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A "Merry Christmas" Reflection

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Today is the day that enchants the minds of children and provokes a curious admixture of joy, sorrow, angst and consumerism for adults. Yes, today is Christmas. May yours be merry.
Some thoughts:

  • When I was a kid, Christmas was a time of magic. Part of the magic was a two-fold sense of expectancy — the secular acts of gift-giving, feasting and school vacations, on one hand, and the progression of Advent on the other. Now, I look forward to my annual two-week vacation, but the religious aspect feels disconnected. Partly, I think, because of my church-hopping over the last several years, and partly because most of the expressions I see of authentically Catholic Advent/Christmas observance feel increasingly trite. The depth is missing. The sense of spiritual challenge is gone. Many years ago, my friend Mitch observed that one of our priests only really had five homilies, the contents of which changed like a paint-by-numbers game. Advent/Christmas feels a lot like that, now: Pick a generic theme as your base color and paint over last year’s season. We’re depriving ourselves of something important, I think, and it doesn’t feel like it’s a one-priest or one-parish thing.
  • With temperatures fluctuating between the mid-50s and mid-60s over the last few days, it hardly feels like Christmas. Apparently this is West Michigan’s 12th “green” Christmas since 1905; usually, we have at least an inch or two of snow cover. So the fact that I could sit outside on the front porch on the 23rd or 26th, in shorts and a T-shirt, to enjoy a cigar — well, that situation is a wee bit out of the ordinary. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.
  • Gift-giving, for me, is a stressor. There’s the embarrassment of forgetting, the awkwardness of one-way exchanges, the frustration of thinking of just the right gift, etc. But it is what it is, I suppose.
  • Recent holiday events have been pleasant. We did Christmas Eve with my mom. Among other things, I got cat toys, and Murphy even played with one at some length: A bird that, when batted, makes a chirping sound. I heard chips all night. #YayFun. And last Saturday, we visited my grandmother for the maternal-family party. Got to meet baby Emma for the first time.
  • Speaking of my mom’s party, three things of note transpired. First, Katie showed up, which was nice. Second, there was a serious discussion about a family trip four years from now — a three-week summer trek by rented RV to Alaska. And third, my brother trumped in the annual game of “rearrange mom’s ‘Merry Christmas’ blocks” … xmas
  • I welcomed Tony back last Sunday for a podcasting session. That was nice. And in the last few weeks, I’ve had dinner with Abbi — she just got back from three weeks in northern India and brought me back a lovely hand-woven cashmere scarf — and cigars with my old college friends Matt and John. I haven’t seen John in many years, so it was an especially joyful experience to re-connect with him.
  • I’m in the middle of a two-week vacation. Lots of stuff to accomplish, but progress is already solid. I’m remembering, however, the biggest reason I wanted an office for Caffeinated Press: Cats. Specifically, that Murphy either wants to sleep on me, or walk around the house yelling loudly to get my attention. I’ve never seen a cat as quite as co-dependent as he is. Fiona, his sister, hasn’t moved from her pillow in the sun over the last four hours. Murphy, however, has been a very loud, very fuzzy shadow all day long. Makes it hard to work in peace.
  • I’m keeping friends who’ve had relationship damage over the last year in my thoughts as they experience the holidays in a less happy light.

Merry Christmas and happy Hannukah, and may you have a safe/happy/healthy/profitable new year.

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It’s the Ho-Ho-Holidays. Allegedly.

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Two years ago, we had a super-snowy winter that landed on the record books. Last year, we had a super-cold winter that landed on the record books. This year, we have a super-warm winter that’s pretty much the inverse of the prior two seasons. With no snow, temps between 40 and 60 and frequent bright sunshine, the last six weeks have been a definitive counterpoint to winters’ past.

As such, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. More like Easter. Which isn’t bad — the cats like sitting in my open bedroom window — but still.

I am looking forward, however, to my annual two-week vacation. For 16 full days — from the afternoon of Dec. 18 until the morning of Jan. 4 — I’m away from the hustle and bustle of the day job. I’ll probably spend the bulk of the vacation catching up on domestic chores, binge-watching Netflix whilst peddling away on my exercise bike, and opening the Caffeinated Press office to prepare for 2016.

