Stepping off the Gas
My favorite sentence from the next post, “Invisible Badges,” is “time away from the practice is the practice.” It was a comment Casey made after a sit at (the now defunct) Balanced when I mentioned that my internal work seemed to be plateauing. He suggested stepping away from meditation—and doing so, in a funny way, was a sort of meditation in and of itself.
Quotes about meditation can appear vacuous. Not meditating is meditating? Riiight. Yet, that vacuousness tends to hold weight when the quotes are brought down from orbit through experienced reality. Over the next three months—seasons, yo—, I took a break and returned refreshed. Sounds obvious. However, if I wasn’t reminded that time off is a part of the practice, I would’ve spent those months kicking myself for stepping back.
It’s time to step off the gas, again. I need a break from my work on Peloton and Distillations.
Between March and now, I tirelessly interviewed candidates to triple the iOS team, helped ship version 9.0, gave a talk on fostering psychological safety, and began experimenting with management. On the Distillations front, I’ve written an essay every month since February—damn. Work and writing have fallen into an unfortunately routine trance.
To break said trance, I’ll be traveling to the UK from August 10–18th for Open Air London, participating in XOXO’s much-needed 2018 return, and attending two weddings across September and October. I’m smiling in anticipation as I write this entry.
I hope you have a moment to check your fuel levels and, if needed, step off the gas. See you next month—or the one after, but not before some rest.
x’s and o’s,
Jas