The Practicing Mind

The Practicing Mind

Author: Thomas M. SternerNew World Library: 2012

While this book is a self-help title and thoroughly unscientific in its approach to the topic of cognition, the author's approach to managing the cognitive functions to focus on the process of achieving a goal, rather than on the goal itself, seem worthwhile to consider, particularly in designing user experiences.

Introduction1. The Learning Begins2. Process, Not Product3. It's How You Look at It4. Creating the Habits We Desire5. Perception Change Creates Patience!6. The Four "S" Words7. Equanimity and DOC8. Teach and Learn from Children9. Your Skills Are GrowingIntroduction

The author starts off in a rather weak, using the metaphor of the "journey of life" and suggesting that "peace and contentment" can be found by taking a process-oriented approach to thinking. He observes that goal-oriented thinking is a learned process - and that as children people find the world to be a wondrous and enchanting place precisely because they have no purpose in life except to enjoy living.

Attempting to accomplish something means striving and being dissatisfied in the meantime. A person who can play the piano well takes pride in the ability, but seldom reflects on the years of practice it took to develop that skill and the frustration they felt at the difficulty of the learning process. It was an unpleasant struggle.

Much of life is spent the unpleasant struggle to achieve, being unhappy until we have finished something and even then taking a very short time to discover some new thing we want and going through the cycle of unhappiness all over again. We never get to the point where we have achieved all we wanted and can relax and be happy. We seldom appreciate the journey, and feel stressed and unhappy far more often than we feel satisfaction in our lives.

If we could learn to focus on experiencing life - or more aptly, if we can remember how to do that - we can free ourselves from a great deal of stress and misery. We can learn to feel happiness before we have reached the goal, and we can be more able to sort out which goals are worth pursuing. That is the author's purpose in the present book.

1 - The Learning Begins

Virtually everything one might achieve requires learning and practice. That is, in order to be able to do something, you must learn to do it and practice doing it.

For example, children show great interest in music, but do not enjoy learning and practicing: they want to become skilled right away so they can play effortlessly. The slow and painstaking process of learning is onerous and many children lose interest - some of them, through force of will or force of parents, soldier through their lessons and eventually learn to play well, and find pleasure in exercising their skill.

The author relates his own childhood experience in this regard, and suggests that this continued for many years Into his twenties, he was "a pretty good musician by most people's standards" and played gigs in bars and country clubs. He was unable to make a living at it, but the lesson he took is that "practice" is not limited to music or the arts, but is applicable to any skill.

(EN: I've trimmed quite a lot - it was a long and very self-indulgent account.)

He then talks about golfing, which is also a learned skill. He notes that whenever he goes out on the links, he seldom notices anyone who is very good at playing golf. Most of them are thoroughly rotten. Naturally, there are those who are extremely frustrated with their lack of ability on the course, but for the most part these terrible golfers seem to be enjoying the activity nonetheless.

There's a bit of a shift on this example to the notion of learning: bad golfers seem to assume that playing the game is a natural talent, and think they can learn to play just by watching others and experimenting. That never works out. In some activities, it is fairly obvious that a lot of training is necessary - nobody would assume they could become good at playing piano just by watching others do it, but that's exactly how they approach the game of golf.

He goes a bit floral about mental attitude, expressing that our mindset impacts our experience and perception. A healthy attitude enables a person to see things positively, to have the self-confidence, motivation, and patience to take action - it enables us to weather difficulty and minor setbacks without becoming discouraged.

Switch to the notion of multitasking - it is not merely enough to be doing something with every moment of every day, but now we are expected to do multiple things all at once. That sounds like a great idea, but it has in many instances reached an absurd level - such that our attention is so dispersed that we don't really focus on everything.

On top of that, there is so much competition for attention. The author mentions a party for his six-year old daughter. There was loud music over the main sound system, and another sound system that played a different music from the house PA, six television monitors playing different programs, about half a dozen video games all making noise to get attention, etc. It was a cacophony of "background" noise in which nothing could be discerned clearly, and it made conversation virtually impossible.

This is all very recent, and the human mind wasn't made to cope with it. We are not geared to pay attention to multiple things while doing multiple other things. Whether we consciously realize it or not, it is agitating and stressful. The mind does not perform, well under these conditions. The "practicing mind" is quiet, and focuses on one thing very closely - and the act of thinking should be relaxed and meditative rather than struggling for attention against the din.

He mentions that this is not a new problem in the present age - that there was a "centuries old" story about a "Roman" chariot drawn by four horses, which represent the mind that runs in multiple directions. (EN: It was Greek and there were two horses, positive and negative passions of the soul, with the chariot representing the body and the driver the mind.) The point is the need to control the thoughts to control your life - and that if you fail to exert control you have no power.

His point in writing this book is to share what he's learned about the process of getting the horses pulling together and steering the chariot rather than being dragged along - but he emphasizes again that it is an ongoing process rather than a destination.

He then goes off on another rambled braid of personal stories, repeating some of the above (piano lessons, golf) and adding a few more (trying to commit to exercise) and meanwhile mentioning that he is self-taught about world religion and philosophy, and a job he worked as a piano tuner. He's all smug and full of wisdom and wants to share the secrets of life he's discovered.