It’ll be a good time to read, to write and to catch up. Speaking of which: This week, I’ve progressed from having roughly 1,500 emails (combined, all inboxes) to — as of today — less than 20 messages left to address. Let me tell you, it feels like an accomplishment, especially given that since mid-year, I’ve been on a roughly 10-day lag on responding to people given how much I was drowning in e-correspondence.

Anyway. Maybe I’ll put on some Christmas music and turn on the air conditioner, to start to generate the “feelin’ of the season.”

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It's the Ho-Ho-Holidays. Allegedly.

No Comments

Two years ago, we had a super-snowy winter that landed on the record books. Last year, we had a super-cold winter that landed on the record books. This year, we have a super-warm winter that’s pretty much the inverse of the prior two seasons. With no snow, temps between 40 and 60 and frequent bright sunshine, the last six weeks have been a definitive counterpoint to winters’ past.
As such, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. More like Easter. Which isn’t bad — the cats like sitting in my open bedroom window — but still.
I am looking forward, however, to my annual two-week vacation. For 16 full days — from the afternoon of Dec. 18 until the morning of Jan. 4 — I’m away from the hustle and bustle of the day job. I’ll probably spend the bulk of the vacation catching up on domestic chores, binge-watching Netflix whilst peddling away on my exercise bike, and opening the Caffeinated Press office to prepare for 2016.
It’ll be a good time to read, to write and to catch up. Speaking of which: This week, I’ve progressed from having roughly 1,500 emails (combined, all inboxes) to — as of today — less than 20 messages left to address. Let me tell you, it feels like an accomplishment, especially given that since mid-year, I’ve been on a roughly 10-day lag on responding to people given how much I was drowning in e-correspondence.
Anyway. Maybe I’ll put on some Christmas music and turn on the air conditioner, to start to generate the “feelin’ of the season.”

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Two Brief Reflections: Winning NaNoWriMo, and Governance

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I did it — I crossed, barely, the 50,000-word mark on The Children of St. William’s to earn my third consecutive “win” for National Novel Writing Month. The story isn’t finished, of course; my detailed scene graph pushes the final word count much closer to 85k. But working through the story when you’re at 50k aiming for 85k is much easier than starting from zero. Which, I believe, is the whole point of NaNoWriMo. And as I finished, I figured I’d change the book name, too, to the less cumbersome Six Lost Souls.

Some take-away observations about writing this past November:

  • I wrote my last 10,000 words in a single marathon day. That’s a lot. I couldn’t have started the month with that kind of productivity, mostly because — for me, anyway — I have to get north of 30k to 35k words before scenes start to roll off fluidly. Prior to that, and I’m still spending too much time thinking about structure and characters, so the writing process is slower: I’m making follow-up notes, thinking through the finer points of character voice, making decisions about scene details, etc. I tend to plan in detail, but you can’t plan for everything.
  • Much of my writing in the moment focuses on dialogue. I usually have to swing back after I’ve finished a scene to insert environmental details.
  • I don’t write much action — most of my scenes tend to be people arriving at a place and talking. I varied it this time around, however, and had a fight scene and two scenes of extended narration while a character does something alone. On rewrite, I’ll chop things up a bit. But, as they say, just knowing you’ve got an authorial quirk is half the battle.
  • For the first time, I was deliberate from the get-go about my point-of-view characters, and which scenes led with a specific POV. By default, I tend to write Third Person Limited, with a small number of POV characters.
  • I couldn’t write nearly as efficiently without Scrivener for Windows. With this app, I can condense notes and research and plot my story on a chapter-and-scene basis, with target word counts and synopsis cards. I can also configure various status flags for each scene (I customize my own) and set color codes to indicate which character’s POV governs a chapter or scene. I don’t think I could be nearly as successful if I had to rely on a generic word processor.

State Leaders’ Summit

I spent some time last week in Chicago, for the State Leaders’ Summit sponsored by the National Association for Healthcare Quality. The event went off without a hitch. I drove, which was fine, although I managed to hit eastbound I-90 around O’Hare just in time for Friday-evening rush-hour traffic. Took a full two hours to get from the airport area (Cumberland Avenue) to the Skyway Bridge. That said, there was much fascinating discussion to be had, including a valuable two-hour presentation by an association-management attorney about the basic principles of governance and legal/tax compliance for small non-profits.

