Day before yesterday, I took a long walk with my girlfriend and went to bed (relatively) early, at about 11pm. I was aware of being awake several times in the night, and several times in the day, but I didn’t get out of bed until about 10am.

I went to bed (relatively) early again- I’m not sure what time exactly. But I woke up naturally at around 730am. (I was self-aware for a bit while it was still dark, and again at around 7am.)

I sat up in bed. I think the sitting up is an important part, because it’s harder to fall back asleep when you’re sitting up. Baby steps. A little bit of awareness washes over me. I get up and change into my running clothes- my Signals running top and my PE shorts from my VS days. I brush my teeth and enjoy the refreshing taste in my mouth. (I’ve noticed that I feel a lot more compelled to brush my teeth when I wake up earlier in the morning- does anybody else relate to this?)

As I write this I’m reminded of waking up in Hendon Camp as a storeman, in the early morning before a specific task that I had to do support for. It was so peaceful, quiet and still. I talk a lot about how much I love the hustle and bustle of city life, and how I’d love to go to New York, for instance, just to take it all in- but I also am developing an awareness of a taste for quiet and serenity. A stillness of the consciousness that allows the deeper mind to stir. I have been made aware of this multiple times in my life, and it seems that my days are improved whenever I get the opportunity to experience this quiet. It would be prudent, I think, to make this a deliberate practice.

So I went for a run, and it was an average, decent run. Which was wonderful. I like to contemplate my body during my runs. I naturally find myself coughing and spitting and burping and farting while running (come on, I’m sure almost everybody does!),  and I find it interesting to think about what that means to the body. It’s sort of like a refinement process of sorts, where your body weeds out the non-essential. If you smoke, and you haven’t been smoking, and you run, you can sort of sense your respiratory system cleaning itself out when you’re running. (It’s a great feeling.)

Somewhere along the way I had a little insight or thought about what I’m doing, with regards to my A levels. A while ago I discovered an old notebook that my girlfriend gifted to me, to keep track of my life in the lead up to my A Levels. It started on July 1st 2009, and it chronicles how incredibly unproductive I was back then. I find myself  stunned by how little I was studying. Like, I’m dissatisfied with my study habits now, but I’m actually studying. I pretty much wasn’t, back then.

Then it occurred to me- I have a wonderful opportunity to compete against myself, day by day. When I started out on this, I thought my motivations were balanced somewhat 50/50- I wanted to prove something to myself, as well as to others. Okay, fine- it’s probably more like 25/75. Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know. It depends on how I’m feeling on a particular day. On some days I really don’t care very much about what other people think. If I think back to when I decided I wanted to do this- it was primarily because I wanted to find out. I wanted to find out what it would mean to put in effort this time. I wanted to be more certain of myself than I was then. So it’s really a mix of everything.

That said, I’ve still always been worried about my results- about what it would mean if I don’t get the straight A’s that I’m gunning for. Would my friends finally realize that I habitually over-promise and under-deliver? Or… are they so amazing that they’ve actually been aware of this all along, and choose to be my friends despite it? It occurs to me that the latter case is quite likely- and if anybody decides that I’m not worth their trouble because I’m not a man of my word, well, I deserve it, and should be okay with it.

I think a non-insignificant element of procrastination comes from a fear of not living up to expectations. Maybe. I’m not sure. Maybe a part of the reason why I never studied hard was because I didn’t want to see how poorly I’d do even after studying hard– so I chose not to study at all, because then I could justify my poor results with lack of effort. I may not have been consciously aware of it then, but I preferred ‘being’ lazy over ‘being’ incompetent.

But along the way- I was going to say “somewhere along the way”, but it’s no particular place, and no particular time- I began to realize that it’s okay to be incompetent. Acknowledging incompetence is the first step to competency. So I will begin with a clean slate. I am silly, ignorant, unskilled, a beginner, a novice. And I am okay with that. And I will put in effort every day, to be a better man in 2012 than I was in 2009, by my own metrics. Beside July 1 2009 “Unproductive Day”, will be July 1 2012- “Worked my ass off, took steps towards my dreams.”

Today I took baby steps towards my dreams.