What are the "small" tasks you have in the Work?

[Peto]

I'm reading "Views from the real world" at the moment. The book is a collection of Gurdjieff's talks in the early 1920's. In one of the talk, he said that we should start with small tasks because if we try to do big ones, we will never complete even one. He gave an example of small tasks: "stop automatic and nervous movements" and two examples of big tasks: "stop talking too much" and "endure the manifestations of people".

After thinking about what small tasks I can do at the moment, I come up with one. Until now, every morning when I go to the office, I often spend an inordinate amount of time checking emails, reading news, etc. before starting any real work. From next Monday, I will start work immediately when I sit down at the computer.

Now, my questions for other forum members:
(1) Is it a small enough task?
And (2) What are other small tasks you can think of, or have done?

 

[Bo]

I'm reading "Views from the real world" at the moment. The book is a collection of Gurdjieff's talks in the early 1920's. In one of the talk, he said that we should start with small tasks because if we try to do big ones, we will never complete even one. He gave an example of small tasks: "stop automatic and nervous movements" and two examples of big tasks: "stop talking too much" and "endure the manifestations of people".

After thinking about what small tasks I can do at the moment, I come up with one. Until now, every morning when I go to the office, I often spend an inordinate amount of time checking emails, reading news, etc. before starting any real work. From next Monday, I will start work immediately when I sit down at the computer.

Now, my questions for other forum members:
(1) Is it a small enough task?
And (2) What are other small tasks you can think of, or have done?

Hi hoang,

I think we first have too ask ourself in what way it would benefit yourself by doing these ''small tasks'' you say that you start working immediately next monday , but does that not become ''automatic'' aswell after a while? I think what Gurdieff meant with "stop automatic and nervous movements" is that one needs to be conscious with every act one makes, because if you don't think about an act and just do , I see that as automatic , but when you are conscious of an act it is not automatic but you are just aware of it.

For example: biting your fingernails all the times just happens automatic and it happens when one gets nervous or if one is stressed, but if I am conscious of that act I just wont do it.

If reading your emails, news etc affects your work in a negative way then yes , it is a small enoug task to do and focus on your work instead.

2) Other small tasks that I could think of would be maybe that , stop wasting your energy on deciding if your hair looks good or not today which people automatically stress about every day! lol :P


I could also be way off but correct me if I am.

 

[Kesdjan]

"Automatic and nervous movements" are very interesting things to observe in people- and you can observe them in everyone who in not doing the Work. First work on observing them in other people as you interact with them, then work on observing them in yourself. I have observed that such movements (yawning, moving the leg up in down, tapping the fingers, scratching nose, etc.) cause a chain reaction when they happen, especially in places where one has to wait (for instance, the doctor's office) or is not allowed to interact with anyone else. Beginning with this, you will be able to accomplish the much harder task of moving from internal to external consideration.

 

[Peto]

Here are the passages I referred to

Q: How can we gain attention?

A: There is no attention in people. You must aim to acquire this. Self-observation is only possible after acquiring attention. Start on small things.

Q: What small things can we start on? What should we do?

A: Your nervous and restless movements make everyone know, consciously or unconsciously, that you have no authority and are a booby. With these restless movements you cannot be anything. The first thing for you to do is to stop these movements. Make this your aim, your God. Even get your family to help you. Only after this, you can perhaps gain attention. This is an example of doing.
Another example - an aspiring pianist can never learn except little by little. If you wish to play melodies without first practicing, you can never play real melodies. The melodies you will play will be cacophonous and will make people suffer and hate you. It is the same with psychological ideas: to gain anything, long practice is necessary.
Try to accomplish very small things first. If at first you aim at big things you will never be anything. And your manifestations will act like cacophonous melodies and cause people to hate you.

Q: What must I do?

A: There are two kinds of doing - automatic doing, and doing according to aim. Take a small thing which you now are not able to do, and make this your aim, your God. Let nothing interfere. Only aim at this. Then, if you succeed in doing this, I will be able to give you a greater task. Now you have an appetite to do things too big for you. This is an abnormal appetite. You can never do these things, and this appetite keeps you from doing the small things that you might do. Destroy this appetite, forget big things. make the breaking of a small habit your aim.

