Fiction Solves Our Organizing Problems: Stop Hitting Yourself

Your mind is a formidable opponent.

The Question: The pandemic is getting me down, man. I feel like for the last three months, and you know, ever since it began, I have started each day with a plan, a list of goals. But inevitably an hour in, I’m totally stuck. I’m either scrolling on a social media hell site, or just googling random things, totally removed from my goals and plan for the day. I’ve read all of the productivity hacks, the project management ideas. But none of it ever seems to work. What’s wrong with me?

— Pandemic Planning Procrastinator

Have you ever noticed how everyone in Star Wars is always fighting their double?

This is a common trope in sci-fi and fantasy, but I think it’s especially funny in Star Wars because… I don’t know.

Maybe because Star Wars is just funny.

Brené Brown talks at length about the part in the Empire Strikes Back where Luke takes off Darth Vader‘s helmet in Yoda’s weird self actualization cave and is like… “Oh shit it’s me!”

Rey does kind of the same thing in The Rise of Skywalker, though I’d prefer to speak as little about that movie as possible.

It seems like no one making anything in the Star Wars franchise, including George Lucas, is ever quite sure if they’re doing high camp, completely straight faced Jungian analysis, or lowest common denominator high merchandise value children’s films.

Have you seen Star Wars, PPP?
That’s sort of a ridiculous question, but do you remember those parts, where everyone fights their double?

When I lived in Washington DC, the capital of people managing nervous system activation through excessive exercise, I went to an Muay Thai class. (This story is going to be a lot less fraught than the martial arts story I told a few weeks ago, I promise.)

The instructor watched me punch for a little while, visibly chagrined, then asked: “why do you keep putting your hand up like that?”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

He watched me kick for a little while longer, clearly in pain because of my terrible form, while asking questions. 

I told him I had spent eight years learning strip mall taekwondo, the kind where you always get a black belt if you pay gym fees long enough, and had done boxing on and off.

In both of these forms of martial arts, your hands stay up all the time, no matter what.

But when you kick in Muay Thai, you’re supposed to drop your hands. 

When I told him about the boxing, he nodded and smiled, troubleshooting complete.

“That’s the problem,” he said.

“You learned a bad habit. It’s OK though, don’t worry. All you have to do is work twice as hard against your brain in order to unlearn it. “

Oh.

Right.

Easy.

Though he was casual about the amount of work it would take to unlearn this habit, his rationale for why it would be hard to unlearn was helpful.

How often, do we think to ourselves, “this should be easy! “Or “what is wrong with me? Why is it taking so long to learn how to do this?”

And often we forget something critical: your mind is a formidable opponent.

And if there’s anyone who can beat you, who knows you well enough to catch all your tricks in sparring, to stop you from changing, it’s — well… You.

Its a lot easier to say than do, , but it’s worth remembering: if you feel blocked every time you try to do something, every time your best intentions are thwarted, remember: you’re fighting a formidable opponent.

Yourself. 

And it might take twice the effort in order to make any progress.

But at least you know why it’s so hard to get your punches in.

• H