For a long time, I’ve lived by the credo that, if we recognize what the system wants from us, we can often be happier and more successful by shifting to suit the system, rather than fight it. But not always.

I learned this lesson viscerally with my relationship to femininity.

Do I enjoy putting on makeup or less comfortable clothing, not having usable pockets, carrying around a purse or even the experience and maintenance of long hair?

Not really.

But, I also know that I am happier conforming to the social norms of femininity — painting inside the lines — than I am when I do not.

I truly, deeply, did NOT internalize those expectations when I was young. And, I truly experience minimal joy in expressing them.

My experience showed me that when I don’t abide by the expectations of femininity — either by choice or through ignorance — while I did experience a degree of joyful freedom, there was also a huge amount of loss and friction that I experienced by outwardly rejecting social norms and expectations.

I wasn’t able to connect nearly as easily with women, as my actions were a clear separation and even rejection of their cultural norms and the things that they valued.

My relationships with men were off too. While men were the majority of my friends and mostly tolerated my presence in socially “male-only spaces,” it was also clear that I wasn’t one of them. There was also had little to no sexual undercurrent — and this was when I was single, wanting a relationship and in my early 20’s, at peak reproductive beauty — as I was clearly rejecting the culturally defined expectations of femininity that they had been trained to desire, and desire on a more innate, biological level as well.

So, while I can earnestly say that, while I don’t actively enjoy the daily grind of femininity, the level of feminine expression that I’ve settled into serves me incredibly well.

This is a clear case in which I am significantly happier changing my actions to better meet society’s expectations. In other words, I’m significantly happier working IN the system, rather than trying to change the system to meet my preferences.

On the other hand, my personality would not be considered traditionally feminine, yet I am largely unwilling to change it to better fit society’s expectations. For me, my personality feels too core to who I am, whereas my presentation is something I’m more willing to alter.

And, because of that, I have far more desire to change the system women’s voices and leadership — which, currently includes a lot of friction — from men & women alike.

But I also primarily write under a male psuedonym. What can I say, I’m pragmatic.

Working in the system vs trying to break the system is largely a question of your own individual values. Your lines will be different from everyone else.

Deciding when and how far to push a system is a grey area and I sure don’t have it all figured out. But I feel no guilt or remorse about choosing to paint inside the lines when it serves me — a freedom that took years for me to release.

When I was an undergraduate, I went to the absolute middle of nowhere in the Pacific with a professor and a handful of grad students.

It was a whirlwind. Beyond smiles and gestures, there was zero language overlap. I was living directly with a family and had no private space and almost not private time. My brain was in over drive. Learning the language. Trying to discern what was socially appropriate. Identifying & attempting to rectify my multitude of mistakes… like the time that I announced to the kava-happy men of the village that I drink penis. Honest mistake. Albeit a funny one.

And so I was incredibly confused when, everyday, the professor would ask us: who had time to daydream yesterday?

Are you kidding me?!?! I was struggling to live, communicate, work, not offend everyone! I didn’t have time to daydream.

And that was her whole point.

She wanted to know who was able to create the space, the psychological slack, that would enable us to be successful, not today, but next week, next month, 4 months from then — in the long term.

She had seen way too many people burn out in ethnographic settings. Because everything is new and everything is hard and if you don’t find space, you can drown in it all.

Whenever I get that overwhelmed feeling, I try to ask myself, ‘Did you have time to daydream today?’

And if not, I know I need to make some time, ASAP.

When it comes to personality tests, I typically split right down the middle — 50/50 on thinking and feeling.

I think and I feel.

Really though, I feel about people and I think about ideas.

This often catches people off guard. They are surprised when my personal warmth and desire to make feel good recedes by and is replaced by sometimes sharp and harsh realities in the idea realm.

I find intellectual sparring fun. I play devil’s advocate for kicks.

Well, it’s not exactly for kicks, although I do find it fun. It’s actually because I think that the world is grey. And way too many people are keen on black or white.

It’s the same with thinking and feeling:

There’s real power in emotionless evaluation AND there is real power in people believing that you care about them, as humans.

Ask yourself where you excel — thinking or feeling — and how you might play with the other one this week.

When I was young I lived on top of a mountain, on a dirt road. Truly remote.

I had an incredible sense of freedom.