(EN: I sense I'm getting snarky here because he's such an obvious narcissist and is abjectly begging for respect in these long-winded and self-aggrandizing narratives. But I do sense he may be onto something, though it is likely going to take some work to peel back the layers of egotism to get to the kernel of value.)

2 - Process, Not Product

There's a long ramble about the game of golf. It takes lots of practicing to make the game fun, and because it is not fun people tend to neglect to practice at it. It takes a great deal of discipline to buckle down and do the work, and this is the reason many people become discouraged. They do not have the patience to apply themselves diligently enough to get up the steepest part of the learning curve.

There's more meditating on how people trying to do too many things and end up doing them all very poorly because they do not focus on anything sufficiently. It is ironic that it takes a lot more effort to do something badly, and spreading oneself so thinly guarantees that everything will be a struggle. People who are very good at something make it seem effortless - and it is, for them.

He obliquely describes the Zen-like notion of doing what you are doing. When you are practicing, you are doing exactly that. If you focus too much on the desired outcome, you lose perspective of your current activity. This inattentiveness to the process often prevents reaching a satisfactory outcome.

He mentions the idea of "good practicing" - which means paying attention to the process of achieving a goal. If the process is not done well, the outcome will not be good. You do not achieve things by wanting to a achieve them, but by doing the things that are necessary to reach that destination. And ideally, you should find joy in the process.

He mulls over the act of learning something, which is observational and conceptual, which is different than practicing as the latter means actually doing something, and often doing it attentively and repetitively. You can learn what it means to draw a straight line without a ruler very easily - but to do it requires a lot of practice.

Much self-help literature is focused on the goal and ignores the process. It is assumed that the desire to be finished doing something will motivate people to do it well. The result is that they want to do it quickly and fail to do it well because their eyes are on the outcome rather than the process of achieving it. They pay little attention to what they are doing and take little pleasure in the journey. Or said another way - focusing on the goal keeps us from living in the present, because the goal hasn't occurred yet.

More zen-like musings that focusing your attention on the present reduces stress and enables the mind to focus on what is essential and ignore the distractions. It's "being where we are." He suggests that failing to focus on what's before us causes us to make more mistakes, and to feel greater anxiety about them, because the mistake is a barrier to the goal.

If it is a mistake to focus on the goal so much you lose site of the moment, it is also a mistake to focus so much on the moment that you lose sight of the goal. The goal is necessary to target your actions to an outcome - but that is all. It's like the pin in a map that marks the destination, which gives you a sense of which direction to move in the moment, but it doesn't tell you the route, or how to take each step.

Ironically, he mentions the very act of writing this book. He feels that if his goal was to get to the end of each chapter, he would not do a very good job of exploring the topic of the present one.

Back to the topic of mistakes: they should not be stressful because they guide you to the goal. He uses the example of tossing balls into a cup. The first ball doesn't make it into the cup, but tells you how to adjust your throw on the next one. It may take a number of tries before you get it quite right, and what you learn from each failure guides you closer to success in the next try.

Repetition is part of practice, and trial-and-error is necessary to success. But more importantly, if you are anxious to achieve the goal, you are often failing to pay attention to what you are doing. Each miss is a failure than brings frustration, not an attempt that imparts learning.

"Judgment redirects and wastes our energy" when we are predicting the outcome of an attempt. Even if we are hopeful of a positive outcome, it takes our minds out of the present moment, causes us to rush, and generally draws our attention from where it needs to be.

It is human nature to be impatient with life. We take action in hopes of achieving an outcome and, except for leisure activities, we focus on the outcome and fail to experience the process. It takes great effort to stay "in the moment" - and there's a great deal of religious teaching that attempts to remind men of the importance of doing so.

Western culture, religion, and philosophy lacks this perspective, and we are taught in every aspect of life to show great interest for the outcome. The process is an inefficient inconvenience and we are coached to ignore it almost completely and keep our eyes on the goal.

It's not about playing a game, but about who wins

It's not about learning, but about the grades you earn

It's not about doing good work, but getting a raise

The irony of this perspective is that we are so focused on the outcome that we neglect to do the things that are necessary to achieve it. And worse, we seek to take shortcuts, even at the expense of ethics, to get what we want faster. It is the reason people cheat, lie, and steal.

But neither does he propose the exact opposite, which is what society seems to do. The educational system recognizes that grades aren't meaningful, seeks to encourage and reward participation, and student are even worse off than before. Goals direct our actions, so we cannot dispense with one for the sake of the other - but instead seek to accommodate both.

Another personal account follows about the author's struggle as a student, his desire to do better and frustration at his inability. Grades were the measure of success but provided no guidance for the process of learning. And so he developed a dread of math and a sense of inadequacy. This is not at all uncommon among students. And the attempts of the educational system to address the problems have been entirely misguided and uneffective - and so they do more of the same: more homework, more testing, more pressure on the student to somehow improve his learning from a system that will not improve its teaching methods.

He shifts to the commercial sector, particularly in the rise of Japan as an industrial superpower. The Japanese have a long-standing cultural tradition of being process-oriented at attempting to do things perfectly by placing very intense focus on the activities that lead to an outcome. While the west is concerned with piece-count, Japan is concerned with perfection - and it is perfectly acceptable in their culture to spend quite a lot of time achieving the best outcome. The blacksmith who invests six months in a single sword is not a laggard, but a craftsman whose skill is respected. And as proof of the value of this perspective, consider their unquestioned dominance in the consumer electronics industry.