Board members have three duties: A duty of care, a duty of loyalty and a duty of obedience. I think this tripartite distinction offers a good framework not just for business endeavors, but also for how we nurture personal relationships. More to ponder about that, I think.

Strategic Planning Retreat

Tonight the Caffeinated Press board of directors conducts a four-hour annual strategic governance retreat. Lots on the agenda. We’ve had a busy year, with a great mix of successes and … ahem, opportunities. We’ll cover Governance 101, plus look at our board composition, 2016 editorial strategy, the annual budget, and ways to grow the market.

The retreat starts after the regional TGIO party — celebrating the end of NaNoWriMo — so it’ll be a long day. But worth it.

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November: The Busiest Month — A Recap & Reflection

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Hard to believe that tomorrow is the last day of the month. Over the last few years, the Eleventh Month has become the Busiest Month, much of it related to writing-related activities. This year was both more packed, but more manageable, than most. Herewith a recap, in no particular order.

  1. Library election. With all due gratitude and appreciation to the 17 people who wrote me in for the Nov. 3 election for the Grand Rapids Public Library’s Board of Library Commissioners, another candidate managed to get more than 450 votes. Wow. I am considering running on the formal ballot in 2017, because I still believe GRPL is far too parochial and antiquated in its thinking, particularly about local writing talent. The Kent District Library far outpaces GRPL on that front. Doesn’t need to be that way.
  2. Caffeinated Press update. Speaking of GRPL, we presented at the KDL fall writer’s conference in October, to a group of probably 200. We (John, Brittany, AmyJo and I) had 40 minutes to talk about the gotchas of moving a manuscript from your desktop to a publisher’s desktop. Likewise, I’ve been working like a mad demon on book projects. In the last six weeks, I’ve wrapped up production on A Crowd of Sorrows, A Broken Race and The One Friend Philosophy of Life. I also completed our corporate catalog and helped John with final proofing on The 3288 Review (vol. 1, issue 2). We even managed to hold a well-attended kickoff for National Novel Writing Month, here in the office, and to nominate six worthy pieces for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. Next on the list: Edits on Letters lost then found, final production on Grayson Rising and proofing and production on Brewed Awakenings 2.
  3. The Children of St. William’s. My own NaNoWriMo novel, The Children of St. William’s, recounts the tale of Sarah Price, a young progressive woman who, although she had known she was adopted, discovers that she has several siblings. The novel addresses her shifting motivations for tracking each of them down — and how connecting all these people together both hurts and helps them all, while her parish priest struggles to understand how and why the adoptions happened in the first place. Currently at just a hair above 40k. On track for a NaNo “win.” I like the story and will continue to work on it; the current storyboard targets around 85k words. More to come.
  4. Treks to the Windy City. This coming week, I drive to Chicago for NAHQ’s State Leaders’ Summit. Then in January I have back-to-back NAHQ-related Chicago trips, both by air — the first for the quarterly board of directors meeting, and the second for the inaugural meeting of the Recognition of the Profession Commission (which I chair). Interesting professional-growth opportunity. Looking forward to the National Quality Summit in Dallas in the second week of May.
