Speaking of running in LA, I’m pretty sure this is the only city in which your average run could include:

*A black transvestite in a dress and fake breasts jeering “I could beat you in a race, backwards.”

*Being forced to scream at a woman’s incessant honking “He’s in a fucking turn lane, shut the fuck up”

and having her turn around and give you the finger.

*Stopping in a park to do situps to find every available grassy area occupied by homeless people or regular people having sex.

*Stopping in a different park and noticing that “futbol” is prohibited.

*Getting one of your tear ducts so clogged with sweat, smog and grit that it swells up to the point of you being told “You look like a retard. No, you literally have the features of mongoloid.” (You can guess who said that.)

*Having small children race you down the street as their parents pay no attention to the fact that their offspring running off with a shirtless teenager.

*Having a random Mexican scream from a moving car to “put a shirt on.”

*Having that instant pang of shame immediately counteracted by Mexican women cat calling from the next vehicle.

More to come, this is only from the last week.

Running in LA has provided a new means of laziness and escape. I’ve never run in a city before, only the suburbs, so the concept of being inhibited by streetlights and cross walks is rather foreign. The real struggle in a run is not so much your physical limitations but your mental ones. “I was going to do five miles but I think I’ll turn back here and do three.” On the track and in the suburbs you’re undermined by fewer temptations, fewer excuses to break the rhythm. The city is totally different–an uninterrupted mile is a rarity and a course without shortcuts, rarer still. Which, by the way, I have found to be very similar to office work. You can cut out early, drag your feet. And this too is contrasted by a running impulse–to add distance and duration regardless of the yield or return, to go slow and long instead of efficiently. But I’ll address this more later on.

So I have found myself confronted by the path of least resistance on a more regular basis than usual. If you need to cross two streets in a four-way intersection (think an L) it is very easy to “arrange” waiting for an extra light. As I approach the end of a course, the desire to slow down to miss a flashing “Don’t Walk” signal mounts. Even more so, crossing redundant streets or shortcuts leads to an almost siren-like call to end it early.

This is how life works. This is how opportunities present themselves. The world, our instincts, they often conspire against us. Think about it evolutionarily–if the qualities of greatness are rare then in many cases it means they are not best for genetic survival. The drive to head far from home, to push onward towards an arbitrary benchmark, has probably killed more people than it saved. Raynor talks about this in The Strategy Paradox, the system creates incentives for mediocrity and punishments for risk. You, I, can see signs of this everywhere. I find it–excuse the pun–on street signs. They tempt you with rest and slow the heading of progress. And your instincts were bred to indulge this impulse, they aim to save you from yourself.

Overcoming Bias wrote about a solution last week. Tell your Anti-Story. Pressfield in The War of Art, wrote that the stronger the resistance, the more you know you’re heading in the right direction. My fix has been to push through. It is exactly when the desire to stop and rest is greatest that you ought to ignore it. Even more effective, when I find myself aching for a shortcut, I add distance to the end.

But there are limits to this too, as I mentioned with hours and the office earlier. Your desire to achieve and accomplish should never be confused with the concept of work, or spending as much time there as possible. Banging your head against a wall takes a lot of determination, but what does it do? I’ve made it a point to stay (or with Rudius to sit at my laptop) for as long as I am still DOING or ACCOMPLISHING something. If the results have stopped, then it is time to stop. Come back later when you can produce again. I try to buttress running with the same philosophy. If I didn’t sleep the night before the run will leave me in worse shape than if I didn’t. If 1pm is the only time I can do it but it’s 97 degrees outside, is saying that I did it worth the subsequent dehydration? In other words, going to far with your Anti-Story is just as bad as not telling one at all.

I’ll end with the definitive word that I end everyone of these debates with:

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I

have to go to work–as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if

I’m going to do what I was born for–the things which I was brought

into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle

under the blankets and stay warm?’

–But it’s nicer here…

So you were born to feel “nice?” Instead of doing things and

experiencing them? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature

demands?

–But we have to sleep sometime…

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that–as it did on eating and

drinking. And you’re over the limit. But not of working. There you’re

still below your quota. ”

“As you “read to lead” remember that this is the time to put the pedal to the ground. All “great” people take the time from laurels to actually use the paranoia of not winning to assume that you are losing even while winning.” -The Executive*

The best part about working under people who have been we’re you have been and understand how you think is that they are able to articulate concepts that you are just coming to terms with. With both Tucker and TheExecutive, I’ll find that they will say things or encapsulate feelings that I’d thought were unique to me. Literally, exact words and phrases that I’d been too self-conscious to open up about.

The one above, I remember discussing with the girlfriend months ago–as though it was a bad thing. I was attempting to make sense of what I felt was a serial lack of satisfaction. That at each of my last major crests during the last year, the enjoyment was fleeting. It wasn’t recognition that I enjoyed but the chase. And that when I could have been coasting or tasting the fruits of labor–all I felt was it slipping away. So you can use that to your advantage, let that drive you. At my age–at 20–do I deserve laurels? Where would I get off coasting? Such a sense of entitlement is no different than the selfishness that propels people to laziness and lethargy.

In never taking the heat of, you press on harder while everyone else is resting. When the “scared to death of reality” crowd is spending their parentally funded year in Europe, I’ll be out doing what I love–setting the framework for a lifetime of it instead of taking a deep breath before going under. As the self-congratulators stop moving in order to pat themselves on the back is exact moment at which you can sprint ahead. It’s sort of an internal Peter Principle that infects people. They rise to the equilibrium where accomplishment and a diminished fear of failure meet and find comfort and insulation. It’s what creates 35 year old assistants and permanent middle-managers. The allure of security is there for those that want it, but if you want to rise to a position of power, connection and wisdom then listen to the quote from a man who has been there.

I’ve felt this way for a while. I finally realized that it was that tendency–to never stop and say “It’s safe now, I can walk.”–that has separated me from others. But the benefit of the mentor/protégé relationship is the ability to have these conclusions validated. Or in other cases, to have mindsets corrected and paths set straight. I like to be very cognizant of the fact that I could have easily gone the wrong way. What if I’d decided that I had a problem, was too driven for comfort? Instead of being here in Hollywood, writing I’d be at home like every other summer, having worn out my welcome in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As you gravitate towards those who understand you–whatever you happen to be–you’re able to eliminate much of the trail and error aspect of it. When Aurelius said that we ought to look at time and how little we have of it, I think he had this in mind. Cut waste ruthlessly, always look for ways to avoid dead ends, and when you do fuck up, learn all you can from it so you don’t have to do it again.

Of course there is a very fine line between being driven and being obsessed. If that sense inadequacy never goes away then you are chasing an addiction. If accomplishment is the only cure for depression then it is the depression that is the problem. I have been there. Sometimes I feel like I am still there. But that fear is healthy, for there is nothing noble about being a dressed up endorphin addict. You don’t want to be Sammy–you want to know why you’re running and be proud of it.

*I’ve been scarce on the details of my new job, but I got permission to write about some of it. My boss doesn’t want to be named so we’re going to call him TheExecutive and we’ll call the company TheAgency.