There's a brief mention of the western focus on instant gratification and the credit-card culture of getting things right away without the necessity of earning them - and the grave damage that has done to many in a culture of debt. Leap to the brevity of happiness that is produced because the novelty wears off quickly. Leap to the pleasure of anticipation, and the feeling of accomplishment that lingers when we have worked hard to earn something.

Another shift to corporate management, specifically the way in which interest in short-term profits undermines the long-term health of the organization and its employees. The present financial crisis, and arguably every crisis for the past few centuries, stems from the same perspective.

He insists that most people will agree that these attitudes are pervasive and counterproductive, but that they feel that it is unstoppable and unwilling to change their own habits. His hope is that the reader has come realize this and is genuinely interested in making a positive change.

3 - It's How You Look at It

The author speaks in a roundabout way about an obsession with perfection - the desire not merely to do something well, but to achieve the pinnacle of excellence. It's not enough to run a marathon, but to win the most popular race and break every record in doing so. The problem is that the vast majority of people will never do so - and for the very few that do, what then?

He speaks a bit about the way in which the media creates unrealistic expectations. The models and actors are perfect-looking people that lead average-looking people to be miserable with their own appearance. The lifestyles depicted are far more lavish than most people will ever be able to have, and the events more exciting than most will ever experience. Commercials depict the experience of owning a product as total satisfaction of desire that the real experience will not deliver, and suggest we should be unhappy until we have obtained it.

In sum, all of these influences serve to distort our perspective of our present selves, making us discontented and misleading us as to the pursuits that will lead us to happiness.

He backpedals a bit, suggesting that it is healthy to have sources of inspiration, and those who accomplish great things can serve as role models. But when we expect that we have the ability to achieve their results and use such individuals as benchmarks, we will end up disappointed and dejected.

Also, if you delve into the history of anyone who has had great success you will find that it didn't come easily to them. The star athlete invests years of training, hours every day, with coaches and trainers. It's important to be mindful that we cannot expect that we can step onto a golf course after taking a couple of lessons and duplicate their performance. We want the goal, but want to skip the process of achieving it.

He speaks of nature: at what point in the life of a flower has its bloom achieved perfection? In one sense, it is never perfect, as close inspection will show flaws even when it may seem to be ideal. In another sense, it is always perfect - it is perfect at being exactly what it is. (EN: This carries on a while and gets quite silly, but the point is well-taken that things are such as they are, and it is only mankind who is disappointed with himself for failing to be what he imagines he ought to be, and that this is entirely unnatural.)

There's another diversion about failing to be in-the-moment because we distract ourselves from the moment with thoughts of other things. We completely miss the present moment for thoughts of future moments that are often less important. There are instances, and rather few, when we are totally immersed in something and the rest of the world fades away - but these tend to be few and far between.

It's impossible to see oneself when we are in this state, but it's likely we have seen this in others: people who play video games become very zoned into what they are doing, completely oblivious to the outside world or any future event. People can get the same way while watching a movie or reading a book, or absorbed in other recreational activities. For many, part of the pleasure is being deeply engaged.

Interestingly, we tend to give full focus to things that are not particularly productive or important - and this is because we choose to do so. When attending to a necessary task, we are eager to complete the task and not very focused on the process. When we engage in pleasant activity, we plan for it and seek to immerse ourselves fully.

He refers to the Zen concept of the "beginner's mind" in which a person who is doing something for the first time must focus their full concentration on getting it right - and as they become more adept at an activity it is not necessary to give it full attention and they become lackadaisical and inattentive. In essence, they are on "autopilot" and this is where mistakes and accidents occur. (EN: The notion of "highway hypnosis" comes to mind as a good example.)

Aside of the danger of failing to focus on tasks such as driving or operating heavy equipment, there is also a lack of satisfaction that comes from failing to ne engaged even in a pleasant activity. Imagination is not as engaging as the stimulation of our senses, and that stimulation only occurs in the present moment.

He also notes that in the workplace, we seek to avoid failure rather than achieve success. We do not seek satisfaction from doing good work, but instead seek to avoid the punishment for failure to complete work on time and to meet the expectations others have of us. The fear of being reprimanded or fired, fear of the negative effects to the family that depends on our income, etc. creep into our minds and rob us of any satisfaction.

This also brings to mind the way in which work degrades quality of life even when a person is not on the job. The stress they experience in the office bleeds into their home life, such that they cannot be in the moment when spending time with family, but are always thinking of things at the office.

He mentions the profession of acting. Method actors are "in character" and deliver compelling performances by immersing themselves in their role. They are not distracted by themselves, but in the role of the fictional character and the moment in the drama that they are portraying. Most people have difficulty doing that in their real lives.

The author's advice is simply to endeavor to be process-oriented, even in work that is mundane or unpleasant. Keep your mind on the present and retrain your focus when you find yourself thinking about other things or other times. Be attentive to what you are doing at each moment. "This produces inner peace and you accomplish more with less effort."

He admits this is not the easiest thing to do, but it's worthwhile - and it also takes practice to compel your mind to focus. It will become easier over time.

4 - Creating the Habits We Desire

Being present-minded is achieved in much the same way as any other habitual practice: it requires effort to apply and practice. It is all the more difficult for those who have fallen into the habit of being absent-minded, particularly if they are unaware of it. Disconnecting our thoughts from our actions does not make us efficient but "takes away all our real power."

