One of my gifts and curses is having really broad interests. I’m always finding a fun new book to pick up, yet I always feel bad at how few of them I finish. (Being dominant in Type One, it’s also probably an expectation that not finishing runs afoul of the “right” way to read books—whatever bologna that is.)
So the latest for me was Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions. It’s a rich book, and a wide-ranging one. And one of the concepts it introduced to me was that of “Linear Time” vs. “Constant Time.”
Linear Time vs. Constant Time
I’m going to use some jargon from the book, but bear with me—it’s minimal, and I promise it’s going somewhere.
Linear Time is when an algorithm is proportional to the input. For example, passing a dish of food around a table. If you have 5 people at dinner, passing a dish around the table takes only a little time. If you have 10 people, it takes twice as long. If you were to have 100 people, it would take 20 times longer, and so on.
Constant Time, on the other hand, is when an algorithm is not dependent on the size of the input. The example the book gives is that of cleaning your house. Whether you’re hosting 5 people or 100, cleaning your house takes the same amount of time. “Clean” is clean.
I like to think this has applications for the the inner work paired with the Enneagram.
Cleaning Your House
We’re all called to do the same work of "cleaning our house"—the Inner Work. Now, some people might appear to have advantages in doing this ‘cleaning’ work. We might say, "They're ambidextrous, so they can clean faster and more efficiently,” or, “They were given a mop and broom from the get-go, so it's easier for them."
And some people could appear to be burdened with disadvantages. We might say, "I was born with only one arm," or, "I was permanently injured growing up, so it takes me a lot longer to clean my house." And that’s okay—truly. But the work of cleaning, tidying, clearing things in order for your space to be more livable, functional, enjoyable, hospitable—that work is all still yours to do. Even with advantages. Even with disadvantages.
And even if you can hire people to help you clean your house, at the end of the day, you're the one who has to live there. You can see a therapist or attend a conference or receive spiritual direction or buy an insightful book—but the work is waiting for you. Waiting for me. Waiting for all of us.
Dream Home Giveaway
One of the funny quirks of my immediate family is that we love to dream about winning the lottery or some grand prize. The HGTV Dream Home has long been a topic of conversation and fantasy.
So imagine your own dream home, in as much detail as you can. Imagine I bought it for you. And I promised that in giving you your dream home, it came fully furnished, exactly as you’d wanted it. Now imagine that when we went into the house together, instead of a perfect home you found it was almost floor-to-ceiling garbage, knick-knacks, junk, residue from critters and bugs—hardly a place to walk or stand… as if it were the result of a hoarder’s addiction. And you were so disgusted you could barely stay in the house. But then I reassured you that once cleaned, underneath all the garbage, you’d find the brand-new furnishings, just as you’d hoped. It’s still your dream home; all of the details you wanted are there underneath. Your home would still be perfectly suited for you, you just have to sort through the junk bit by bit to start revealing the function and the beauty of a home that fits you perfectly.
What’s the Catch?
Now, you could have two reactions. The First is to refuse to clean the home.
You could make your way to a semblance of a bed at night sleeping on newspapers and old boxes; scrounge up a frisbee as a make-shift plate for your breakfast; use old grocery bags as house slippers. You could choose to live in the squalor. And the scary thing is, a lot of people do.
The compulsion and habit of hoarding exists. And though I don't know much about that real-world compulsion, I do know that for those individuals, it somehow feels preferable to live in the squalor than to face the hard things that cleaning and sorting and clearing would bring: guilt, insecurity, emotional pain, shame... Putting off the decluttering feels... somehow safer.
And that's actually not that hard to imagine, right? Having something you want so badly to avoid that you literally choose to ignore it everyday… is something we’ve all experienced at some point. You choose the daily, familiar pain over the scary, unknown one. The familiar you know you can manage; the unfamiliar... you're not so sure. So that's your first choice, to stay right where you are and accept the known uncomfortability for fear of the alternative.
Or... The Second Choice… you could ultimately start cleaning.
Why Wait?
And yes, you may lament just how messy or dirty the house is, how long it might take to clean, the hard work it will entail—but you could make a start. And, because the inner work is Constant Time, each bit you do today is that much less that you have to do tomorrow.
I think it was Thomas Merton who made the point that with God we must be very patient, but God wishes so many of us weren’t so patient. There’s a work to be done in each of us of toward healing, growth, wholeness, freedom. And while the power may not be ours, the task certainly is.
In other words, why not start today—right now? Bit by bit, you could work toward a more “livable space” within the personhood of your “house.” And the more you do, the better qualitative experience you have in your space.
People can look at inner work like therapy, spiritual direction, the Enneagram, self-help podcasts, gym memberships, diet changes, and on and on and think, "That's so much work!" And it is. But that’s not the whole picture.
‘You Can Leave, But There’s Nowhere Else to Go’
The famous Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki was once leading a “sesshin,” an intensive meditation retreat, for several days in the U.S. The attendees maintained strict silence with long periods of meditation, but they were allowed their own one-on-one session with Suzuki periodically to talk and get guidance.
A day or two into this silent retreat, one of the women attending comes to Suzuki almost panicked. She’s never done something like this before, and it’s freaking her out. She says she can’t stand the retreat and explains that she’s not even a serious student of Zen; she just came to do the retreat with her husband and support him. “I’m not even supposed to be here!” she pleads.
Suzuki looks at her and says, “Well of course you can leave… but there’s nowhere else to go.”
If she got in her car and raced home, the she might be able to feel that the interior angst and terror she left behind at the monastery. But of course, it doesn’t live at the monastery; it lives within her.
I love that story. And I relate to the woman. Because even though I like to think my interior “house” isn’t quite floor-to-ceiling garbage at this point in my journey, there are still times when I feel like running out the door, overwhelmed by the weight of how un-dreamlike it still is. It can feel like it’s truly “too much work” to keep a rhythm of methodically cleaning the house, of showing up in that way.
But we need to name that it's also "too much work" to sleep on trash, breathe in dusty air, scrounge for a clean plate. There’s a cost to inaction that many of us eventually realize is even greater than the cost of ‘showing up.’
But the gift of Constant Time is that none of the work is wasted. While it can feel like there’s always more—and in some sense, there always is—that doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress.
Tools like the Enneagram give us a roadmap—a readymade Marie-Condo-like system for “cleaning” our interior house—that millions of people have found helpful. And one of the great benefits is the realization that the interior dream home—the way you hope to be in the world—isn’t “out there,” dependent on luck or circumstance or a stroke of genius. It’s already at hand. The ‘True Self’ is within you; if we can clear enough away to find it.
Samuel Ogles is the owner of ‘Formation Circle,’ a practice offering spiritual direction, Enneagram teaching, and media to empower others in personal transformation. You can support this work by subscribing to this newsletter (Free and Paid versions available), and you can connect with Sam or another spiritual director at FormationCircle.com.