Keep Going

People always say "don't be too hard on yourself", but I think the danger is being too easy on yourself. People shouldn't be so quick to forgive themselves.

I am not some self-punishing masochist. What I mean is that a lot of times we let things go. Frankly, we BS stuff, we half-ass stuff, and we tell ourselves it's ok. Who cares. Whatever. The cost is small.

The real cost is that you have not done your best. You have not used all the energy, all the brainpower, all the time you have available to you. For example, at work, when I start to feel a little bit tired, I let myself work at a leisurely pace. Or when I see a small stain on a customer's clothes (I work in the dry cleaning business), I bag it anyways. And maybe the customer will see, maybe he won't. But you can't know. So why not be thorough with all the orders?

The same philosophy applies to dieting. Eating that one cookie after dinner really is not going to harm you. But if you lose that battle, if you let that go, then you are likely to cut yourself slack in other areas of your diet. Pretty soon you've visibly gained weight. So you decide to work out. But when working out, you also cut yourself slack. Just as your legs get a little tired, you feel a little thirsty, you stop. You forgive yourself. You tell yourself that really, you've done your best. But the weight still sits there, there's still energy left, to do one more lap, well, actually three. But you don't know that because you've always stopped well below your limit.

Now the question is:

When should you push yourself to your limits?
If the larger purpose of performing to the best of your ability is to increase the quality of your life, to make yourself a more efficient, stronger person later on, don't make yourself too miserable. Don't sacrifice the quality of your life now too much, in order to save for the future, when it is, as we all know, never certain. The present, however, is certain.
But we often use this argument falsely, in order to forgive ourselves and make excuses. The challenge is when to know when you are "being too hard on yourself." Also, where do you push yourself? If, for example, I hate public speaking, should I make myself do it? Sometime we have to pick and choose where to put all our energies. If you divide yourself amongst too many, you end up doing nothing to the best of your abilities. But that's a different issue altogether: trusting other people, trusting that the areas that you cannot fill
In general, you often pay for not doing the best you can on each thing you do then not.

The other question is time. There is no such thing as extra time or extra money.
Laziness saves you time now, then costs time later, when you have to fix it.
The caveat is sometimes BSing things cuts time down that you could use to do something else worthwhile.
As for money, my sister recently made the point that she need not exert herself too much to find work because the money she currently makes fulfills her current expenses. Of course, if she made additional money, she wouldn't have to take out as large a loan for college; she could invest it and make more interest; she could give it to charity. If she used all she had to make the maximum money she could, she might end up regretting it. But more likely, she would regret NOT doing so.

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When I went down to Chico to visit my aunt and uncle, I was surprised to learn that my limit was much much more than I have ever used or thought I had.

First, when I went to work at their dry cleaners. I believed that I was a thorough, efficient person. Oh no. They do not stop over there. At first I thought that that was too much. It was inhumane and unhealthy. Actually, forcing yourself to pay even more attention to the little details, to not let even a single minute go to waste, to always be moving, was extremely healthy. I found the work more rewarding, less monotonous than usual when I could immerse myself in the nuances of the job. And when I had finished the tasks I was assigned, I looked for more to do. And there was ALWAYS more to do. Again, no such thing as extra time. By the time I finished the day (working from 7am to 6:30 pm!! Stopping only for a short lunch break, and work through those occasional nags of hunger that I used to indulge immediately, but realizing that my body had plenty of energy and didn't need that much refueling), I was truly exhausted. I slept better, ate better than I ever had before. I think everyone should go to their dry cleaners and learn that valuable lesson.