Training oneself is much like training another person. You must first observe them to recognize what they are doing wrong. Then, suggest a more productive course of action. Then, remain attentive to ensure that the suggestion is followed and provide continued guidance and support until the suggestion becomes the normal way the student does things. Of importance, an instructor must be patient. He does not get emotional when his student doesn't understand or moves off the right path, but gently guides him back to where he ought to be. He accepts less-than-perfect performance because it is progress. He goes back to the example of tossing balls into a can - each throw gets you closer to success.

How we think is a pattern of behavior, and as such the disconnection of thought and action is something we have fallen into or learned. That is to say, it's a habit. Habits are behaviors that have become routine because they were at some point practiced, became familiar, and then because the default choice we make. With some efforts, these defaults can be reset.

The formation of habits has been very closely studied by behavioral scientists and sports psychologists. Sports, in particular, demonstrates the way in which habits are changed - the way a person instinctively tries to throw a ball is modified and rewired through instruction and practice. In boxing and the martial arts, it's seen that a motion and a response is learned in a manner than makes it precise and lightning-fast.

Getting to that point requires effort and a great deal of careful repetition, practicing motions hundreds of times until the patterns become ingrained in the mind. Replacing mental habits works in the same way - with exercise and repetition, consciously modeling the desired patterns of thought in the same way an athlete practices patterns of physical movement.

He goes back to golf: each time a golfer approaches a shot, of any kind, he sets himself physically to swing the club at the ball. But he is at the same time talking to himself, setting himself mentally to do what he knows needs to be done.

A particular problem in changing habits is overcoming the old ones, and the author reckons this has to do with triggers. Some stimuli cause us to act in response, and by becoming aware of the way in which this works should enable us to recognize the triggers that lead us to act or think in non-productive ways, to stop ourselves from doing so, or to rewire the trigger to activate a better and more productive response.

A less oblique example is recognizing that when a coworker makes an irritating remark, you tend to react in a manner that does not serve you well. Once you realize you are doing this, you can plan a better response and attempt to remember it when you experience the trigger. The trigger may not be his remark, but the "pop" of emotion you feel. Instead of letting that result in a negative response, associate it to a behavior (such as remaining silent for a few seconds while you consider a proper reply).

(EN: No mention here as to how one might practice this - seems to be something that is done in real-time, or something one fails to do. Perhaps it's a not a very good example because it requires another person to invoke the trigger? If your goal is to be present-minded, that's entirely internal.)

He shifts to another habit - such as watching too much television - in which you could focus on associating the act of picking up the remote control and learn to associate it with a different choice than turning on the television right away. (EN: Physical habits like this are easier to address by making some change to the object. Putting the remote in a different place, keeping it in a sleeve, or gluing a grain of rice to the power button will also cause there to be something a little different that gives a person pause and reminds them to stop and think.)

5 - Perception Change Creates Patience!

The stressful pace of life in the present day has led to a general loss of patience - which itself is the "quiet perseverance" in the face of stressful situations. We recognize the need to be patient with others in society, and we recognize the need to be patient with the situations that arise in the course of a given day, but find it very difficult to achieve.

Switch to the negative quality of impatience - it is a negative emotion that arises when we are unable to get what we want. It should be immediately obvious that an impatient person is not coping very well with the here-and-now because their mind is on some future moment when they will achieve what they presently desire. And, as usual, they are ignoring the reality of the present moment and what they must do (if only to endure the delay) to get to where they eventually want to be.

The author observes the manner in which his own mind wanders, from one thing to another with no connection between them, and seems to be everywhere but where he really is. (EN: I've heard different people describe their minds as being noisy or quiet in idle moments. Browsing forward, it seems that the author, like many noisy-minded people, seems to think that everyone else is the same way, and I don't see any advice for the quiet-minded individual.)

With this in mind, the first step is to become aware of your internal dialogue, and the moments in which it tends to run wild and drag you behind. Simply stated, you must recognize this and rein it in. A second step is to understand you will not always be able to do this - but to remain persistent in attempting to do so.

Another key practice for patience is understanding that you will never achieve true perfection in anything, and accept that perfection is entirely unnecessary. Perfection is the perspective of others. You can watch a ship sail to the horizon from the shore, but you will never see this when you're standing on the deck - the horizon is unreachable. Striving for perfection is the same - you will never reach it and will sap your morale by expecting that you will. The best you can do is to attend to the business of sailing - following the wind, tending the wheel, and keeping the boat moving forward.

He also mentions the human tendency to daydream of the "perfect life" - people always want more money no matter how wealthy they get. And when people get the things they wanted, they are seldom contented with them for very long. Life is endless and you never will achieve the point where it has achieved perfection.

This is why those who seek happiness in the result are never as contented as those who seek happiness in the process. They are forever frustrated, impatient, and exhausted. Happiness belongs to those who take satisfaction at getting better at something rather than insisting on becoming "the best ever" at anything. It enables them to be happy while they are working toward it.

The author shares a story about taking lessons from a very talented pianist who felt he needed to work harder or he would "never get really good on the piano." While his teacher was quite accomplished compared to the novice, he still had the mindset of a student who could always be better at his craft. In addition to coaching him to be better, the teacher gave him the ability to witness his own progress and take satisfaction in the process of learning to play.