  5. MAHQ Conference 2015. Our October conference went off well — more than 60 attendees and fairly good results. I spoke about the health policy climate in the state government, as well as serving as overall conference chairman. Our venue, the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, served lovely food, but wow … horrific service standards. I expected better from the Amway. Did receive, however, solid support from ExperienceGR.
  6. Requiem by Brahms. AmyJo and I went to see German Requiem by Brahms earlier this month. The performance, guest conducted by Rune Bergmann, was a delight; the symphony was wonderful, as usual, and the chorus was well-balanced relative to the symphony. Before the performance, we stopped at Reserve for wine and cheese. In all, a great way to de-stress after a rough month (for each of us, individually). I have so few folks who enjoy fine-arts performances, so slipping out with AJ was awesome. (And I’ll have to book another opera trip with April soon.)
  7. Fully staffed! I now have a completely staffed department at Priority Health. A few weeks ago, two of my new hires — Jen and Maria — joined the team. A few weeks before that, it was Gabriel. And now we have Patrick. Focus will be on predictive modeling, quality improvement analytics intended to transform the care model, and ongoing support for our employer-group reporting team. Exciting time to be a leader in health data analytics.
  8. RIP Abbey. My classmate at West Catholic, Abbey Czarniecki, passed away recently. She was a lovely lady; may her soul find eternal rest.
  9. Hell = Frozen Over. I ended up buying an iPad Mini 4. The device makes work at Priority Health so much easier, since Spectrum Health’s IT department apparently only understands iOS. That said, although the device is conveniently portable, I still prefer my Surface 3. The way I see it, the iPad is great for quick, single-focus tasks, like answering an email or browsing something on the Web. But iOS falls far short compared to Windows 10 regarding multitasking and true productivity work. On my Surface 3 (not even the Pro model), I can do pretty much the same stuff I can do on my CafPress laptop. For context, the CafPress box is an HP laptop with a medium-high-end AMD processor and 8 GB of RAM. On the Surface 3, I can use Scrivener and the full MS Office suite. On the iPad … I can use simple versions that look and feel like Web apps. I’d give iOS the edge in core OS stability, app availability and ease of executing single tasks; Windows 10 wins in terms of sheer power and versatility and harmony of design. (Yes. Design harmony. You have no idea how hard it is to find basic settings in different iOS apps; some are in the app, some are in the Settings app. Geez. And writing with a stylus? Astonishingly infantile on iOS, smooth as butter on Win10.)
  10. VLO 250. Hard to believe that a weekly 30-minute podcast dedicated to casino gaming, premium cigars and fine adult beverages would last five years and 250 episodes, yet yesterday Tony came into town and we recorded through episodes 247 through 249 for The Vice Lounge Online. Wow. In December we’ll hit the quarter-millennium mark. We’re planning a “VLO Anniversary Party” for April 1-3 in Louisville, KY. Basically, distillery tours, the Urban Bourbon Trail and fine dining. And a cigar-related event. Probably no gambling, though, unless we do something minor at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana. More details to come. And I believe VLO is doing something fun as a scheduled activity in this summer’s 360 Vegas Vacation III in Las Vegas.

