{"id":2830,"date":"2023-08-28T10:46:36","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T09:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/?p=2830"},"modified":"2023-08-28T13:50:09","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T12:50:09","slug":"the-promise-vs-the-actual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/2023\/08\/28\/the-promise-vs-the-actual\/","title":{"rendered":"The promise vs the actual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>So often the promise of a thing is huge and covered in bright lights; exciting and <em>life changing<\/em> and altogether wooo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marketing does this, social media does this, and our natural response is amygdala-like: &#8220;<strong>shit man, I gotta get me one of those!<\/strong>&#8220;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vision presented by the PR of The Thing is powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Examples that are in my mind right now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Exercise: you can be that ripped guy! Live to be 100 by doing these 5 things!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Meditation: you can find meaning! Download this app and find peace!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Entrepreneurship: follow these simple tips and you can be a gazillionaire!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wisdom: read X books a year, be incredible!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Money: do this! Make a fortune!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What we miss is that the <em>actual<\/em> activity is almost always slow, and will almost always take quite a lot of time. There&#8217;s literally no exercise that will get you from overweight and unfit to ripped in 24 hours, there&#8217;s no meditation course that moves you from mindless to mindful in a week, and there&#8217;s no business knowledge that makes you a multi-millionaire overnight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every single one of these things requires incremental activity: tiny, slow, gentle movements in the right direction, a nudge, a slow but insistent pressure. Getting fit is about doing something aerobic regularly, meditation is about sitting on a daily basis, running a business is about the grind work of just chipping away at an idea or a product until you start to gain traction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of these incremental activities feel like nothing when you&#8217;re doing them. How can a 1 mile run ever culminate in a half marathon? How can a 5 minute meditation sit change your life? Things often feel inconsequential, but it&#8217;s this gentle, quiet, persistent trying that is almost always what leads to the big, life-altering changes. It&#8217;s like a process of erosion &#8211; those tiny pieces of sand swirling away are the ones that make whole cliffs disappear.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So often the promise of a thing is huge and covered in bright lights; exciting and life changing and altogether wooo. Marketing does this, social media does this, and our natural response is amygdala-like: &#8220;shit man, I gotta get me one of those!&#8220;. The vision presented by the PR of The Thing is powerful. Examples &#8230; <a title=\"The promise vs the actual\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/2023\/08\/28\/the-promise-vs-the-actual\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about The promise vs the actual\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[384,370],"tags":[446,376],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2831,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions\/2831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/variousbits.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}