I would strip down naked to jump into the old mine pit that had filled with water, long after my age had passed “socially acceptable” to do this. I had no idea.

I would run through the woods, with seemingly endless territory under my control.

I would trudge down, late at night, in the freezing cold snow, to look at the stars, so bright you’d think you could reach out and kiss them.

There was a lot of freedom. And I have a lot of nostalgia for that freedom.

But, what I don’t often think of is what I did to embrace the freedom.

We had an entire SEASON called mud season. And you can bet I came inside, covered, head to toe in mud. Happy, cold and… decidedly free.

Right after mud season was black fly season — which lasted most of the warmer months — when my brother and I would literally wear bee keepers head protection, just to go outside. I remember getting on our bikes and trying to outrun the swarm.

The mine that I swam in with glee? Full of leaches. When we’d get out and do a leach inspection, dousing any that got between our toes or under our arms with salt to melt them off. GROSS.

Much of the year, the mountain was covered in snow. Everyday I would suit up in my boots and hat and mittens to go out and enjoy the freedom.

Freedom had more tradeoffs than I remember.

—

And so it makes sense that today, where I am arguably even more free than childhood, I find myself making arguments that my world is smaller than I want it to be.

Because of the pandemic.
Because of the weather.
Because of my responsibilities.

Yet, none of it makes me un-free.

It might make it harder. Or less convenient. Or more work. Or different.

Freedom doesn’t have to be easy. And when I embrace that, I realize that I’m more free than I think I am.

You are too.

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend.

Recently, he made a change in his newsletter to be more aligned with what he thought people wanted from him. He started sharing tactics and solutions, replacing his previous vulnerable, messy exploration to insight.

On one hand, this could make sense. It’s always a good idea to understand what people want from you — and what they find valuable. I’m all about serving other people.

But, there is a very real trap when it comes to building things that other people want — you can end up building yourself a prison of your own design.

After he shared that his newsletter was taking more energy than he was expecting — and that he wasn’t loving it — we stepped back and asked two questions:

1. What do you need to make things work right now? Do you need more effective tactics today?

2. Where do you want to be in 3-5 years?

As soon as we looked at the first question, he realized that he doesn’t — so it naturally makes sense to optimize for the long term, which, for him, was not about sharing tactics or solutions.

This opened the door for refection on what he wanted to build for the long term — and how he could start building the foundation today.

How freeing.

PS — This freedom is a choice that can be consciously cultivated.

I’m constantly looking for ways to reframe. Ways to ask better questions. Ways to look at the world differently than your average person.

One pathway is to shift your time horizon.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it so powerfully play out as Steven Johnson’s new book.

The doubling of human life expectancy is the single most important development of our era. If a newspaper came out only once a century, that extra lifespan would be the banner headline: world wars, moon landings, the Internet would all be below the fold.

This is one of the major fallacies of our moden era — we completely miss the headline of the century, often overlook the headline of the decade and frequently miss the headline of year… all in service of the headline of THIS HOUR.

A good question — how can you spend more time thinking about the headline of the year? The decade? The century? (And, in turn, less about the headline of the moment…)

Sometimes I find myself in a loop. It seems to happen way more during the pandemic.

In these loops, I’m not doing what I actually want to be doing, but I’m stuck in a ‘good enough’ rut. Like watching Netflix. Or over-researching. Or watching 472 YouTube videos to pick out some new camera bag.

Getting started on the things I WANT can be hard for me. For lots of us.

As soon as my brain interrupts the loop long enough for that insight, I try my best to ask myself a question:

What’s one, easy thing that I can do to make my life better, right this second?

For me, it’s often turning on music. Sometimes tea. Sometimes getting outside.

All of those are easy enough to do. Sometimes, I don’t even have to stand up. Thank you sonos.

The small step in the right direction breaks the inerita and, at least 60% of the time, fundamentally breaks me out of the loop.

I chalk that up to the power of good questions.

—

PS — I asked myself that just now. When I asked the question, I stood up and turned on some music. Realized I should really do some laundry. And while walking down to the washing machine, I came up with the idea for this post. Now, I’m going to head out the door on a walk and strategize about the day before me.

Pattern interrupts work.

One of my superpowers is my ability to innately understand what other people want and to take pleasure in creating that outcome.

It’s a huge part of my successes — in relationships, at work and creatively.