All for now. Have a lovely December, y’all.

Personal

November: The Busiest Month — A Recap & Reflection

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Hard to believe that tomorrow is the last day of the month. Over the last few years, the Eleventh Month has become the Busiest Month, much of it related to writing-related activities. This year was both more packed, but more manageable, than most. Herewith a recap, in no particular order.

  1. Library election. With all due gratitude and appreciation to the 17 people who wrote me in for the Nov. 3 election for the Grand Rapids Public Library’s Board of Library Commissioners, another candidate managed to get more than 450 votes. Wow. I am considering running on the formal ballot in 2017, because I still believe GRPL is far too parochial and antiquated in its thinking, particularly about local writing talent. The Kent District Library far outpaces GRPL on that front. Doesn’t need to be that way.
  2. Caffeinated Press update. Speaking of GRPL, we presented at the KDL fall writer’s conference in October, to a group of probably 200. We (John, Brittany, AmyJo and I) had 40 minutes to talk about the gotchas of moving a manuscript from your desktop to a publisher’s desktop. Likewise, I’ve been working like a mad demon on book projects. In the last six weeks, I’ve wrapped up production on A Crowd of Sorrows, A Broken Race and The One Friend Philosophy of Life. I also completed our corporate catalog and helped John with final proofing on The 3288 Review (vol. 1, issue 2). We even managed to hold a well-attended kickoff for National Novel Writing Month, here in the office, and to nominate six worthy pieces for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. Next on the list: Edits on Letters lost then found, final production on Grayson Rising and proofing and production on Brewed Awakenings 2.
  3. The Children of St. William’s. My own NaNoWriMo novel, The Children of St. William’s, recounts the tale of Sarah Price, a young progressive woman who, although she had known she was adopted, discovers that she has several siblings. The novel addresses her shifting motivations for tracking each of them down — and how connecting all these people together both hurts and helps them all, while her parish priest struggles to understand how and why the adoptions happened in the first place. Currently at just a hair above 40k. On track for a NaNo “win.” I like the story and will continue to work on it; the current storyboard targets around 85k words. More to come.
  4. Treks to the Windy City. This coming week, I drive to Chicago for NAHQ’s State Leaders’ Summit. Then in January I have back-to-back NAHQ-related Chicago trips, both by air — the first for the quarterly board of directors meeting, and the second for the inaugural meeting of the Recognition of the Profession Commission (which I chair). Interesting professional-growth opportunity. Looking forward to the National Quality Summit in Dallas in the second week of May.
  5. MAHQ Conference 2015. Our October conference went off well — more than 60 attendees and fairly good results. I spoke about the health policy climate in the state government, as well as serving as overall conference chairman. Our venue, the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, served lovely food, but wow … horrific service standards. I expected better from the Amway. Did receive, however, solid support from ExperienceGR.
  6. Requiem by Brahms. AmyJo and I went to see German Requiem by Brahms earlier this month. The performance, guest conducted by Rune Bergmann, was a delight; the symphony was wonderful, as usual, and the chorus was well-balanced relative to the symphony. Before the performance, we stopped at Reserve for wine and cheese. In all, a great way to de-stress after a rough month (for each of us, individually). I have so few folks who enjoy fine-arts performances, so slipping out with AJ was awesome. (And I’ll have to book another opera trip with April soon.)
  7. Fully staffed! I now have a completely staffed department at Priority Health. A few weeks ago, two of my new hires — Jen and Maria — joined the team. A few weeks before that, it was Gabriel. And now we have Patrick. Focus will be on predictive modeling, quality improvement analytics intended to transform the care model, and ongoing support for our employer-group reporting team. Exciting time to be a leader in health data analytics.
  8. RIP Abbey. My classmate at West Catholic, Abbey Czarniecki, passed away recently. She was a lovely lady; may her soul find eternal rest.
  9. Hell = Frozen Over. I ended up buying an iPad Mini 4. The device makes work at Priority Health so much easier, since Spectrum Health’s IT department apparently only understands iOS. That said, although the device is conveniently portable, I still prefer my Surface 3. The way I see it, the iPad is great for quick, single-focus tasks, like answering an email or browsing something on the Web. But iOS falls far short compared to Windows 10 regarding multitasking and true productivity work. On my Surface 3 (not even the Pro model), I can do pretty much the same stuff I can do on my CafPress laptop. For context, the CafPress box is an HP laptop with a medium-high-end AMD processor and 8 GB of RAM. On the Surface 3, I can use Scrivener and the full MS Office suite. On the iPad … I can use simple versions that look and feel like Web apps. I’d give iOS the edge in core OS stability, app availability and ease of executing single tasks; Windows 10 wins in terms of sheer power and versatility and harmony of design. (Yes. Design harmony. You have no idea how hard it is to find basic settings in different iOS apps; some are in the app, some are in the Settings app. Geez. And writing with a stylus? Astonishingly infantile on iOS, smooth as butter on Win10.)
  10. VLO 250. Hard to believe that a weekly 30-minute podcast dedicated to casino gaming, premium cigars and fine adult beverages would last five years and 250 episodes, yet yesterday Tony came into town and we recorded through episodes 247 through 249 for The Vice Lounge Online. Wow. In December we’ll hit the quarter-millennium mark. We’re planning a “VLO Anniversary Party” for April 1-3 in Louisville, KY. Basically, distillery tours, the Urban Bourbon Trail and fine dining. And a cigar-related event. Probably no gambling, though, unless we do something minor at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana. More details to come. And I believe VLO is doing something fun as a scheduled activity in this summer’s 360 Vegas Vacation III in Las Vegas.

All for now. Have a lovely December, y’all.

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Processing

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I’ve been in something of a funk lately. I though I was just stressed from being very, very busy, but I don’t think busy is the problem. And I know I have to take better care of my physical health, but also I don’t think I’m about to be admitted to the ICU, so to speak, despite being quite under the weather recently.