He also mentions in his own music study that he lays out long-term plans. When he is frustrated with a bad practice session and feels hopeless, he is able to review the plans he made long before and recognize how far along he had come. Things always seem very hard until we've done them, and if you think back to the way you felt overwhelmed at the start of something you have already finished, you will be astounded by the progress you have made.

The notion that perfection is impossible should not be discouraging. What it means is that you will never run out of room to grow. "We have seriously missed the boat with this whole concept in our culture."

Stirner considers the "self-playing organ," a product that was designed for people who wanted to learn to play, but also wanted to make music right away. Pressing a few keys would play part or all of a popular song - it could play the left-hand part so you could play the right, or vice versa, or both at once so you didn't have to do anything. The organs sold very well, but people didn't use them much. He mentions seeing a few gathering dust in peoples' homes, but he never saw anyone actually play one.

Said another way, cheating discipline doesn't work. You might fool a few people into thinking you have a skill, but you'll feel all the worse for being a sham on top of being a failure. And your own sense of accomplishment at faking the results is sapped by the knowledge that you did not actually achieve them.

He also mentions credit cards as a form of instant gratification - which is to say they offer short-term gratification and long-term disappointment. They are the way to have the end results without making the effort, so that you have a chance to be disappointed by something before you have earned it. Many people get into deep trouble with debt in this way, and take little satisfaction from it. Just as with the self-playing organ, it is a way to cheat yourself from the necessity of earning it.

To the author, the joy and pride in accomplishment is that the "thing" you now possess is the result of a longer process of earning it. Rewards that come at no cost are worth their price in terms of the satisfaction earned: next to nothing.

The advice he offers is to pick a goal that you wish to achieve, mark the steps of the journey to get there, and review your plan periodically to gain the satisfaction of having made progress toward that goal. Of particular importance is to focus on the process and not the goal.

By so doing you will free yourself of the frustration of your constant failure to achieve the end, and feel empowered at your constant success in getting incrementally closer to it. This is very empowering.

6 - The Four "S" Words

The author introduces four "S" worlds that are useful in developing control over one's own mind, which represent techniques that work in combination:

Simple - The mind becomes paralyzed by complexity, and while many issues are complex they can be simplified, broken down components that are far more manageable than the whole. Reducing complex matters to simple steps helps to make them manageable and avoid mental fatigue.

Small - A very simple task may still be very large, and overwhelming by virtue of its size. Large things can similarly be broken down into small ones to better focus the mind and avoid procrastination. For example, cleaning the garage is such a huge task that most people avoid it, but sorting through the items on one shelf is manageable - so do that, then look for something else that can be done easily.

Short - A simple and small task may still take a long time to finish, so focus instead on short bursts of activity, ten minutes to an hour, that presents a more manageable chunk of time. Consider the garage-cleaning example: it might take three days, or it can be done an hour a day over the course of a month.

Slow - Work at a pace that allows you to pay attention to what you are doing. Rushed work is bad work, and needs to be repeated (or the poor results become discouraging), but working at a steady page enables you to do things once and do them right. The paradox here is that by trying to work slowly, you will often complete tasks more quickly and with less effort because your actions are focused. Going slowly will also change your perception of time's passage because you will devote your energy to what you are doing and lose your sense of time.

From there, he speaks of putting these to work in his job as a piano tuner, which is a bit protracted and fussy, but some of the details are worth preserving:

His primary focus was on working slowly - taking out one tool at a time, placing it gently into position, making each of his motions slow and deliberate, then replacing it in his kit carefully.

Doing so caused him great anxiety and the sense he was wasting time rather than moving quickly enough, but he choked that back and continued to move slowly. It took a lot of concentration just to hold himself back.

In time, the anxiety died down and he began to enjoy the pace. He applied the same effort to being slow in unnecessary motions, such as walking and eating.

He had taken off his watch to avoid checking the time, and did not discover until he glanced at the clock in his truck and the end of the hob that he had actually shaved 40% of the usual time. He felt he must have been an hour late, but had actually worked faster.

He attributes the seeming speed to the elimination of waste - one tool at a time meant less time sorting through a clutter, one string at a time meant he got it right the first time, etc.

Focusing on slow also fed the other three: the task became simple, small, and short as he concentrated on tuning each string.

He also notes that he accomplished much that day, and did not feel at all stressed or overworked at the end of it.

He's applied this technique to other parts of his life - simply not rushing through things. It is difficult to do so because our culture demands "faster" and we become automated in many activities and fail to pay attention. At the onset, it requires a great deal of effort just forcing yourself to remain slow and steady, but over time it becomes second nature to be "in the moment."

7 - Equanimity and DOC

"Equanimity" is a term that means mental calmness, a quality that many seek to achieve (or more aptly, a quality many wish to have, without working to achieve it). It implies calmness, focus, and the ability to persevere in stressful conditions.

Stirner suggests that equanimity can be achieved by avoiding judgment. People tend to evaluate everything - they cannot merely dream or eat but must judge that they have experienced a "bad dream" or a "good breakfast." The same is done for the present (I am having a good lunch) and the future (I hope to have a good supper).

Assessment requires a fairly complex mental process, which is often quite pointless and a drain of our energy. To judge something as good or bad requires developing a preconceived notion of the way it ought to be and comparing it to the way it was, or is, or is expected to be. Even when the outcome is a good judgment, we has still invested mental resources in making that evaluation.