Q: I think my worst fault is talking too much. Would trying not to talk so much be a good task?

A: For you this is a very good aim. You spoil everything with your talking. This talk even hinders your business. When you talk much, your words have no weight. Try to overcome this. Many blessings will flow to you if you succeed. Truly, this is a very good task. But it is a big thing, not small. I promise you, if you achieve this, even if I am not here, I will know about your achievement, and will send help so that you will know what to do next.

Q: Would a good task be to endure the manifestations of others?

A: To endure the manifestations of others is a big thing. The last thing for a man. Only a perfect man can do this. Start by making your aim or your God the ability to bear one manifestation of one person that you cannot now endure without nervousness. If you "wish," you "can." Without "wishing," you never "can." Wish is the most powerful thing in the world. With conscious wish everything comes.

Q: I frequently remember my aim but I have not the energy to do what I feel I should do.

A: Man has no energy to fulfill voluntary aims because all his strength, acquired at night during his passive state, is used up in negative manifestations. These are his automatic manifestations, the opposite of his positive, willed manifestations.
For those of you who are already able to remember your aim automatically, but have no strength to do it: sit for a period of at least one hour alone. Make all your muscles relaxed. Allow your associations to proceed but do not be absorbed by them. Say to them: "If you will let me do as I wish now, I shall later grant you your wishes." Look on you associations as though they belonged to someone else, to keep yourself from identifying with them.
At the end of an hour take a piece of paper and write your aim on it. Make this paper your God. Everything else is nothing. Take it out of your pocket and read it constantly, every day. In this way it becomes part of you, at first theoretically, later actually. To gain energy, practice this exercise of sitting still and making your muscles dead. Only when everything in you is quiet after an hour, make your decision about your aim. Don't let associations absorb you. To undertake a voluntary aim, and to achieve it, gives magnetism and the ability to "do."

 

[Rich]

Man has no energy to fulfill voluntary aims because all his strength, acquired at night during his passive state, is used up in negative manifestations. These are his automatic manifestations, the opposite of his positive, willed manifestations.
For those of you who are already able to remember your aim automatically, but have no strength to do it: sit for a period of at least one hour alone. Make all your muscles relaxed. Allow your associations to proceed but do not be absorbed by them. Say to them: "If you will let me do as I wish now, I shall later grant you your wishes." Look on you associations as though they belonged to someone else, to keep yourself from identifying with them.
At the end of an hour take a piece of paper and write your aim on it. Make this paper your God. Everything else is nothing. Take it out of your pocket and read it constantly, every day. In this way it becomes part of you, at first theoretically, later actually. To gain energy, practice this exercise of sitting still and making your muscles dead. Only when everything in you is quiet after an hour, make your decision about your aim. Don't let associations absorb you. To undertake a voluntary aim, and to achieve it, gives magnetism and the ability to "do."

I tried this today and found it a useful and motivating exercise. Afterwards it helped me focus on the above advice: observing automatic and nervous movements in myself and others around me

 

[Bo]

Man has no energy to fulfill voluntary aims because all his strength, acquired at night during his passive state, is used up in negative manifestations. These are his automatic manifestations, the opposite of his positive, willed manifestations.
For those of you who are already able to remember your aim automatically, but have no strength to do it: sit for a period of at least one hour alone. Make all your muscles relaxed. Allow your associations to proceed but do not be absorbed by them. Say to them: "If you will let me do as I wish now, I shall later grant you your wishes." Look on you associations as though they belonged to someone else, to keep yourself from identifying with them.
At the end of an hour take a piece of paper and write your aim on it. Make this paper your God. Everything else is nothing. Take it out of your pocket and read it constantly, every day. In this way it becomes part of you, at first theoretically, later actually. To gain energy, practice this exercise of sitting still and making your muscles dead. Only when everything in you is quiet after an hour, make your decision about your aim. Don't let associations absorb you. To undertake a voluntary aim, and to achieve it, gives magnetism and the ability to "do."

