My two personalities

There seem to be two dudes living in my head, fighting over the control of my mind.

The first dude is an eternal optimist. When I have an idea, he always thinks it’s great. For some reason, he speaks with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s accent.

#1: Awesome idea! You must be smart. People will love it!

Me: Are you sure? It would take a lot of work to make it happen.

#1: Yeah, I really like it. And what do you have to lose? Even if it fails, at least you will learn something. And you will have fun working on it.

This is where the dude number 2 chimes in.

#2: Fun working on it? Don’t you remember the last time? You worked on your little idea for months, and when you finally finished, that guy on Twitter said it was stupid. And then posted a whole series of tweets explaining why it was stupid. Is that your idea of fun?

Yep, #2 is a downer. He especially doesn’t like it when I try to create something. He believes it’s a waste of time, and the only activities I should do are eat, sleep, and watch videos of the guy farting loudly in public places.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to diminish the farting guy’s efforts. He’s brought joy to many lives. It’s just that I don’t want to spend my life watching other people fart. I want to be the farting guy. You know, metaphorically.

My two personalities use different energy sources to fuel their lives.

The first dude lives off my success. Which is probably why he is going out of his way to help me. He is like a great breakaway buddy in a bike race. He joins in and takes turns at the front, and any cyclist who has ever raced knows how much that helps.

The dude #2 lives off of my failures. He is like a weight around my neck. When I try to move forward, he suffocates me while whispering insults into my ear.

#2: Why should anyone care about anything you do, you schmuck?

Those dudes must hate each other. They know there can be only one controlling my mind at the time. When one gets hold of my thoughts, the other one is suffocating.

Surprisingly, they have really short memories. Usually, they only remember the previous day. After a successful day, the dude #1 rules like the Holy Roman Emperor.

#1: That was a great day yesterday. And we can do it again. Let’s continue winning!

#2: Uh, but…

#1: Quiet! Don’t you dare disturb us when we work to improve the realm!

Sometimes, the reign of #1 spans over weeks. But his dominance is more fragile than it seems. It only takes one of those terrible days when I discover I’ve been exploring a path that leads nowhere - and the king is dethroned.

It is staggering how much my productivity and quality of life depend on which of them is ruling.

When #1 is the king, my life feels like smooth sailing. I can work all day, and I love it. I feel motivated, focused, and inspired. Ideas are popping into my head like crazy, problems seem easy, and I enjoy solving them.

When #2 takes the reign, my life feels like a slog through a deep swamp. The mental resistance to working is so strong it feels like trying to walk through a wall.

I force myself to work, but I cannot focus. The code does not make sense. One error after another. I feel exhausted when I go to bed. And yet, I have accomplished nothing.

Sometimes, I give in to the temptation. I take a break to watch one video of the farting guy. One! Or maybe two. Suddenly, it’s 4 hours later, and I am watching Instant Regret #148. I am not even enjoying it. I feel drained.

Obviously, I want #1 to rule for as long as possible. Just like Wenceslas, he is a good king. There are some tricks I can use to help #1 win.

First of all, I need to sleep well. I am like a baby - if I get a good night’s sleep, I am in a great mood, and everything feels like a game. On the other hand, when I wake up tired, #2 gets a huge boost.

Sometimes, I suffer from insomnia. #2 uses those moments in the darkness to the fullest.

#2: Do you hear that?

Me: What? I can’t hear anything.

#2: That is the sound of emptiness and time mercilessly flying towards death.

Occasionally, the strengths of #1 and #2 are in equilibrium. These are the crucial moments when my own actions can decide the fate of the realm. I have to conjure the faith in #1, even though the temptation to bend to the will of #2 is overwhelming.

#2: The pleasure of funny videos is just one click away. You can have it right now. You don’t have to work weeks or months for something that might never come.

#1: This kind of “pleasure” is not that pleasurable. You will feel like shit in the evening. The pleasure of pride after a hard day’s work is genuine.

#2: It is unhealthy to work all the time. You need to recover. Work-life balance!

#1: You just had a few days off. That trip to the mountains, don’t you remember? You returned yesterday! That dude is trying to trick you into something you’ll regret.

Sometimes #1 wins, other times loses. But even then, there’s still hope. A win can come seemingly out of nowhere.

Even those days when I am working all day and have nothing to show for it. I am so frustrated and tired that I give up. I go for a bike ride. Not what I planned, but still better than watching fart videos.

On the bike, my legs feel heavy at first. But it’s a beautiful sunny evening. Slowly, a sense of lightness seeps into my soul. I get to a steep hill and suddenly feel tempted to push harder. Endorphins do their magic. When I get back home, the tiredness is gone. I feel energized and work until midnight. The day was saved. I go to bed happy.

The dude #1 loves movies about hard-working people. When I was twelve, he made me watch The 36th Chamber of Shaolin twenty times because there was something truly inspiring about the way that guy worked so hard to achieve mastery in the art of killing a man with a headbutt.

The dude #2 thrives during soul-crushingly long and dark Czech winters. Weeks go by without seeing the sun. Twilights at 4 pm and freezing winds. That’s when #2 gets so strong that he gains the magical ability to make terror out of nothing.

#2: Something terrible is going to happen.

Me: Like what?

#2: I can’t tell you that, but it will be horrifying, like the ending of The Blair Witch Project.

I believe productivity is mostly about mood management (at least for me). The problem is that even after living with those two dudes for years, I still have only a vague understanding of what makes them tick. They often surprise me.

There are times when #2 keeps winning seemingly for no reason. Is my body fighting off some virus? Did I overdo interval training? Is some unresolved relationship issue weighing me down without me realizing it? I don’t know.

Certain things help. Like giving #1 at least a little win every day - I don’t want him to starve to death. And no guilt tripping when I fail - that only feeds #2. And no news about crimes, car crashes, or celebrities. No YouTube funny compilations.

Some YouTube videos give me a boost. I am not talking about ‘inspirational’ videos. Often, the analytical ones cheer me up, perhaps because they remind me the world is analyzable and understandable. And when somebody ‘fails’ but turns it into a story with a bit of self-deprecating humor… like this one that I watched probably 100 times - I love it and appreciate people who can do something like this.

Some things that help other people do not work for me. I’ve tried gratitude practice and meditation, and I did not notice any effect. I am probably doing it wrong.

I used to ponder whether #2 was doing something useful, like danger detection. But the longer I watch him, the less I believe this. He is not helpful. He is not the one making sure I watch out for cars when I go for a bike ride - my friend Fear of Death does that. Fear of Death makes me careful on the roads. The dude #2 makes me clean up the mess in my apartment before I go for a bike ride so the survivors don’t have to clean it up when I get hit by a truck.

When I think about the best times of my life, they were always the result of blindly relying on the optimism of #1 and ignoring #2. Like the time I decided to spend a summer working in the US. For the first time in my life, I went somewhere alone - for four months overseas. It was a pretty big bite, but #1 said it would be fine. Before #2 knew it, I filled out the binding paperwork.

#2 came up with a bunch of catastrophic scenarios about all that could go wrong and gave me an anxiety attack at the airport. But there was no turning back. So I threw up in the airport bathroom 5 minutes before boarding the plane and went to the US.

It was the best summer of my life. It was hard - #2 got some of those scenarios right. What he got wrong was that none of them was catastrophic. They were all solvable. And I learned a lot. I met new friends and made some awesome memories that I still cherish after more than two decades.

So, this is my New Year resolution: to have faith in #1, do what he says, and hope for the best.