Hours overdue, the stark white of an empty screen glares threateningly.
Forty-five days into the experiment, these emails have become habitual. I arrive at my cafe perch, open my laptop, and (starting with the seed of an idea) begin to write.
While I haven’t actively blocked out time for the activity, an idea that occurred to me, I’m usually able to finish before any scheduled commitments pull me away from flow.
Today was one of those days. Out of town to attend an incubator, my roommate’s friend had come to stay and watch her dogs. The friend, an adorable blonde with a bubbly disposition and an unfortunate status of newly not single, was an unexpected pleasure to meet. We’d shared our passion for the art of a good story, talked about marketing, and made a late night jaunt for frozen yogurt. A new friend, in some form, was likely the reason I stuck around this morning to see her off and lock up rather than text her goodbye and ask her to drop the key in a particularly discernible bush.
An hour past my normal arrival, I opened my laptop at the cafe and… didn’t start to write. Lacking the mental space for my normal morning introspection I hadn’t come up with an idea for the email and went to my inbox for inspiration.
I was greeted by Madi T. resonating with ‘Be Also Human‘ and sharing:
I’ve been struggling with what I should build my personal brand into and I keep reading, “Pick one thing and do it better than anyone else.”
The first of her numerous prompts for reflection, my response began:
I said this same thing to myself when I started. Looking at Steve Kamb of NerdFitness as an example, I chose to make my one thing a combination of two. I love stories, and everything I’ve (truly) learned has been something I’ve experienced. I defined my one thing as “education through entertainment.” It’s a rather broad designation, but it’s a framework that forces creativity — one lesson has to be attached to one story. Humorously, (my current read) ‘Geography of Genius‘ talks a lot about the balance between freedom and constraint.
Responding to ‘Stepping Into Uncertainty‘, Daniel A. talked about (lack of) control saying, “I like the concept of embracing uncertainty but it’s a tricky one for a lot of people.” Unexpectedly eloquent in my response, I surprised myself by saying:
We’re all unwilling passengers clinging dearly to a giant rock that’s spinning 1,000MPH and hurtling through space. Control is an illusion.
It wasn’t until I took a moment to pause amidst the churn of the day that I realized the truth of that statement. Having become absorbed amidst a sea of nutrient rich phone conversations and written exchanges, the likelihood that I could effectively channel that rapidly amassing body into an email — a linear thought constructed in progression from story to lesson — had rapidly diminished.
As I started writing this email, threatened by the empty void spread before me, I felt submerged. The waters of my environment were as rich as they were overwhelming.
You can build a bigger boat to weather the turbulent seas and provide a greater certainty that you get there in a timely fashion, but there will come a day when you must stop fighting the currents and embrace the idea of a new destination — even if temporarily. While my conversations with those I spoke with today were as powerful as they were productive, I haven’t (yet) begun work on my One Thing. What I have only now, as I write this, come to realize is that I spent the past (almost) two hours lamenting that reality… as I struggled my way through this email.
I made several (nerdy) attempts to relate your “plan” to a non-newtonian fluid that is both liquid and solid — like silly putty and quicksand — yet my metaphors lacked an ability to make a relatively simple point. You must have a plan for the day in order to be productive, but at a certain point that plan will no longer prove viable and (rather than fight to stick to your original objective as I have done for the majority of today) it must be revised to accommodate for the pressures of the environment.
Things won’t always go according to plan. Thankfully, we can make new ones.
If you’re rowing against the current, try raising your sails and following the wind.