There is also the problem of the progression of ideals. Once we have had a good meal, the next one must match or exceed it to be considered to have been good. Each new experience must top all of the old, and what was once satisfactory then becomes disappointing.

Judgments are important in life because they for the basis of goals: nobody sets out to have a miserable time or do poor work, which can occur if you are overly idealistic in what you intend to achieve. However, when this is taken to extremes it becomes harmful: everything doesn't have to be perfect all the time, and it cannot be.

Stirner seems to take a bit of a turn, discussing practicing emergency landing procedures for aircraft: the notion is that practice enables a pilot to develop a procedure to follow, to overcome his panic and do as he is trained. And it works. The point is that when following emergency procedures, you are not making judgments, but simply doing what needs to be done. You don't second-guess yourself in a situation where it would be disastrous to do so.

Back to evaluation: each judgment is based on the sense that there is something that is right/good and something that is wrong/bad - and this occurs in a very binary manner. There are many things that are not perfectly right/good but will achieve the results we need in undertaking a task.

(EN: I immediately notice this as being at odds with the cultural imperative to strive for perfection every time, with the notion that people who aim low accomplish less than they could have if they had kept their sights higher. So its likely that some balance is necessary: our goal cannot be mediocrity or perfection.)

There's some mention that our ideas change over time. What would be ideal at age five is different to age ten, to twenty, to thirty, and so on. The notion that we will do something perfectly and never have to do it over again is nonsensical. There is nothing we can do that will make us happy forever, just for a time.

The author's suggestion for overcoming judgment is to attempt to become an observer - to witness what is happening and delay making judgment, as if attempting to listen objectively to one person's account, knowing that you will later hear the accounts of others and will need to be fair in your assessment.

This works because even when you are thinking on something, you are only hearing one person's account - your own internal monologue. And moreover you may be listening to someone who is upset, in a bad mood, or thinking of things in a subjective and distorted manner. When you think about them later, you often realize how wrong you were in the heat of the moment.

Judging things as you experience them adds a layer of mental processing to the task of observation, and requires more mental work later to untangle your own perceptions. It also applies your mental filters and causes you to miss important details. You were so busy judging what you saw in one second that you failed to notice what happened in the next.

It is important to remain calm when listening to your inner voice, just as you would when allowing someone who is upset rant and rave - knowing that if you listen quietly and unaffected they will eventually come to their senses.

You are not merely a passive listener to your inner voice, but you are also the speaker. In that sense most people have some experience calming themselves in a stressful situation. Gearing up for a job interview or an unpleasant discussion is a process of taking hold of your emotions in order to be calm. In those situations, we are meditating - whether we realize it or not. We are taking ourselves out of the situation to think about the situation, quiet our minds, and prepare to proceed in a calm and steady manner.

This is something that can be practiced more often, on a daily basis - and through practice it will become our nature. Just as the pilot learns to practice emergency procedures to regain control of his craft, a person learns the procedures to regain control of his own mind.

Do, Observe, Correct

Here, the author comes to his acronym of DOC - do, observe, and correct. This is the basic method of practice for any activity, such as learning a sport, but also applies to mental processes.

Switch to a story about a coach for the Olympic archery team. His biggest problem was that the archers were fixated on their scores or the outcome of their shots, and were not paying attention to what they were doing. He mentions that the Asian teams were exactly the opposite, focused on their posture and motions to the point that they seemed not to care whether they hit the target - and they were much better as a result.

Archery is very close to the "throwing balls into a can" task Stirner mentioned before: you take a shot and adjust the next one to be closer to the target. If you do not pay attention to what you are doing while taking the shot, you will not know how the outcome was achieved or the specific adjustments you need to make.

Applying the DOC model to mental processes requires you to be aware of your patterns of thought, considering whether they are effective, and adjusting them to be more effective. It does not mean interfering with your patterns right away, and it is not an instant correction. Just as with archery, your goal is to get your thinking closer to the target than the previous time. And just as with practicing, it's hardest at the onset and becomes better over time, until the habit becomes ingrained.

Here, Stirner tells a personal story of blocking several weeks for a major project that was cancelled at the last minute - and as a self-employed specialists, this was a significant disappointment, and using the do-observe-correct method he was able to get himself into a more positive and proactive state of mind rather than merely fretting about the problem. (EN: The details of the example seem a bit odd, and could muddle more than clarify the concept.)

The end bit compares the process of training your mind to that of training for a marathon: you don't go out the first day and try to run a three-hour race. Instead you work in shorter practice sessions at slower paces and gradually build up ... and as in all things, appreciate your progress along the way.

8 - Teach and Learn from Children

The author begins by suggesting that a parent teaches a child the lessons of their life, but learns from their children in the process. Children tend to see things very simply, and with a clearer eye than do many adults.

Moreover, children and adults want the same things: a sense of security and interesting ways to fill their time. These are more complex for adults, for whom "security" means many things and they think of time in a boarder sense. But in the space of a moment, the desires of children and adults are the same.

(EN: This goes on a while and gets a bit wistful about the standard topics: how time seems to go faster, how children are unaware of the world's problems, etc. Not much value in these hackneyed observations.)

