Be Brave Friday
I was thinking a little bit about Be Brave Friday this week. And I decided to share how I approach life, which isn’t something I share very often. I mean, it’s not like I stand in the grocery store line and get the opportunity to tell people, “Hey! Those are some good looking carrots, right there. Do you want to hear about how I approach life?”
And I got stuck a bit thinking about there’s sort of a checklist of things you’re supposed to do, according to society to be a success.
Graduate. Check.
Fall in love. Check.
Buy a house. Check.
Earn enough to go on vacation. Check.
And this happens for careers, too, right? Let’s do it with writers.
Write a novel. Check.
Find an agent. Check.
Sell it to a publisher. Check.
Sell a certain number of copies. Check.
Win an award. Check.
But the thing is that for a lot of us, instead of putting checks behind things, we sort of achieve those moments and then think, “Ah, that’s not enough, I still feel empty inside.”
Write a novel. Not enough.
Find an agent. Not enough.
Sell it to a publisher. Not enough.
Sell a certain number of copies. Not enough.
Win an award. Not enough.
So, we think that if we go after the next achievement hoping that it will make us feel whole, content, successful. You fill in the blank in that last sentence there, okay?
And there’s this push, push, push to achieve, to look to the future, to go after goals. I’m one of those people. I have to-do lists. A lot of to-do lists. I think going after goals is fun.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think that achieving those goals defines me. When people ask me what I do, I don’t think in terms of occupations or achievements. I often babble through an answer.
That’s because I don’t define myself. At least, I don’t define myself by my “achievements.” I kind of forget about my achievements.
I think that it’s traits that I want to cultivate that define me. I want my choices to define me.
Here’s an example. A woman died on our island. The police have reason to believe that she killed herself. We run a local newspaper. We did not report on this. People on social media keep giving us a hard time about not reporting on this. We didn’t and we won’t because though we know it would give us more clicks, more likes, more readership, who we would be reporting that news isn’t who we want to be. If her family reached out and asked us to report on it? That would be different. But we don’t want to compound the pain and grief her friends and family are already dealing with.
But a couple people seemed to be having a really hard time with this, so I reached out to them and explained our policy. Very quickly, I learned about them, the pain in their lives, how they felt hopeless sometimes—hopeless about this woman’s death, which touched them—hopeless about their own lives. One woman told me a story of how she helped save someone she once came upon.
What a gift she is to the world, right? She saved someone. Still, she feels hopeless. Her empathy is so great that she pains for this women she did not know. Another man told me a similar story. Another woman told me about someone who saved her.
Sometimes, for some of us, just living is brave and hard.
When I think of who I admire, it’s not the people who do anything for a dollar or a click or a like. It’s people who create, who are kind, who try to lift others up, who are brave and say what they believe, who aren’t schmoozers or simply criticizers, but who do things that they believe. It’s people who save other people in so many big and little ways. And it’s the goofballs. I admire the goofballs a lot. I admire the people who keep on keeping on.
There’s a short and popular book called Chop Wood, Carry Water, and in it there’s this tip for redefining success even for us achievement-oriented humans.
The author, Joshua Medcalf, suggests this (and I’m paraphrasing here):
Think of the people you admire.
Got that? Write down the qualities in them that you admire.
Look at the list. Pick the top four traits/qualities/characteristics.
Write them down somewhere you’ll pay attention to.
Make that your scorecard or checklist.
Every day, see how well you’re doing emulating those qualities.
Easy, right?
Why is this brave?
I think that (for me at least), there’s a certain bravery needed to realize that maybe how you’ve been taught to live your life (achievement focused) might not be the best way for you to live it.
How about you? What are the four characteristics of people that you’re into?