Rhoneisms

My friend Jamie responded to my Final Choices post from last week with a very thoughtful addendum. One I failed to cover but certainly agree with. It’s a very close relative to the idea and reasons behind making final choices. He calls this idea “Sensible Defaults”. He explains it thusly:

While Patrick is spot on about final choices, I would add that it also goes for things you buy on a more frequent basis as well. For instance, I never think about what pencil I’m going to buy and use. I know I use Uniball Kuru Toga pencils. (Thanks to Patrick for turning me on to these as well.) If I lose, break, or for some other reason find myself needing to buy a pencil, I don’t go to Staples and gawk for an hour at the wall of mechanical pencils. I hop on the Amazon app on my iPhone while I’m waiting in line at Starbucks and order a couple to show up at my door step in two days.

I too, have many sensible defaults (including the Kuru Toga). And while final choices usually apply to items one purchases, sensible defaults can apply in a much wider range of circumstances. For instance, for writing on the Mac, TextEdit is a sensible default for me. It is the first thing I reach for when the need arrises to write anything when I sit down at my computer. I don’t even have to think about it. Launching it is essentially a reflex action. Anything else generally has to make a strong use case for me to choose it for the task at hand over TextEdit.
I also think of my friend Michael who is so steadfast in which restaurants he frequents, on which days and times, and what menu items he orders, the staff often just starts preparing it when they see him enter and it is delivered to his table with no words between he and the server exchanged. No need to even waste the time or mental energy of making an order. One may find this extreme, but if you know what you want, why waste unnecessary motions.
Of course, there are the more famous adherents of sensible defaults. Steve Jobs rarely has to think about what he is going to wear. Anyone who has seen any photos or videos of him taken in the last 10 years knows what he is going to be wearing – A black mock turtleneck, Levis 501 jeans, New Balance sneakers. By having such a sensible default, he never has to stand in his closet looking for the right thing for the right occasion. What he has chosen will work for practically any occasion he may find himself in.
Sensible defaults can reduce friction and provide simplicity anywhere one can think to apply them. They are the bedrock of minimalist practice and a quiet mind.

When you make buying choices, does the longevity and lasting impact of what you are buying enter into the equation? Obviously, some things don’t lend themselves to this (food for example) but many things do. I find that the longevity of some items and the alleviation of future choice are key motivating factors for me.
My desired goal is this. Anywhere I can make a buying choice that I, with proper care and maintenance, will never have to make again for the rest of my life, I do. In those cases, I’m willing to pay far more for an item if I know it will last a lifetime and, even more importantly to me, I will never have to spend the mental energy making a choice again. Especially because making final choices often requires far more time and research then making regular ones. In fact, I would argue that the more final the choice, the longer it should take to make it. Also, what you spend on the front end usually repays exponentially, and in many more ways, on the back end.
For me, such final choices are huge wins because the less choice I have to make and because I am well satisfied with what I have, the happier I am. I believe that want, desire, longing and need are at the root of suffering. I also believe that such things, while part of the human condition, can be alleviated. One of the ways to alleviate these is to put long thought and consideration into the things that matter to you and making the one choice you will be satisfied with and never have to want for that item again.

I would like for you to indulge me a bit on a little exercise I would like to lead you through. It will only take a couple of minutes of your valuable time. Having a timer with alarm may help but is not essential.
At the end of reading this paragraph, I would like you to close your eyes for a minute or two and try to pay attention to all of your remaining senses. What do you smell? What to you hear? Touch? Taste? Try to pick out each detail of every noise you hear. Listen to your breath. Can you feel your heartbeat? Can you hear it even? Spend a minute or two in quiet and full attention to everything going on around you. Then open your eyes.
Now, while you stare at your computer screen all day paying attention to other things, at least you will know part of what you are missing.

Here in America, we live in live in a culture that is obsessed with doing. The forty (Fifty? Sixty? Eighty?) hour workweek. The two weeks of “vacation”. When we meet strangers, one of the first questions asked is “What do you do?”. When we mention that we have a vacation coming, we are asked “What are you going to do?”. I would argue that our current obsession with having a constant connection to technology is largely driven by the need to always have something to do. But does all of this doing actually make us who we are? Our essence? Our being?
I don’t think so. I think the more we fill our lives with more and more things we have to do, the less and less time we are spending on who we have to be. Being is what happens when you stop doing. Doing, in a life of balance, should driven out of who you have decided to be.
Before you look down at the next task on your list, or answer that call from your coworker, or answer that next email, or compose that next status update for Facebook or Twitter, take a moment to stop what you are doing. Decide first, to simply be.

If there is one lesson I have learned about myself, it’s that everything has to have a place or I will lose it. The only way I manage to find anything in this world is by putting things back where they belong. The moment I don’t, it is a recipe for disaster.
That’s what happened to my car keys last week. I failed to put them back on the key hook just inside the front door as I always do. There are usually good reasons for forgetting to follow my simple self directives. In this case, I had my hands full of groceries, Beatrix’s bag of stuff, and her doll, and blanket. You know, good excuses.
I remembered having to take all the stuff out of the car and putting it on the ground while helping her out of her car seat. Then helping her up the steps to the front door while juggling all these things. Then putting the stuff down again while I fumbled for the house keys (which I keep on a separate ring). But now, not even an hour later, I need to leave out again and I can’t find the key to the car. I mean, I must have done all of those things to get in the door when we came home, and the house keys were hanging on the right hook, so what could I have done with my car key?
I looked everywhere. I looked in the pockets of the jacket I was wearing. I looked on every flat surface between the front and back door of the first floor of our home. I asked Beatrix several times if she had taken them to play (as she is want to do with keys sometimes). I traced my steps back to the car and did everything short of ripping out it’s interior in the odd event I set them down somewhere while getting her out.
Finally, exasperated, I decided not to leave — as if I had any choice considering the circumstances. By this point, I was crazy with confusion, frustration, exhaustion, and loss. Where we were choosing to go just could not have been that important. I went back inside the house, took a few calming breaths, and sat down…
…On my car keys. I must have put them in my right back pocket, the one I never use, because my hands were full. All that looking, all that searching, all the frustration and confusion, and there they were, right there with me the whole time. Poking me in the ass even. I just did not stop long enough to feel them.
Happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, love… All these things work the same way. The more you search for them, the less likely you are to find them. Stop, take a breath, sit for a short while. You will find that these things were right there with you the whole time. You just have not stopped long enough to feel them.