‘Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more from finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to another – intensity defeats extensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a long time to come.’
In Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, this later 23rd law concerns singling out a target and focussing all your energies on it – to make sacrifices in order to achieve an end goal.
Greene’s example transports us to 6th century BC China and the Kingdom of Wu, where the king – whose name is also presumably Wu – is intent on seizing the neighbouring Middle Kingdom. Hence numerous wars occur on several fronts as land is gained but ultimately lost, and his base of operations – his palace – is eventually surrounded and lost to the barbarous southern state of Yueh.
Moving west, and several centuries, a bloke called Tim Berners-Lee invents this here Internet through which you’re reading my blog. I’m about as far from a Chinese king as you can get. I do admin and live in a deprived mill town in North West England.
You’ll notice on this blog I’ve been setting myself a series of monthly challenges – touchtyping, shorthand, bodybuilding, nunchuks etc.
The reason I formalise these things is, if I don’t concentrate those forces – If I don’t cut back on everything else and channel my efforts into one goal, I just forget what I’m doing or get tied up in other non-essential things and I achieve virtually nothing. Staying focussed and not flitting between activities don’t just help me to progress on that task – getting good at anything, Teeline shorthand for example - takes hours of work.
Alongside making the improvements and gaining the skills, that dedication can be a serious benefit to mental health. You’re less likely to have those ‘wtf am I doing with my life’ thoughts (if you’re ever prone to them) if you at least know what you’re doing with your month and your mind and actions are absorbed with that goal.
It’s also reassuring to have another project lined up so you can not only see the end in sight for what you’re currently doing, but know that you’re not running off a mental cliff, so to speak. After bodybuilding for a month, I’ve got 6 more to do, theoretically, before the end of July. Well, that’s not going to happen. But at least I can choose which project to work on next. Probably something less physically demanding and more social. (This was written some weeks ago, and I am now ploughing through this Excess Month, keeping as busy as possible for the month. I’m certainly busy.)
If you’re British, you probably went through the same comprehensive secondary education as I did, culminating in 2 years of GCSEs. For me, dealing with memory difficulties that my school didn’t believe in (despite 2 separate diagnoses from NHS educational psychologists), 10 GCSEs were just unrealistic. It was chaos trying to juggle the subjects, the homeworks and the different pieces of coursework, and it resulted in a lot of missed deadlines and detentions (that ironically put me further behind).
After school I attended Tameside College and sat an intermediate and advanced GNVQs in Media. GNVQs were General National Vocational Qualifications, and the courses were laid out one project at a time, usually for a month. This allowed me to immerse myself in that one subject and develop the knowledge and practical skills in that field. It worked for me, as being able to channel those efforts into one project meant less confusion, less mental juggling and – for me – less to forget. One solid project means fewer distractions, less chance of missed appointments and less reliance on memory and less need to remind myself where I’m supposed to be, and when, and for what. I was in the same places at the same time, either college or home, doing the same work.
In my final year, the staff introduced extra courses for more credit – an A/S level in Film Studies, a one-evening-a-week GMOCN. I took the opportunities because they were there, but they weren’t the only thing I was adding to my routine. The group started bar crawls on Thursday nights in Ashton. I got FOMO and went along to these dodgy bars, mostly playing Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now and Kernkraft 400 Zombie Nation on repeat. (The uplifting Garage hour took the edge off to be fair. Architechs’ Body Groove is still a classic.) The hangovers took it out of me, exacerbated – unbeknown to me - by an undiagnosed brain injury. To add further complication, I was listening to more music, I was attending 2 Muay Thai classes a week AND I was traversing the UCAS system with an unclear plan to go to ‘a university’ and continue studying ‘Media.’ UCAS took the entire final year to process, during which time we worked through a range of media projects focussing on areas that were quite different from the previous year, so in effect I was applying with only half the knowledge I needed to make an informed decision on my future.
Plus I was that worn out by everything that I’d forgotten why I’d applied to a media course in the first place: I wanted to be a screenwriter.
I apparently failed the GMOCN but I got the Merit in the GNVQ and a C in A/S Film Studies, a grade that could have been higher if I’d not got distracted by so many other things.
I’d failed to concentrate my forces. It was challenging enough doing 2 additional courses, but if I’d have cut out the nights out, the music, the messing about in class, staved off UCAS for a year and just kept the Muay Thai as my break time, I could have established a bit more of a plan. I was forgetting a lot of stuff as I wasn’t just working on the one GNVQ course.
Could I have got a Distinction? I doubt it at that time, but I could have absorbed a lot more knowledge and I’d have made better decisions from that point on. I wouldn’t have spent as much time hungover, cursing the bars of Ashton and their dodgy VK alcopops.
I’d instead have deferred for a year, finished college, got more advice on memory and ruled out a theory – developed by my college – that I was dyslexic, got formally diagnosed with memory difficulties as I then did in my late 20s, and from there asked the psychology department for advice going forward from there.
Right at the end of the GNVQ I managed to achieve 4 Distinctions – the highest possible GNVQ grade – on the Freelance Journalism project. I did that amongst all the chaos of that year.
I can only imagine the grades I could have got in other projects if I’d have cut out the nights out, the music, the confusion. If I’d have been bold enough to decide to defer UCAS… I could be working in journalism or public relations today. I could have got this memory condition diagnosed at 19, instead of at 27.
This is why, today, I set myself a challenge to achieve something. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be achieving this month, but I’m tapping through this Excess Month project right now, watching Conor Benn beat up Regis Prograis while I sip Flight Club spiced rum. That fits.
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