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CLARITY PROJECT: make your 20s intentional
In your 20s you should:
- Live in the moment!
- Plan for the future…
- Pursue passion!
- Pursue money…
- Go to college!
- Start a business…
- Travel!
- Save money…
- This is the time to hustle!
- And take mental health days for work-life balance…
The fuck are you supposed to do? This barrage of contradicting advice does nothing more than confuse, when a confused mess is the one thing you don’t want in your head.
This is the default path: a head full of questions, feet wandering aimlessly, a life lived in the shadow of indecision. Uncertainty becomes a vice, and you numb the discomfort with distractions. This path is littered with half-hearted decisions, missed opportunities, and a nagging sense of unfulfilled potential. A life lived in response to the shouts of others, rather than stopping to listen to the whisper of your own heart.
This path sucks. It’s a continuous cycle of confusion and avoidance, of hiding behind vices rather than confronting the discomfort, of drifting rather than steering your life. It’s a path that leads to mediocrity, frustration, and regret.
But there is an alternate path. A path to clarity and purpose. I’ll call it –
the CLARITY PROJECT.
There is no single correct set of choices for your life. But I could argue for a correct approach. I’m halfway though my 20s (25), love where I’m at so far, and excited for what’s ahead. Yet only 3 years ago I was that head full of questions, wandering aimlessly, numbing myself all day. The memories are still fresh enough that I remember how I climbed out, I’ll put it down to remind myself if I ever need it again, and, with luck, you find some use of this as well.
Come along, on this path to being Good Gardeners for this world.
The “plan”:
- finish 12 years of school,
- go to university,
- get a shitty job in parallel,
- more university?
- work, i guess?
- family? feels too early, haven’t lived yet…
You haven’t enthusiastically studied since you were 16. You haven’t seriously thought about where you want to be ever. You haven’t considered that the first job doesn’t have to feel shitty.
It is okay to not know your path. It is okay to change your mind. But whatever step you decide to take, have it be a confident one.
Too often people don’t reflect on what they are doing, how it makes them feel. Does it warrant a change? They don’t cast their gaze confidently into the future, to work back what action they’d need to take today. And maybe you’ve done that! But you still can’t get going today… Why so? Are you afraid of the effort? Or is the eventual goal not actually yours?
INSTEAD:
- Try things confidently!
- See how it feels, reflect.
- Switch regularly, aggressively!
- Until you find where to double down.
Otherwise you’ll find yourself with 3 fully completed undergrad degrees, still not knowing what to do, your 20s gone.
Or constant smoking, alcohol, partying, drugs, to drown your aimlessness, to forget that you don’t like what you’re doing.
Some even know their dream! And are almost doing it! And are getting positive responses on their first steps! And are still too fucking scared. “But I need to finish my unrelated degree that I hate first” or “I’ll do it every second weekend, meanwhile I have these 5 side jobs that I do, where I don’t actually currently need the money and they are literally taking time away from my dream which is right here…” or any other cope. Lil bitch.
The same scrutiny applies to your habits, routines.
You don’t have to have everything figured out already. But you should be clear on what you are doing right now.
Ask me what I’m doing right now.
- writing this letter, as part of taking action towards a personal brand
- quitting nicotine (turns out it is more of a bitch than I thought. Did you know a single salt switch is 20 to 40 cigs of nicotine? And a salt a day is quite common… fucked up)
- revising an article for my research job (edit: finished that while writing this)
- organising projects for my dance troupe
- trying to learn what “priority” means
It is a lot. But not a random lot. The research job has flexibility, dance is my soul food, and a personal brand is my attempt at combining all my interests under a business (there are more than the listed ones… but the list was already long so I cut ‘em).
But it is a lot. With occasional sprints. Thus you occasionally lose yourself. And then comes the time to reorient.
So instead of feeling lost after a few sprints, instead of falling to nicotine and coping and a messy apartment and infinite youtube, instead of all that I am organising myself a moon of clarity. My clarity project.
Because a confused head is good for nothing – you can’t act, but you can’t rest either.
Why a moon? I don’t fuck with weeks, decided some while ago to move to moon phases, more fun.
Why a full month/moon not half or three quarters? Because parts of this project are inspired from Anna Lembke’s dopamine detox, for which she gave a month as a good period from observations in her clinical practice.
What will this Clarity Project cover?
Facing discomfort.
What you want to do; who you want to be; what you have to do to get there. There is a block when looking at it. If the ambition is high enough you get anxious standing at the foot of a giant cliff face.
But dare to look straight at the cliff and you’ll notice the first holds; some ledges where to take a break; points to attach your rope. And the unconquerable cliff becomes a conquerable first step.
But taking that detailed look requires facing discomfort.
Anything you’d want requires facing discomfort:
- quitting nicotine – simply accept feeling (a lot of) discomfort for two weeks
- finishing that looming task – face the discomfort of looking at it, admit that you’re scared, then solve how you’ll deal with it
- resolving any social situation – start the uncomfortable conversation, and then you have no real choice but to finish it to some form of resolution
My writing and youtube? Simply on the other side of admitting that I don’t know how to do everything that I envision yet… it sucks. And then I write something anyways.
