fortitude /ˈfôrdəˌto͞od/
noun
courage in pain or adversity
The XY problem according to Wikipedia:
The XY problem is a communication problem encountered in help desk, >technical support, software engineering, or customer service situations >where the question is about an end user's attempted solution (X) rather >than the root problem itself (Y or Why?).
It's quite straightforward when you read it. Logically it does make absolute sense too. But then why do I find it so hard? Which tells me that there is more to it than what appears on the surface. Y can't I follow through on the XY although I know it? Even as it happens, I know that I should be focusing on the core of the problem. Now I'm not just talking about technical problems, but problems of all kinds. At least the ones that cause the most pain in my life. What all of them have in common is that they allow me to circumvent the pain in the moment. I might have some parallels I can draw from.
Getting lean by solving for Y
It took me about six months to get slightly leaner, most of the results I've seen in the last couple of months. The first four months all I had to go on was the observation of change in habits. What was the problem? In the simplest terms I was consuming way more than my body needed for the amount of activity I was doing. I train about three or four times a week, have been for decades now. I enjoy it. I've gotten leaner by focusing on the training, but it has never lasted. I've just gotten fatter, slowly but surely. So this time, I decided to ask myself, what is the actual problem. I knew the answer too, it was my relationship with food. So this time, I decided to focus on that instead. I let go of all my rules that I had applied in the past. Ate what I wanted, when I wanted without any judgment. My only rule was, I had to be completely honest with myself about what I wanted. So as you can imagine, I actually gained weight instead of losing it. But the important part was that after a few weeks of this, I no longer enjoyed food as much as I thought I did. It got to a point where I would just cook at home rather than order something as I would spend thirty minutes trying to find something I liked. The appeal was no longer there. I still get something I want, if I feel like it, but it has gone down from weekly to a handful of times a month.
Something even magical happened, I started enjoying the food I made myself more. My portions started going down and the last couple of months, they have been the lowest they have ever been. I looked at myself a couple of days ago and for the first time in a long, long while, I felt and looked like myself.
The hardest part about all of this was that I had to resist the temptation to follow a fancy diet or a new training regime. I love to train, I've gotten strong as fuck over the last couple of years and I don't want that to change. I don't want to train to be lean, I want to train because I enjoy lifting heavy things.
What about the other Y's
I'm quite productive on a day-to-day basis. The last few weeks, I have found myself slacking on my side projects. Instead, I've been spending a lot more time watching Netflix or YouTube. I'm getting this nagging feeling that I'm leaving far too much on the table. Especially since I've felt the joy of doing something hard over the course of weeks and months. I love that feeling of competence you get when you consciously work on your craft, by doing the hard things. Even if it feels uncomfortable in the moment. I want that feeling back, it's only been a few weeks but I miss that feeling.
Seems like the right time to figure out the Y. This was good, I needed this. Till next time.