Germane to some of the points he's made in previous chapters:

Children are very much "in the moment" and tend not to think of the future

Children don't want to do anything that isn't fun right away

Children don't see the point of practicing and want instant gratification. Hwoever if the practice itself is fun they will become deeply engrossed in it.

Children have to be taught the importance of "playing well" rather than winning

Children have few prejudices and preconceptions

Children don't think anything is impossible without trying, and they quite often do things that no-one would expect they were capable of

Children let their emotions get the best of them, but can be calmed if made to slow down and think

Some of these childlike behaviors are valuable to adults, others represent childish behaviors we would do well to outgrow.

(EN: There follows some random advice for parenting, largely stemming from the way in which children are being treated like little adults, what with their days being jammed by schooling and scheduled leisure activities. This too becomes wistful and hackneyed.)

9 - Your Skills Are Growing

The final chapter focuses with changes over the course of a lifetime. Some skills will grow while others will atrophy. The question is whether this is in a controlled and deliberate manner - are you gaining things that are valuable and losing things that are not, rather than the other way around?

(EN: There follows a recap of some of the major points of the book, which I'll skip here as the notes would be redundant.)

He switches to the notion of evolution, which is something that people do within their own lifetimes. Our life is not a chain of dramatic incidents but a long, slow series of changes. And like evolution, the process of evolving ourselves is measured against the touchstone of survival. If a change makes us more successful in our endeavors, then it's a good change and a lesson to be preserved.

He also hits on the notion of personal crisis - and the way in which people change dramatically when major events (good or bad) occur in their lives, and these changes can be good or bad. Becoming more present-minded enables us to weather crises better, and to make more of a conscious choice in the way in which our behavior changes in the wake of a crisis.

He also gets a bit spiritual, but is essentially right in the notion that the material things we gain in life (houses, cars, money, things, etc.) tend to be temporary. Few people maintain the possessions they had as children - and those who do find them to be a useless burden. But more to the point, virtually the only thing you have in life that you keep from birth to death is yourself. The rest of it changes and is lost over time. And there is the value of self-improvement: you keep it much longer than material things. Yet people invest so much time in earning temporary baubles than in improving themselves. "Everything that you spiritually acquire expands your true self and becomes part of you forever."

He also asserts that developing a practicing mind is worth making a priority because doing so gives you the equipment to accomplish other goals.

The Practicing Mind : Summary

The author of this book, Thomas M. Sterner, is a Piano technician for a major performing arts center. The author admits that , in his career spanning 25 years, he had faced a lot of challenges to keep himself disciplined and focused (considering the act of tuning and maintaining a piano , an instrument that has 88 notes , is repetitious and tedious by nature). Over a period of time, the author develops a mindset that has kept him productive.Through this book, Sterner tells his method of remaining disciplined.

Process not the ProductIn any form of practice, it is important to focus on the process and not on the product. There are umpteen variations of this statement that one gets to hear.The author does acknowledge this fact but goes on to add his own flavor to this statement. He uses music as an example to show that focusing on the process takes care of the product , but not vice-versa. He says

Keep yourself process-oriented. Stay in the present. Make the process the goal and use the overall goal as a rudder to steer you efforts. Be deliberate, have an intention about what you want to accomplish, and be aware of that intention. Doing these things will eliminate the judgments and emotions that come from a product-oriented or results-oriented mind.

Its How You Look At ItThe author gives a beautiful analogy of a flower to shift ones perspective towards everything in life. He says

Ask yourself: at what point in a flower's life, from seed to full bloom, has it reached perfection? Let's look at this right now and see what nature is teaching us every day as we walk past the flowers in our garden. At what point is a flower perfect? Is it when it is nothing more than a seed in your hand waiting to be planted? All that it will ever be is there in that moment. Is it when it first starts to germinate unseen under several inches of the soil? This is when it displays the first visible signs of the miracle we call creation. How about when it first pokes its head through the surface and sees the face of the sun for the first time? All of its energies have gone into reaching for this source of life; until this point, it has had nothing more than an inner voice telling it which way to grow to find it. What about when it begins to flower? This is when its own individual properties start to be seen. The shape of the leaves, the number of blooms are all unique to just this one flower, even among the other flowers of the same species. Or is it the stage of full bloom, the crescendo of all of the energy and effort it took to reach this point in its life? Lets not forget that humble and quiet ending when it returns to the soil from where it came. At what point is the flower perfect? I hope you already know that the answer is that it is always perfect.

Using this example, the author suggests that by following present-minded approach , one can experience a tremendous relief from the fictitious, self-imposed pressures and expectations that only slow ones progress.

Perception Changes Create PatiencePatience is probably at the top of everyones list of most sought-after virtues. One of the reasons that we become impatient is we step out of the NOW There is a saying that states that most of what we worry about never comes to pass. Thinking about a situation before you are in it only scatters your energy. The first step toward patience is to become aware of when your internal dialog is running wild and dragging you with it. If you are not aware of this when it is happening, which is probably most of the time, you are not in control. The second part is understanding and accepting that there is no such thing as reaching a point of perfection in anything. True perfection is both always evolving and at the same time always present within you, just like the flower.

Progress is a natural result of staying focused on the process of doing anything. When you stay on purpose, focused in the present moment, the goal comes to you with frictionless ease. However, when you constantly focus on the goal you are aiming for, you push it away instead of pulling it toward you. In every moment of your struggle, by looking at the goal and constantly referencing your position to it, you are affirming to yourself that you havent reached it. You only need to acknowledge the goal to yourself occasionally, using it as a rudder to keep you moving in the right direction.