So we will face discomfort:
- the discomfort of abstinence
- the discomfort of action
Abstinence from the noise and busyness. Remove compulsive head-filling whenever thoughts start to surface. Remove mindless content input, so that your mind can ruminate on your meaningful active projects. Give your mind time and space to process your own life.
Action towards goals you deem worthy in your newfound clarity of abstinence.
First you get clarity. Then chase!
Abstinence. Action!
the discomfort of ABSTINENCE
If we forensically study the moments when we are drawn to pick up our devices, these are almost always when some kind of anxiety is pressing in on us – an anxiety on whose analysis and interpretation the correct navigation of our lives may depend.
For me the discomfort of abstinence contains:
- no youtube on my phone
- no socials
- limited finishing
- clearing-pose
- no nicotine
So that in the moments when this anxiety beckons, I can ask myself, what might I need to think about?
For the apps on my phone, I’ve removed most completely. If you need to leave something, you can try OneSec or create something similar yourself (the shortcut below, as an automation upon opening said app). So your phone either has nothing to be opened, or forces you to think for a few seconds about what you are doing.
On masturbation and finishing. The sexual drive is among the most powerful a person can have. We often move mountains for people when courting. This chemical potential is in us. But we rarely take control of it. Which I find wasteful, so I’m talking about it. The specific details would differ, but think about it.
Clearing-pose is a physically aligning, meditative pose. A friend’s mom showed it to me, I intuitively love it, and it has a nice air of mystery around it as it doesn’t have a name and can’t be found online. (She is writing her PhD on topics related to it, primitive reflexes and their effect on sports learning I think, but there isn’t much directly related to it) It fills the function of having 30 minutes a day of darkness, silence, nothing but awareness.
Nicotine isn’t really related all that much, but it happens to correlate time wise. Cigarettes stink. Vapes you start to smoke so frequently that I feel like a crack addict – it is the last thing you do before falling asleep and the first upon waking, with seemingly more breaths of it than fresh air. Somehow it finally clicked to stop.
These compose my abstinence. You might get defensive about the positives these actions give you, but:
we ignore the fruitful boredom we haven’t had, the reveries we haven’t entertained, the daydreams we’ve throttled, the ideas we’ve not hatched, the novels we haven’t written, the businesses we didn’t start, the feelings we’ve not identified, the self-awareness we’ve lost.
So try it for a month. What will you do instead?
the discomfort of ACTION
In your newfound clarity of abstinence, take action on what you now deem worthy.
For me I’ve chosen as my priority project writing for videos.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t do anything else. I have other responsibilities that I enjoy thoroughly and which give me a lot!
But it means that I’ll set a morning routine, short and simple, stick to it daily, to toss me into a focused hour on my priority.
- sip of electrolytes and protein
- 20 min walk to wake up
- write
Electrolytes to rehydrate (they are the one supplement which make me feel awesome throughout my life). Protein shake because I have my first meal later, but I want to get that extra shot at muscle protein synthesis. The morning walk to get me that Huberman sunlight, as I wake quite groggy and can’t (yet) immediately sit down at a computer (I’ve tried). And then write. Simple.
I’ve shared my current iteration of the clarity project, now I challenge you to start yours! Before we move on to you crafting your own clarity project, if you find any part of this letter helpful, share it with someone who you think might benefit from hearing this message. Get yourself an accountability buddy, with whom you’ll take on this challenge.
your own CLARITY PROJECT
Sit down with a piece of paper (not a phone, toss that shit where you can’t see it or reach it) and write out:
What distracts you most from life?
Something you’d start doing in an elevator ride. Or you get home, walk into your room, fall into your bed, and … You likely know your vices, but if you don’t your phone has a screen time setting which will illuminate what you turn to most often.
Which meditative practice has intrigued you?
Starting a daily practice is difficult. To aid that pick something which intrigues you! Something you’ve wanted to try – mindfulness meditation, chanting a mantra, qigong, tai chi, taking daily naps. Even a walk outside with no phone or music works!
What is one personal project you want to work on?
We aren’t here to play urban monks, we are here to make love with the world. What do you want to do? Start a gym habit? Sew your own suit? Write an article? Make your bed daily? Maybe you know this already. If not, this can be your initial clarity activity – introspect to find what you care to do. Doesn’t have to be grand, does have to be yours (likely won’t be on the first try and that is okay, you’ll get closer and closer by iteration).
- delete the distraction
- pick a daily time for your meditation
- set aside an hour for your personal project
Delete the distraction now, while you have the willpower. (Or at least set up OneSec or something similar). For the meditative practice I like the afternoon, to get an energy re-up for the evening. And find where you can squeeze in that one hour for your own thing.
Do this for a month. A challenge.
See where your self-control is at. Become friends with the thoughts in your head. Make consistent progress towards a thing that is your own.
Now go comment what your distraction, meditation, and project is. Set an event in your calendar a month from now to celebrate and reflect on the project. Come back and reply to your comment on how it went, what you learnt!
You’ve got this!
Be a Good Gardener,
Paulis
You are welcome to comment and discuss under the relevant post on X.