Processing, maybe. What, I don’t know. But little things, mostly news stories, are sticking with me, tugging at forgotten memories. It’s like feeling as if I’m facing a decision, and I’m deliberating about the decision, but I have no clue what the decision actually is.

Anyway. Highlights of note:

  • Last week saw the successful completion of the annual educational conference of the Michigan Association for Healthcare Quality. I chaired the conference, again, and also spoke at one session (about health policy trends in Lansing). The two-day event went well, and the food at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel was nice, although the final bill for MAHQ was really quite large.
  • I’ve now hired three new staff at Priority Health. It’ll be nice to not have to be a three-quarter-time manager and half-time analyst for much longer.
  • Caffeinated Press has been busy. In the last few weeks, I’ve wrapped up production on a poetry collection, a novel and our semiannual catalog, with another novel and a novella still to finish by the end of the month.
  • The weather has suddenly turned crisp; we’ve been down into the low 30s at night, already.

 

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Annual Birthday Reflection, Vol. XXXIX

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In the wee hours of Saturday, the 12th of September, my cousin Nicole delivered a healthy, happy baby girl. Emma is adorable; Facebook proves it. Emma’s arrival, just three scant days before my 39th birthday, is worth a moment’s reflection.

Let’s begin with today. I got up a bit before 7 a.m. and put my pants on, one leg at a time, as per usual. I expended considerable quality time rubbing the soft underbellies of both Murphy and Fiona before trudging to the office. The day was filled with sundry tasks, broken up by a birthday-driven Fancy Carrot Cake Showdown for which Brittany and Luke each brought — you guessed it — a fancy carrot cake into the office. (Both were tasty.) I left right around 5 p.m. and drove to my mom’s house, where I got a card and a mini cheesecake and the chance to visit with Gunner the Mighty German Shepherd. Then, off to the Caffeinated Press office until around 10 p.m., putting the finishing touches on the 2015 ArtPrize anthology sponsored by the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters and the Cascade Writers’ Group (we’re publishing their edited work). And now, one Lean Cuisine and one glass of diet Coke later, here I sit, in my home office, blogging merrily.

Fancy Carrot Cake Showdown
Fancy Carrot Cake Showdown

Throughout this pleasant but fairly unremarkable day, my mind wandered to thoughts about how my thinking has evolved over the last year. The biggest “surprise” was how much my priorities have pivoted toward two themes: Mastering the Basics, and Cultivating Excellence.

Mastering the Basics

This will sound bad, but hey — I’m a single male. So here goes.

You know when you’re “younger” and certain chore-like subjects don’t seem as pressing? Well, now they matter. Stuff like monitoring my 403(b) account, ensuring full and appropriate life/health/auto/renters insurance, paying bills on time, keeping the bedding clean, paying down the student loans, disinfecting the bathroom, etc. Routine activities, but part and parcel of life’s delayed-gratification busywork. Maybe the married-with-children thing forces a degree of discipline early, but for me and for friends similarly situated, we’ve been able to skate by without having to be excessively disciplined. But now that discipline is starting to assert itself naturally.

The joke with a subset of my friends is that “#Adulting is Hard,” but there’s an element of truth to the claim. Like transitioning from the Grasshopper into the Ant.

Cultivating Excellence

When I think about my top priorities for the next year, they’re not “fun” in any meaningful sense, but in an odd sort of way, I’m eager to attack them. The biggies are a counterassault in the Battle of the Bulge, returning to school for a master’s degree and publishing a novel with a press other than my own. Secondarily, it’s master-diver certification and an overseas trip.

I think it’s important to be excellent at something, or several things. I’m a fan of the Jack of All Trades approach to expertise, but even Jack can become an exemplar of excellence in a few specific areas. Genial generalists are nice people, but excellence is a survival strategy.

A decade ago, I fancied keeping my options open. Now, I realize that excellence opens doors that lead to even more options. A decade ago, I obsessed over dating, video games and running. Now, I have no time for games, no burning desire to dive into the dating pool and no luxury to just lace up and head out. A decade ago, I had a job. Now, I have two separate careers.

