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Category: Enjoying The Journey

Pull vs. Push

Published on October 14, 2021

When you follow your curiosities, learning takes care of itself.

When you’re forced to be curious, learning needs to be taken care of.

When you believe strongly enough in a project or cause, working takes care of itself.

When you disbelieve in a project or cause, working needs to be taken care of.

When you give yourself a vision for the future, the days take care of themselves.

When you live without a vision for the future, the days need to be taken care of.

When you follow what naturally pulls you, you won’t have to push yourself all the damn time.

Arriving Isn’t Living

Published on September 8, 2021

How you get through the process is more important than how quickly you get through the process.

Most people default to thinking about the speed at which they can go from where they are, to where they want to be.

And the process quickly becomes irrelevant. All that matters is getting to “Point B.”

So they take short-cuts, Google “hacks,” subscribe to schemes—all so that they can arrive.

But, what quickly becomes evident is that arriving isn’t living. Arriving is ending.

It’s journeying that produces all of the reward. It’s the adventuring that counts.

It’s taking the scenic route, reading thick books, subscribing to long-term thinking ideas that reprioritizes the process as the main priority.

Because it is. Or, at least it should be.

For the “hows” of your process are what ultimately become the story of your life—not your arrivals.

Adventures > Chores

Published on February 27, 2021

“I don’t hold myself to longer hours; if I did, I wouldn’t gain by it. The only reason I write is because it interests me more than any other activity I’ve ever found. I like riding, going to operas and concerts, travel in the west; but on the whole writing interests me more than anything else. If I made a chore of it, my enthusiasm would die. I make it an adventure every day. I get more entertainment from it than any I could buy, except the privilege of hearing a few great musicians and singers. To listen to them interests me as much as a good morning’s work.”

Willa Cather, via MoveMe Quotes

If I was given the assignment of having to write a short-form essay every day for 423 days, I would call the assigner crazy. I would dread it. I probably wouldn’t make it past a week, let alone finish it. It’s how I felt whenever I was given a writing assignment in school.

While they were certainly effective at doing what they intended to do, there was still a palpable disconnect in how I felt about them. They weren’t organic to me. They weren’t self-driven explorations. They weren’t internally motivated. They were for a grade. They were rigid and formal. They were chores.

When I decided to write a few paragraphs about a quote every day starting on January 1st, 2020, it was like I was setting out on an adventure. I did it because I wanted to become a better writer. I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it for an entire year. I did it because I wanted to overcome the imposter syndrome I struggled with. I did it because I knew that if I wanted to become a serious writer, I would have to commit to a serious schedule.

And what a ride it has been.

Writing, for me, is one of the ultimate puzzles. There are over 170,000 words in the english language. And to spare both you and I some pretty ridiculous math, there are approximately an infinite number of ways those words can be combined into sentences, paragraphs, chapters, blogs, articles, and books—infinite.

And what fascinates me the most, is that within that mountain of words, lies the keys to understanding. Understanding people. Understanding places. Understanding things. Understanding ideas. And, most importantly, understanding ourselves. You just have to begin your adventure into the mountain on your own terms. And it will never be a chore.