Tomorrow’s Classy Problem

Two years ago, I started writing a daily post.

Initially, I was trying to capture what I believed to be true in writing. It forced me to slow down long enough to capture ideas that otherwise would have disappeared.

Instead of trusting that I would remember an insight, or that it would return, I started recording it. Instead of trusting my clarity would remain, I trusted it was something worth clarifying. That practice became reference I could return to and build on.

After completing the first 365 days, I shared what I believed was the biggest lesson.

Clarity compounds. What I captured became something I could revisit, refine, test, and share.

After another year of writing, much of that learning became evidence of what I have already admitted to myself.

That uncovered a better question.

I had to ask myself if I was willing to live as though I believed it. The writing was my personal BS call.

I was sharing the moments where I had misunderstood something, reacted poorly, or discovered that I was still participating in the pattern I was describing.

I focused on less explanation and more confession. Less clarity and more recognition. I was trying to share my own understanding, but the writing was showing me that my understanding was more fleeting than the initial posts I was writing.

I wanted my writing to be more accurate. At the same time, I was focusing on being more vulnerable in the relationships that mattered most to me. The writing showed me that they are connected.

If I want to be more accurate, I will need to be more vulnerable about how I think.

If I want to be more vulnerable, I will need to be more accurate about how I feel.

The writing also showed me that I could become disciplined at participating in something that is no longer indicated.

I had the activity. I had committed it to habit. I had consistency.

When I am uncomfortable, my default is to get into motion. To do something. Action can feel like progress before I have asked whether I am headed in the right direction.

All of this led me to what became my last post on LinkedIn. It was the next indicated thing.

LinkedIn is an extraordinarily effective system. It helps people find work, build careers, discover opportunities, and connect with others. My problem was not the platform. The problem was my relationship with it.

I was writing posts about orientation, attention, environment, and contribution. I had written that where we participate shapes how we participate. I had said more than once that gratitude is best expressed as a verb.

I had to admit that I was not following my own thinking. Years earlier, I had said that if this work was going to matter, it would have to be demonstrated somewhere other than social media. It would need its own environment, operating by its own principles.

I knew that. Said that.

Then I kept posting anyway.

I did it because it was familiar and I hoped that maybe people would find it. This was the next example of the uncovering of a good thing that is no longer mine to continue.

Not only did I move where I was going to share my work, but I found that the work itself moved.

Somewhere in the last year, I realized the work had become less about producing and more about choosing.

Choosing what deserved my attention. Choosing what belonged in a post. Choosing what to remove.
Choosing what not to carry. Choosing which opportunities to decline. Choosing which ideas need more time to germinate.

Production is easier than it has ever been and is only going to get easier. The consequence of that is that production will become less valuable, and selection will become more valuable.

What became obvious in my writing, became obvious in my living.

My challenge is not finding more possibilities. It is discerning which possibility belongs to me.

That realization has changed how I work. It has also changed how I think about productivity.

The question is no longer, “Can I make more?”

The better question is, “Is it required?”

The experience also showed me that ideas return. Words change. Definitions evolve. Questions become better questions. Things I wrote with confidence six months earlier become obvious first drafts.

I think that is evidence that the work is working, or that I am practicing. A demonstration of a willingness test expressed.

I am arriving at the Next Version of Next. #NVoN

I found freedom in accepting that my writing is the next conversation with reality rather than a final observation about it.

The biggest change of all is how I now think about work itself.

I don’t want to really admit this, but my actions support that for most of my life, effort was the measure. It appears to be my default measure. If I work hard enough, long enough, and consistently enough, eventually things will improve.

There is truth in that. Hard work is honorable and is often required, but effort is no longer acceptable as my measure.

Effort answers the question of what I spent.

Contribution answers a different question.

Contribution asks whether what I gave is required. Whether it arrived at the appropriate amount, at the appropriate time, for the appropriate purpose. Whether it served something larger than my own desire to feel productive.

That has become a better question for me to answer.

For the past two years, the daily posts have been my practice. They helped me discover a voice. They helped me uncover assumptions I did not know I was carrying. They gave me a place to think in public and a reason to keep refining what I believed to be true.

The ideas have become larger than the format that uncovered them. The questions deserve room to breathe. The stories deserve to be told completely. The philosophy deserves to be demonstrated rather than compressed.

That is what I will be writing next.

Here we go!

PS … As referenced, we just crossed our two-year mark. A part of our efforts in this last year were audio recordings of the daily signal. The full year is available to LISTEN HERE. Revisit them. #LeftoversAreBuiltIn