* * *

So now the clock will tick over another day, just as today has ticked another tock on life’s odometer. I’m neither happy nor sad about another birthday. All I know is, time’s a-wastin’, and much remains to be done.

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Anything vs. Everything

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I spent the last three days in Chicago, attending one of the full meetings of the board of directors for the National Association for Healthcare Quality. As NAHQ’s newly appointed chairman of its Commission for the Recognition of the Profession, I was able to sit in, as an invited guest, on the board’s late-summer meeting.

Interesting thing. One of the consultants who spoke kept repeating a slogan that resonated with me. He said: “You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything you want.” He was talking about board strategy, but the point holds for everyday life, too.

In the grand scheme of things, many fail because they aim low and achieve even lower. But there’s a flip side to that coin — that you can try to do too many (or too disparate) things, and also fail to achieve.

I’m reminded of the need for balance by my boss and several of my co-workers, who often lament that when they’re on vacation, they still have to work, and they still have to burn the midnight oil to keep up on emails and whatnot. I can sympathize.

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of things we used to do, because they’re a “known known.” But to get to the point where you’ve done anything, you must first stop trying to do everything.

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Mental Pivots

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One of my most-viewed posts is “The Privilege of Existential Ennui,” written in September 2009. It’s the largest single driver of traffic to this blog from search engines, despite its modest length. In it, I mused that:

Part of me still vacillates between tiredness and motivation, between melancholy at what might have been, and zeal for what might yet be.  I’m not yet ready to accept the prospect of a plump wife with 2.3 kids and a used minivan in the suburbs.  Maybe I’m condemning myself to perpetual unhappiness.  Or perhaps I’m prudently refusing to settle for mediocrity, and that my day will eventually come.

Interesting. I understand where I was, emotionally, at that point in my life: I found myself frustrated at why the Jason of the real world and the Jason of my mental world weren’t the same person, because I didn’t believe myself subject to any external constraints upon the range of life options then available to me.

Yet much of that angst has evaporated over the last six years, mostly because I’ve since accepted several encumbrances that, while not impervious to slicing, nevertheless offer real value to me. So my thinking has pivoted on several very big things. For example, I’ve transitioned from treating my employment as just a job, inherently fungible, to now valuing it as a career within the healthcare-quality industry, with a logical progression leading toward retirement. Likewise, I’ve largely cleaned up my financial act, such that I pay the bills on time and don’t make dumb choices about large purchases. And I’ve launched a whole different side career as CEO of Caffeinated Press, an enterprise that’s not just “me in the basement,” but includes real products and services and real colleagues in a real office with real invoices and taxes and contractual obligations.

So the interesting question, perhaps, isn’t why so many people feel purposeless, as I speculated in 2009. Rather, the question is why so may opt against anchoring their lives in a way that leads to long-term happiness and success.

The generalized ennui that characterized my late 20s and early 30s has long since vanished. In its place, I run a mile a minute on various projects. Between the day job, the night job, service in professional associations and sundry hobbies, I am not at a loss for things to do. And, significantly, the things I do, I find useful and rewarding. So in 2015 I have ties — a career, a car payment, cats, a mostly different cast of friends, a podcast, a small business — that I didn’t have in 2009. I recently reflected, in fact, at how many of the useless bad habits I used to enjoy faded from my life, displaced by tasks supporting a series of annual life goals.

Once upon a time, I believed that the key to success in life was keeping your options open. Although I still see the value in keeping more than one door propped wide, the problem with keeping all the doors open is that you cannot ever get far enough along a path of specialization that you develop an identity more substantive than “jack of all trades.” Perhaps the source of existential ennui isn’t the purposelessness I shared six years ago. Perhaps, instead, it’s rooted in a deep-seated fear of being just another blank face in the crowd — or worse, of seeing how blank your face is and instead of fixing it, you retreat into that tiny foothold of autonomy you have left, elevating it as a virtue when it’s merely a security blanket.

The only way to stand out in the sea of humanity is to be excellent at something. And that excellence requires diligent work and many long hours of dues-paying. If you’re disaffected, you might not pay those dues. You might keep your options open. But such a path is not with emotional cost.

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