You had ONE job
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This weekend we decided to go all in on potty training our son. The plan was simple. Bring out all of dad’s old Legos and just play with them and observe and act when necessary. It worked very well but there was a small bump in the road. You will be hard pressed to figure out which one of us had more fun with the Legos. I remember thinking to myself, whatever you do don’t let him pee on the carpet. Seconds later, I turned around, and he hasn’t just peed on the carpet, but right in the middle of the poor old instruction manual… I had so much fun building Legos down memory lane that I completely forgot my important job.
What lesson can we learn from this? Well, one thing is that the consequences must be severe enough to keep you on your toes. Clearly, this was not the case. And the second lesson is that Legos are exactly as fun as I remembered them. I’d say it’s the best toy in the world and I have even built several modern sets lately. What a blessing that my son turned out to be a Lego nerd too. Now I have the perfect excuse to just build for hours on end. I guess that my and my son are both as guilty of failing our jobs. His job was to go to the potty when necessary and my job was to remind him. Obviously in the end it was my responsibility because the accident happened on my watch, but what I mean is that we both had too much fun. He forgot that he had to pee and so did I. Had it been a boring task, it would probably never have happened. In such cases, the mind works overtime to find every single excuse to focus on anything else than the task at hand. Quite different from our case, where the opposite happened. We were both so focused on the single task at hand – building Legos – that the rest of the world simply ceased to exist.
In last week´s blog I talked about laying puzzles. Building Legos are just like laying a puzzle, but with another degree of freedom. A normal puzzle is 2D whereas Lego is 3D. But the conclusion from last week still stands. It takes a lot of time in the beginning to find what you need among thousands of pieces, but the further you progress on your creation, the fewer building blocks remain, and you will experience an accelerating pace in the build process. Today’s process was extremely slow, because I was digging in a big box where everything had been poured into the same box which made it near impossible to find what you seek. A technique I have used successfully is to color code your building blocks. That way you can find what you need quickly unless your collection is huge. The process of searching for the correct piece is identical. I find it very rewarding. It is probably because you watch something go from complete chaos into perfect order. The same feeling as when you have cleaned your home properly. It is such a fulfilling emotion when you finally find that piece you are looking for.
The task itself encourages focus. Personally, I cannot help it but when I get going, I go into hyper focus instantly. My mind is constantly like watching three or more TV channels at once, but certain activities can make it enter a peaceful state. Building Legos is one such activity and it has always been that way too. Another activity which gives me peace of mind is when I am driving in rush hour traffic in a very big city. What they both have in common is the hyper focus. I remember when I was passing through rush hour Kathmandu on a motorcycle. That was a state of hyper focus and I entered flow state and felt true inner peace. When driving in such conditions, every little mistake can be fatal and that WILL keep you on your toes. How interesting, now we are back to where I started this blog! If the consequences are severe enough, you will not get distracted from the task at hand. But there must be an important difference here because building with Legos will NOT kill you if you make a mistake.
Maybe it is this simple: The mistake in my case would be to NOT enter flow state in the Lego build process. We all need a little while of flow state here and there, because if not we might die on the inside. If you know what makes your own heart sing, do not hesitate. Life is way to short and you will regret it if you don’t go all in on these activities every once in a while.
Oh and by the way, the potty training was a tremendous success all in all.