At precisely midnight, Eastern Time, on New Year’s Eve, I was talking to my friend “Rick” back in Virginia. He was in a state of angst. As he watched the ball drop on TV, he told me that he was really wondering whether he should be doing “more.”
Rick is one of the smartest guys I know. He taught himself ancient Greek so he could read the Bible and certain classics in the original language. He gets right to the heart of any matter in ways that at first seem simplistic, but upon reflection and testing, are right on target.
By most metrics, he’s a successful man. He three amazing children with his beautiful wife, and they have one more on the way (and one in Heaven). On the career front, he’s an engineer of some kind with a job that serves one of the alphabet agencies in the DC area. I’m sure that, as a husband and father living in one of the most affluent places in the country, he could use a few more dollars per year, but he’s not in any major want.
But Rick was pensive.
We kept it light, but I quizzed him a bit about it. “What do you want to do?”
Rick didn’t know. He just felt like he was spinning his wheels in perpetual grad school. With actual humility, he shared that he thought he had something to offer. We talked about his many interesting skills. They’re very specialized, but it was easy to see how he might use them. Nonetheless, for every one of the ideas he had, he found ten reasons why they wouldn’t work.
I’ve never heard “The Call” so clearly broadcasting from anyone like this before. I sort of live in the world of entrepreneurship, creator-space, etc., and I hear (and cheer) people’s ideas all the time. But it’s absolutely clear to me that some angel is shoving him, two-handed with the flat of his flaming sword, into the wilderness.
He just needs to make a decision.
He has a lot to lose. Comfort, respect, the support of his wife, and maybe “food security” for his kids. I wouldn’t blame him for sticking with the stable life that he has - that he’s earned. If he threw caution to the wind, I’d respect him for that, too. (More so? Not really, although I have to admit that there’s a wild man inside of me who gets amped-up by anyone who throws themselves into the front ranks of a superior enemy force.)
But one way or another, he has to decide. Otherwise, it will eat him alive.
Most people go with the flow. I have most definitely done that all my life. Even in the midst of the MTB decade, I rarely decided on a direction and then acted on it. (Quick background for the new subscribers: MTB was a moving company I ran for 10 years. It crashed and burned). It was one freaking crisis after another, and in those rare times when I’d slain that week’s hydra and gotten to the real work, I usually whiffed it and used what energy I had left to make sure all the TPS reports were filed properly.
I thought I was being proactive. I believed I was grinding toward Nirvana. I took action daily.
It was crap.
Events dictated my actions, or reactions, actually. And let me just confess again for good measure - I was such an arrogant little brat about it. It’s a condition I see with many newish small-time entrepreneurs or business owners. They make a couple of bucks from their own (no doubt) divinely blessed wills, and suddenly they’re erecting a (slightly elevated) place for themselves in their own personal Pantheons.
Hustle-and-grind culture can be so tedious…
In a world of “choices,” in a time of such outrageous abundance and convenience, it can be easy to mistake the consumption of things for the production of something. “I choose this option, and that option, and this other option, but I reject these…” All we’re really doing is accepting the reality mediated to us by others. And worse, it turns us into little French princelings.
I’m only now beginning to grasp the blindingly obvious: Deciding, and by implication, doing, is as different from reacting as is the different destinations for water flowing down the opposite sides of the continental divide.
It’s not about shouting your barbaric YAWP. It’s not about big, bold declarations. In fact, I’m inclined to believe that the most powerful movement comes after a decision for the good in the quiet of the pre-dawn morning. Deciding, before the sun rises, to do, or be XYZ, is where real movement happens.
The question is whether your resolve can survive the light of day. I think that’s where most people lose it. But if your resolve makes it to noon, you’ve got this. Especially if your decision already has some scorch marks.
(My son ably demonstrated this with a meme he just made. I had suggested that until his YouTube hustle cash flows, maybe he should consider getting a job. It would be 10x more than his allowance after all. It scared him enough to create a budget and resolve to earn in other ways. Smart, practical ways. But then he made this. Lol.)
[IMAGE - JOSEPH’S MEME]
Toward the end of Dan Simmons’ epic Hyperion/Endymion sci-fi series, the guru-messiah Aenea is working on her big Sermon-on-the-Mount-type of speech. It’s actually kind of a cute scene. She’d realized the power of brevity and wanted it to be a hard-hitting, no-nonsense Message for the masses.
Aenea whittled down her speech to just a paragraph, then a few lines, and then, finally, two words.
“Choose again.”
I’ve read that series about once per year for decades. And every time I read that part I roll my eyes. “Choose again.” Pffppt. Consumerist trash. She might as well have told her disciples to “Have values.”
But now…
Well, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve found some wisdom in a pop-fic sci-fi novel. “Choose again” is exactly what we have to do to have some command of our own lives. Even if we’ve chosen a path and we’ve walked it for some time, we still need to choose. Daily. Your mileage may vary, but for me, knowing the good, deciding to embrace or embody it, and recommitting every day, even every moment, bears incredible fruit.
You might even want to wake up every day and say out loud what you’ve decided.
“I am going to write this book.”
“I am going to be kind to this person.”
“I will quit college after this semester to build this business.”
Deciding, every day, does mortal damage to the procrastinator’s nemesis, “Tomorrow.”
When you get into the practice of deciding, moment by moment, time slows. The chaos fades away. It burns up the dross of foolishness and frivolity and makes you lethal to mediocrity and indecision.
Again, your mileage may vary, but it’s something worth thinking about.
What have you decided for this year?
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I love the way your mind works. I'm amazed at your gift to assemble these topics that connect us all but usually go unsaid. You are so courageous to speak these truths. You humble me.