I tried this today and found it a useful and motivating exercise. Afterwards it helped me focus on the above advice: observing automatic and nervous movements in myself and others around me

What does he mean with associations? feelings? could someone please explain this in an easy way or give an example?

 

[Cyre2067]

He means those temporary pushes and pulls of our everyday environment.

To give you an example, i was reading Secret History the other day when i decided to take a break. My first impulse (association) was for a cig, so i grabbed one, then i had the desire to go downstairs, while down there, there were people hanging out in my living room with my flatmate and of course they all wanted me to chill with them for a few minutes. Before you know it there's illegal activity going on that i do NOT want to take part in, but then again my 'associations' come along and whisper, "It's been awhile, you're fine, just once..."

that's when i identify my mental 'associations' as 'not me' and go back upstairs to read.

In sum, i think by 'associations' he means your thought/instinctive/emotional complex that pass through your mind daily. By 'identifying' with your associations you become them and give them life. By observing them and resisting those that oppose your aim you grow your will.

...osit

 

[Bo]

He means those temporary pushes and pulls of our everyday environment.

To give you an example, i was reading Secret History the other day when i decided to take a break. My first impulse (association) was for a cig, so i grabbed one, then i had the desire to go downstairs, while down there, there were people hanging out in my living room with my flatmate and of course they all wanted me to chill with them for a few minutes. Before you know it there's illegal activity going on that i do NOT want to take part in, but then again my 'associations' come along and whisper, "It's been awhile, you're fine, just once..."

that's when i identify my mental 'associations' as 'not me' and go back upstairs to read.

In sum, i think by 'associations' he means your thought/instinctive/emotional complex that pass through your mind daily. By 'identifying' with your associations you become them and give them life. By observing them and resisting those that oppose your aim you grow your will.

...osit

Thanks a lot Cyre2067 , it's more clear now, so basically the more conscious you are of your thoughts/instinctive and emotional complex , you will also be able to resist that which tries to oppose your aims.

 

[Cyre2067]

so basically the more conscious you are of your thoughts/instinctive and emotional complex , you will also be able to resist that which tries to oppose your aims.

Exactly, and also to keep your aim(s) in mind, constantly, it's part of the self-awareness package that helps you develop your will. Keeping in mind your goals allows you to constantly check "Am I working towards this goal or just goofing off?"

But don't berate yourself, sometimes in order to work towards our goal we need to relax and take a break. It's a fine distinction between relaxing as much as you need to and identifying with the associations that flow from the predator.

...or so i think

 

[herondancer]

If you want something which by Mr. G's own admission is not small, but certainly clearcut, you couldn't do better than this:

Q: I think my worst fault is talking too much. Would trying not to talk so much be a good task?

A: For you this is a very good aim. You spoil everything with your talking. This talk even hinders your business. When you talk much, your words have no weight. Try to overcome this. Many blessings will flow to you if you succeed. Truly, this is a very good task. But it is a big thing, not small. I promise you, if you achieve this, even if I am not here, I will know about your achievement, and will send help so that you will know what to do next.

This is the task that I was given, and it is truly worth the effort. It's going to be a task I will always have to be aware of, but as Mr. G has said, many blessings have flowed from the effort. It has meant a completely different, higher quality of interaction with other people. External consideration is easier by far when you are not talking yourself, but listening to what other people are saying.

Try and try again, if this is the thing that needs work. The energy you save will be astounding. :D

Herondancer

 

[mudrabbit]

I remember doing an exercise that was suggested in one of the Castenada books. It was about observing your hands. So for awhile, I attempted to observe what my hands were doing. (Didn't keep my eyes on them, but just stayed aware.) For such a seemingly simple exercise, it was interesting to find out much my mind wandered and wasn't 100% on the task at hand.

