Inevitablility

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” – Christopher Reeve

I started the day off on a good foot.

I woke up, I took a shower, I meditated for 20 minutes, I ate breakfast, I checked a few things online that I can’t check at work, then headed out the door promptly at 8:30am.

I trudged through my day at work, anxiously hopeful that this might be one of my last days at the Bank. I had a job interview last week at a company I worked for. It’s for more money and permanent (I am currently working temp.). I would absolutely LOVE to have this job. I am still waiting to hear back from.

I got home, I meditated for 30 minutes, I put laundry in the washer, I ate some dinner, then headed to my computer. There was an assignment that I wanted to take care of, it’d take a solid 3-4 hours online to complete. Instead, I found myself putting out one fire after another. I thought the domain name for my website had expired (not this website), so I’m on the phone with Yahoo! customer service. I had also just been interviewed by a website and wanted to spread the word. Instead, I come home to find my website is down.

That takes a good hour of my time to fix.

Then, I went to fill out an application and survey for the aforementioned job. This took doubly longer than I thought it would. What should have been maybe a 30 minute task took about 2 hours. I chalked it up to the difficulty of working with Microsoft Word tables, and my total desire to get this job. I’m actually going to leave a little earlier tomorrow so I can get to the library early and fax the application off.

Needless to say, the assignment isn’t getting done tonight, it will have to wait until tomorrow. No worries.

I spent the day at work listening to David D’Angelo’s Man Transformation on my ipod.

I’m only two discs into this set and have already heard a wealth of knowledge.

I have heard David D’Angelo seminars in the past, and was turned off by the esoteric knowledge he spewed throughout. His past programs seemed like they were just random utterances of whatever he was thinking at the time. Not organized at all.

Man Transformation however, is entirely different. First off, it is not strictly about meeting women, it is about improving your life as a whole. Secondly, the first two disc’s were three hours dedicated to discussing the boundaries that prevent us from achieving our goals.

David talks a lot about how there are some of us that, no matter what we do, will find it incredibly different to achieve our goals. He says that these people have problems finding the reason that will enable them to do “whatever it takes” to achieve that goal. You know how some people will go to the doctor and the doctor will say, “if you don’t stop doing x within one year, you will die?” Well, according to David D’Angelo, NINE OUT OF TEN people will simply not stop doing the thing that will kill them! So even in matters of death, many people are not motivated to make the change that will better their lives!

For a very well written article about pretty much the same concept, read Tyler’s post about the “loudness” of your “inner voice,” over at the RSD blog.

David proposes some solutions to rectify these problems. The one that resonated with me the most was called, “inevitability.” How can we make success inevitable? “What is the best way to climb a fence if you’re scared?” David asked. “By throwing our hat over the fence, then you HAVE to go get your HAT!”

With inevitability we set conditions that will make it so that we HAVE to achieve the goal.

An alcoholic steps into the doctors office and says, “Hey doc, I can’t stop drinking, what do I do?”

The doctor says, “Eh, keep drinking. But now, if you want to get a drink, you have to walk five miles across town to the bar, and then walk five miles back.”

The guy says, “okay, I can do that.”

And maybe, for a day or two he does it, but if he lives in Pittsburgh and it’s the winter, he probably doesn’t last very long. He is maybe at his house, bundling up, getting ready to go out into the cold, then says to himself, “aww, that just ain’t worth it. I’m staying inside.” He eventually ends up quitting.

The point here is to set conditions that you personally would HATE to go through. One person at the seminar swore that he would eat dog food if he didn’t practice yoga for 15 minutes a day when he woke up. Now that’s motivation.

D’Angelo also stresses accountability, because afterall, it becomes very easy to cheat if you are only held accountable to yourself. It is good to get 1 or 2 people that will encourage you to keep your goal through inevitability.

Now, some people are going to say, “oh I’ve heard this before, Mystery says to hand your friend $100 and if you don’t open, s/he gets to keep it.” Well, I’ve done this before, and my friend kept the money, and I didn’t feel too bad about it. For real change, it needs to be more drastic.

Which leads me to ask, how am I going to apply inevitability to MY life?

Well, when I look at my own priorities, I believe that women, or lack thereof is the biggest problem. Therefore,I am going to hand a friend a check of my weekly salary and ask him to cash it if I don’t open at least 3 women whenever I go out to the bar.

He will know that I have done my task because 1.) He will be out with me part of the time and 2.) I will post about them on this blog.

I am going to try this for one month. Wow, I haven’t felt this nervous since I first started going out, which coincidentally was the most I have ever opened. I opened then because I went out with lots of new guys from my lair and thought they would think I was not worthy if I didn’t open. Then I learned they were in much the same boat, and my opening whittled down to zero.

Before I go, I want to make a committment to improving the diction of this blog. I have noticed tense shifts, run-on sentences and grammatical errors in many of my posts, which is simply not acceptable. I have the Blue Book on Grammar and Punctuation waiting for me at the library and can’t wait to check it out!