Suppose you are trying to learn how to play a piece of music and you come from this new perspective. Your experience will be totally different than what we usually think of in terms of learning to play a musical instrument. In the old way, you are sure that you are not going to be happy or successful until you can play the piece of music flawlessly. Every wrong note you hit, every moment you spend struggling with the piece, is an affirmation that you have not reached your goal. If, however, your goal is learning to play the piece of music, then the feeling of struggle dissolves away. With each moment you spend putting effort into learning the piece, you are achieving your goal. An incorrect note is just part of learning how to play the correct note; it is not a judgment of your playing ability. In each moment you spend with the instrument, you are learning information and gaining energy that will work for you in other pieces of music. Your comprehension of music and the experience of learning it are expanding. All of this is happening with no sense of frustration or impatience. What more could you ask for from just a shift in perspective?

Four S words - Simplify, Small, Short and SlowThe author shows the interconnectedness between these words and the way these 4 words can be used to structure any work, be it following a fitness regimen / coding an algo / playing an instrument / cleaning up the house etc. Any task that is overwhelming at the first sight, might put us off and sometimes we tend to permanently shelve it. But once we simplify the goal, divide this simplified goal in small sections, do these sections in short durations at a slow pace, paradoxically , we get far more things done efficiently. This might sound all very obvious, but then it is relevant to ask oneself a question, When was the last time you did all the four things Simplified a project, Took a small section, worked on it for a short time and more importantly slowly ? More than any other place, I can relate this to music. You cant master a raaga without the 4 components mentioned. You have to simplify the goal of a 1.5 hr typical rendition of a raaga, Divide in to small sections ,Practice on one of the the small sections in a short interval , lets say 45 min, and more importantly practice it slowly. My Sitar guru was mentioning the other day about Budhaditya Mukherjee, a Sitar Maestro. In an interview, when asked about his practice regimen, he replied that he practiced 3 hrs in the morning and 3 hrs in the evening and more importantly , he does it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Unlike Ravi Shankars of the world who quote that they practice 15 hrs 20 hrs a day, which seems to be practically impossible for a human being, Budhaditya Mukherjees ritual sounds more pragmatic and realistic. In the same interview, he also mentions that a combination of Simplify + Small + Short and Slow are quintessential to master a raaga.

Equanimity and DOCCalmness and even-tempered are the words that go along with equanimity. These are the characteristics that are desirable when we are working on something. However there is an evil beast called Judgement that sometimes jumps upon us.Judgment is inevitable in our lives, but it becomes pathological when we overdo it. Most of times we overdo it. We judge everything in life and most of it unconsciously. We imagine hypothetical scenarios and think about the possible outcomes and possible judgments that we would make / others would make in such scenarios. Its like running simulations to create parallel worlds and checking the parameter values. It is good in statistics as alternate worlds gives confidence intervals on parameters. It is detrimental when we are working on something as it robs us from the NOW. It happens to all of us. We are doing something, be it running/ reading / programming/ playing an instrument etc. Instead of just being in the present, we start judging it. We are thinking of the next activity that needs to be done / we think of some odd conversation with someone/ we imagine hypothetical situations etc. We try to engage ourselves unconsciously in things that have nothing to do with what we are CURRENTLY doing. The judgement gives rise to emotions and they stem from a sense that this is right and that is wrong or this is good and that is bad. Right and good make us happy while bad and wrong make us upset or sad. We feel that right and good are at least approaching ideal, while wrong and bad are moving away from it. We all want to be happy and have an ideal life, but what constitutes right and wrong is neither universal nor constant. The evaluations and judgments we make unconsciously in every second of our lives jump-start our emotions and bring us so much anxiety and stress.What can be done about it ? Doing work with out judgement part is far more effective as the execution of the task would be that much more clinical.

The author suggests meditation as a means to get out of this ever-judgmental mode of mind. He also offers another adjunct method,which he calls DOC Do + Observe + Correct. He gives anecdotes and experiences from his work as a Piano technician that bring out the importance of DOC to perform tasks efficiently. Using DOC repetitively for most of the tasks that we do in our daily lives, it is possible to remove judgement that clouds our thinking and execution. The C in the DOC refers more to evaluation and not judgment. Evaluation comes before the action of passing judgement. After evaluation, you skip the judgement part and then go over DOC cycle, as judgment has no value in DOC mindset.

Teach and Learn from ChildrenTime perception is an integral part of the difference between adults and children. In general, Children dont seem to have a sense of where they are going in life. There is today and thats it. They live in the present moment, but not really by their own choice; its just how they are. So, making them do any activity like learning to play an instrument / work on something which takes time and effort to master, is difficult as they dont see a point in doing it. There is no instant gratification in learning math / learning an instrument. It is usually an activity which will involve a lot of struggle/failures etc. So,there is a paradox here. Whats frustrating as an adult, with regard to teaching them to stay in the present when they are engaged in something that requires perseverance, is that they cant see the point. Why work at something that requires a long-term commitment, a perception of time outside the present moment? Children are always in the NOW and adults find it difficult to be in the NOW. Is there something that Parents and Children can learn and teach each other ? The author shares his experiences in dealing with her two daughters in this context.