On those times I was able to keep the focus on my hands for more than ten minutes, my concentration improved. It was just an experiment, but I did learn from it that our thoughts are not often under our control.

Peg

 

[j0da]

After thinking about what small tasks I can do at the moment, I come up with one. Until now, every morning when I go to the office, I often spend an inordinate amount of time checking emails, reading news, etc. before starting any real work. From next Monday, I will start work immediately when I sit down at the computer.

Hi hoangmphung. I share your problem and I'm struggling with it for quite a time now. Those "small" things when added compose large chunk of "office time" which is completely wasted, thus making me less effective, forcing me to stay after hours to finish all the required tasks. I've been able to override this mind wandering by taking so many responsibilities, that I stayed focused due to enormous stress. This, however, is terrible way to go :( Often, in order to fullfil all the responsibilities I have to put away reading SOTT recommended books and this makes the situation even worse.

I've been reading "Bezebub's Tales" yesterday night, the piece where Belzebub speaks about particular sickness called "Tomorrow", which is in fact the terrible trait of many people who postpone all the necessary "doings" till tomorrow. I think another name of this disease would be "Later".

Thanks for starting this thread and for inspiration, hoang!

 

[Peto]

Hi J0da, I can definitely relate to the "Later" disease. In fact, when I think about it, the problem that I was trying to overcome with my "small task" in the first post of this thread is not just about checking emails and news at work but rather about putting off things that I don't like doing until forced to do them by their approaching deadlines. It's like there's a part of me trying to trick me into doing anything but the uninteresting things that I have to do. This could be one of the clearest example of the different i's in me showing up.

With a little further reflection, it can be easily seen that putting off tasks until right before the deadline encourages the mechanicalness in myself because I will then be forced to do them, which is utterly mechanical, rather than doing them when I have a choice not to, which is more conscious. Hopefully, this little analysis will help me better overcome the "Later" disease.

 

[Tigersoap]

After thinking about what small tasks I can do at the moment, I come up with one. Until now, every morning when I go to the office, I often spend an inordinate amount of time checking emails, reading news, etc. before starting any real work. From next Monday, I will start work immediately when I sit down at the computer.

Hi hoangmphung. I share your problem and I'm struggling with it for quite a time now. Those "small" things when added compose large chunk of "office time" which is completely wasted, thus making me less effective, forcing me to stay after hours to finish all the required tasks. I've been able to override this mind wandering by taking so many responsibilities, that I stayed focused due to enormous stress

Guys, I used to work in offices a lot and although it's important to do the work assigned to you I also feel that sometimes the "good employee" program starts because you're scared of getting caught procrastinating for example.

I am not saying that slacking off is a good thing but I always kept in mind that sometimes you can give much of your energy to a company that absolutely does not care about you.
Which might not be the case here.

In a way it maybe says a lot about how you feel in your job, it's not uncommon to be totally bored by what you're doing and it's sometimes easier to browse the internet for example.
It can lead to guilt, stress and so on which are imho linked to the "good employee/good son" program.

Still it can be a nice exercise to practice conscious awareness.
But to be frank, I tried to do it in my last job and I failed. I really could not stand it.
I think that's where I got my caffeine addiction.

I suppose you have to prioritize your task during the day while at the same leaving enough breathing space to keep "reading" if you want to. Balance is the key.

I think it as much an energy drain to become the rigid office employee who does not stop until he drops osit.

 

[Meg]

I am not saying that slacking off is a good thing but I always kept in mind that sometimes you can give much of your energy to a company that absolutely does not care about you.
Which might not be the case here.

In a way it maybe says a lot about how you feel in your job, it's not uncommon to be totally bored by what you're doing and it's sometimes easier to browse the internet for example.
It can lead to guilt, stress and so on which are imho linked to the "good employee/good son" program.


I suppose you have to prioritize your task during the day while at the same leaving enough breathing space to keep "reading" if you want to. Balance is the key.

I think it as much an energy drain to become the rigid office employee who does not stop until he drops osit.

Well said! Conscious awareness at work is difficult, caffeine or not:)