Writing on living a deliberate life, focused on building businesses rather than cabins by ponds. Content about strategy, life, and philosophy all building to being more deliberate and living a more amazing life.

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And how to break free (sort of)

I used to have a sports car, an Infiniti G37 with 350 horsepower and wide, cool-looking tires in the back.

When it snowed, driving that car was like ice skating on wheels. I actually know what it means to turn into a skid.

I enjoyed it. I am generally very practical, but there is a perverse joy in being impractical. It’s like being bad without, well, being bad. Or risking arrest. Navigating a turn and not crashing into everything made me feel like an expert driver, ready for Formula 1 or your neighborhood drifting competition.

Of course it is also very good at becoming stuck. I illegally parked the car on a dirt lot across the street from my kids’ school in the winter. It wasn’t long before I desperately wished for some practicality.

Perspective, sometimes it’s the thing you love that kills you.

I left the third-grade concert with the throng of people, went to my car, fired it up, hit the gas, and stayed right where I was. It wouldn’t budge. Those fat wheels spun just fine in their icy mud ruts. But the car wouldn’t budge.

It was stuck. Very stuck.

And that was the image that came to my mind as I sat on the beach. That experience came into my mind as I sat on the beach and thought about where I was and where I was going. I felt stuck, like the wheels of my mind were spinning in life ruts, just like those fat tires.

Unhelpfully, the more I tried to figure out what to do with my life, the deeper I felt myself dig into the ruts. Forward, back, brake on, brake off, towels on the road, the more effort I put into it, the more stuck I became.

So I sat in the sun and thought about what it means to be stuck and how to get out of it.

I was, after all, on the beach.

There wasn’t a lot else to do.

What is stuckness

Stuckness is a kind of suffering.

And suffering is a desire, or hunger, for something you don’t have. Being stuck adds the complexity of not knowing how to get it.

I knew I wanted my car out of the muddy ruts (something I didn’t have), but I didn’t have the know-how, tools, or (as it turned out) girth to do it (desperation).

Sitting on the beach, I knew I wanted to escape the ruts, but didn’t know how.

Fortunately, one thing I’m good at is solving problems.

Logically, if being stuck means wanting to be elsewhere and not knowing how to get there, then you have to decide where to go and figure out how to get there.

Easy, except that it is impossible.

If you are focused on being stuck, there is no way to figure out how to become unstuck.

Why you can’t solve it.

While I was physically content on the beach, my mind was elsewhere.

It flitted around business issues and future plans, what could happen, what might happen, what I should change, and where I should be.

Not having your mind present is a great way to stay stuck; you can only take action in the present. Not having my mind in the same time frame left me with mindless actions, which, it turns out, are not helpful.

The cold, hard, don’t-want-to-admit-it truth is that I engage in many mindless actions, from watching Netflix to pulling weeds. Mindless action allows me to do something and feel busy or occupied in the present, while my mind is free to be elsewhere.

But it is impossible to make decisions if your mind is elsewhere. So the real problem, the crux of stuckness (and suffering in general) is that your mind is in one place while your body is in another.

So, before figuring anything out, the mind and body must be in the same place.

Seeking the present.

Honestly, the whole present moment thing drives me nuts. Everybody is always telling me to focus on being present. And I’ve worked on it. I know how to be present, damnit.

I tell myself I’m great at being present.

But here I was on the beach thinking about anything other than being on the beach. Suffering because I felt stuck.

And it isn’t just presence that matters. That’d be too easy. If you want access to your mind, you don’t just need it in the present; you need it not to judge what is.

Viktor Frankl talked about “writing” while a prisoner in a concentration camp. He didn’t have a pen or paper, but he wrote in his head. To do this, he had to free his mind. He couldn’t focus on the misery and awfulness of everything around him because that would suck up his mental energy. He had to accept where he was without judgment.

And here’s the thing: if Frankl could do it, then I had no excuse. No matter how stuck, unhappy, or suffering I felt in my life, it didn’t amount to 1% of what Frankl went through.

So, no excuses, the task then was to be present, not to do anything, not to try anything, not to worry about what could be, should be, might be, or would be.

Easy right?

In fact, it isn’t that hard. Fortunately, your body is already in the present, so you can focus on what your body senses to bring your mind to the present.

Pay attention to your breath. Your breathing is always present. Or you’re dead, but at that point, you don’t have to worry about this anymore.
Pay attention to your senses: What do you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste?
Notice and observe everything around you.

So, I brought my mind to the moment. I listened to my breath. I observed the people, the sand, and the waves, and how the shadows under the umbrellas slowly shifted. I heard cables clanking on masts, smelled cooking fish, tasted the salt in the air, and ran my hands through the sand.

I didn’t tell myself to do anything. I just was.

But I’m Still Stuck.

Try this. I suspect you’ll find the same thing I did: calm.

And not just calm, but a quiet sense of power. Not superman power, but the power of will, power over my actions.

I felt like I was creating space to be, to think, to act.

Of course, feeling good on the beach is great; there is a lot to recommend it. But beach days end, and the mortgage is due every month.

So, the where and the how are still out there, and I still don’t know where I’m going. But when I focus on the moment, the suffering is gone. Maybe I’m still stuck, but I don’t feel stuck. It feels like a problem I can solve.

To get my car out of its ruts, I called roadside assistance. The guy arrived with a large truck. It had a winch, tow cables, the whole bit. But the truck was way too big to get into the parking area, and the car was parked head-in, so there was nothing to attach the winch cable to.

Impracticality has its downside.

I thought I was going to have to wait until spring.

But the driver had an idea.

He was a large man. So he put away the tools, went to the front of the car, told me to put it in reverse, and put all his weight into pushing the car.

It popped right out.

Sometimes you throw away all the tools and just push.

I’m still working on being present when I’m not at the beach. But I know that’s where it starts—being where I am, not grinding away trying to figure out where I should be.

So that’s what I’m practicing. Presence. Observation. Letting answers emerge instead of forcing them.

We’ll see how that goes.

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By Jeff Loehr · Launched 7 months ago

Writing on living a deliberate life, focused on building businesses rather than cabins by ponds. Content about strategy, life, and philosophy all building to being more deliberate and living a more amazing life.

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What does it mean to be Stuck