is about commitment (tl;dr to break a banana in half without squashing it you need to commit). I'm at a point where committing to anything has me reeling back. To the point where every time I've sat down to write down some goals I'd automatically turn to another online puzzle. 🙈 I don't know if it's FOMO, or not wanting to fail yet again, or not wanting to make sacrifices, or because goals are really arbitrary and "don't matter". But goals don't need to have a point, and I hear they're pretty good for the brain too (those sweet sweet dopamine hits!) 

 

I like this illustration. Do not break bananas hesitantly.

 

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Which leads nicely to my first goal, which is to stop getting distracted by work. It's the least of my priorities. No coding past 3. And if do get distracted or end up in a late discussion I'll simply work less the next day.

 

It is excellent to know what your priorities are. This is good.

 

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

• Find an art class (freeform art goals don't seem to work right now) 

Oh yeah. Let me know what you find. I'm also struggling with self direction. And with classes. I don't know what I want.

[sylph]

Here. Off to read that blog post and likely back later with something more insightful to say. (I mean, or not, but I'm here anyway)

[Elastigirl]

Following.Interested to hear more about your musings on the post.

[Mad Hatter]

22 hours ago, Tobbe said:

I was randomly linked this today and just had to go find your thread to post it in

That song is stupidly catchy! How are you doing anyway? 🙂

 

14 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

Wow, lots of introspection and difficult insights there. I like your challenge approach, and applaud you for facing the difficulties head on. 

 

Now, careful with that banana!

 

I'll try!

 

13 hours ago, Alanna said:

You had me fooled with your "handstands" tag - I thought the banana reference was about handstand form (although maybe you do want to squash banana-shaped handstands 😆). Instead it's a really cool metaphor with a sneaky physics lesson tied in!

 

You may feel like your recent challenges haven't been successfully, but you've obviously thought a lot about why you haven't been making the progress you want and figured out what's holding you back. That puts you in great shape for this challenge and I'm looking forward to seeing you break some bananas!

 

 

(but if life gives you some metaphorical squashed bananas, I still suggest making metaphorical banana bread)

 

And of course those of us with wonky sleep schedules need to stick together.

Squashed banana handstands are pretty epic! 😄

 

Hmm I'd rather take literal banana bread. 🤤

 

This time of year when it doesn't get dark I give up on normal sleep. 😛 

 

6 hours ago, Waanie said:

I love the metaphore! 

How are you going to do this? Set a timer, or something else? I might also be a workaholic myself .

I'm far from a workaholic, I just get distracted easily. 😛 I've set a timer, but I'm going to try scheduling meetings with myself as well so I get on-screen notifications too.  

 

3 hours ago, Harriet said:

I like this illustration. Do not break bananas hesitantly.

 

 

It is excellent to know what your priorities are. This is good.

 

Oh yeah. Let me know what you find. I'm also struggling with self direction. And with classes. I don't know what I want.

Still working on figuring out my priorities! But I know my job is not one of them.

 

2 hours ago, sylph said:

Here. Off to read that blog post and likely back later with something more insightful to say. (I mean, or not, but I'm here anyway)

No need to, just happy to have you around!

 

1 hour ago, Elastigirl said:

Following.Interested to hear more about your musings on the post.

Yay!

[Epsilonte]

Sounds like a great plan!

I'm looking forward to your podcast musings.

[Tobbe]

On 6/23/2021 at 9:55 PM, Mad Hatter said:

That song is stupidly catchy! How are you doing anyway? 🙂

 

I know, right?! Totally not my kind of music, but still couldn't stop listening 👂🐍

 

I'm good, you? Since this is NF after all, I'll give you the real answer.

I'm working myself into the ground. I'm working my regular dayjob, I've joined up with some dude I met online and we're building a sports-coach related web app, I'm still doing my own e-commerce side project, and I'm pretty deeply involved in an open source project. Everything is a lot of fun, except for my dayjob. But that's the only one who currently makes me any money, so I have to continue doing that. Because of all the work I'm doing I'm not sleeping, not exercising and not spending time on hobbies and generally feeling stressed out too much. Looking in the mirror I've aged 10 years, and my body is hurting/aching too. I keep telling myself it's for a limited time. "Just need to finish" and it'll be all good. And I still believe that, but it's been too long now. The community around the open source project is the best, and I constantly learn new things. Technical things of course, but also a lot about the other, softer, skills needed to call myself a senior software developer. Also a lot about running your own business and being an entrepreneur. 

Also I'm struggling with what to do with my relationship with my wife. I know you know it's been rocky before. "Meh" and "Whatever" are the two words I can come up with to describe what I feel about it right now. I'm not unhappy enough to leave, but also wouldn't care much if she decided to leave. At least I don't think so. Can you really know until it happens?