But, as with all strengths, it has a corresponding weakness: I often find it very difficult to know what I want. In truth, I think I’m not nearly as practiced at listening.

Other’s wants tend to be louder and more obvious, in my own mind. And because meeting them yields such success, and success is a positive feedback loop, I haven’t done a ton of learning in this area.

Except for big lessons.

Of which, there has been a few.

And it all boils down to: Don’t Serve Assholes.

At core, I’m not sure I can fundamentally change my ability to read and understand other people’s wants, or my drive to meet them. And I’m not sure that I would even want to. It is a super power.

But there are times when it doesn’t serve me, just as there are times that your strengths don’t serve you.

I’m lucky that the solution is simple (but not easy): I can take pleasure in sating other’s wants and needs, but I need to make sure I hard pass on assholes.

Just.

One tiny little word that undermines and diminishes the value of anything it touches.

“I’ll just have a salad” and you’re stating to the world that you’re compromising and that you don’t believe you deserve what you want.

“Oh, I just whipped this together”
“I’m just a writer”
“Just wanted to check in on this…”

It makes everything insignificant, it acts as a pseudo (not needed) apology and suggests that you and your work and your time aren’t worthy.

That’s simply not true.

Stop demeaning your work and your self. Stop apologizing. Stop the over humility.

Ditch just.

Especially if you’re female.

I recently upgraded my computer. And, at first, I was so onboard with the idea of migrating my life from my last macbook to this one.

It would be easy. I would be efficient. It would be fast.

But, there is a beautiful power in a blank slate.

Whether that is a new year, a new home… or a new computer.

I decided not to waste the opportunity.

Rather, I reflected on what I actually need to take with me. I downloaded the handful of apps that I love. Setup my processes. Migrated over the files that I knew I would want (and backed up the rest of them).

It’s nice getting to build from nothing.

We tend to think of abundance as the joy of 'more' -- rather than the joy of just enough. 

Want abundance? Seek more. Do more. Be more. More, more, more. 

But really, abundance is all about striking the delicate balance between 'not enough' and 'too much.'

With the exception of money, having too much of any resource is a problem, just as having too little is.

Have too much work? No life.
Have too much food? Obesity or rotting.
Have too big of a house? It can feel cavernous and lonely.
Have too much time? Depression. 

Rather than hopping on the treadmill of ever more, I prefer to think of abundance as being that point just past 'enough.'

And guess what? I've got at least more than enough of pretty much everything. 

--
To note, a conversation about why money is one of the only resources for which you can't have enough of is the fundamental problem with capitalism would be delightful. Perhaps someday I'll write out my thoughts on it.

It's really easy to want to be exceptional. To want the early promotion, the best selling book, the state champion, the poise of an actor or the wit of a comedian. 

But the thing about being exceptional is exactly that -- you have to be willing to be the exception. You have to be different.

This is why so many goals fail: people want the outcome, but they don't decide if they want to put in the work and the discomfort of being different. 

Next time you are striving to be exceptional, step back and ask yourself how you are acting differently.

Are you working harder? Do you have a better strategy? Do you have a unique insight, or relationship? Is there an innovation unique to you? Do you have a better coach?

Take the advantages that are unique to you, that make you the exception, and do everything you can to magnify them.

For the last 6 years, I've reflected on my core values in early January as a part of my annual review and look forward. I typically only review the year prior's materials, to take stock of what I set as goals, as a point of comparison, but this year I went and dug up my annual plan from 2011.

It was sweet and a bit cringe-worthy to see just how ambitious, naive, intense and wide reaching my goals were in my mid-20's. I have to laugh thinking about what future Rebecca will think of my work, goals and plans today... 

A few things struck me as noteworthy

1. I have a LOT fewer core values. I went from 12+ down to 4. 
2. My ambitions are much less tactical and more at a vision level that is less attached the means.
3. I still agree with 95% of my goals from 2011, but I only prioritize 30% at this point in my life.
4. A year is a long time... but it goes by quickly. Same goes for 5 years. And, yes, even a decade.
5. Its worth seriously evaluating goals I've been chasing for years without a ton of traction. Its pretty clear that there is a major misalignment. Perhaps I don't really want them. Perhaps they shouldn't be the goal, but the outcome of a different goal. I'm not sure yet. 

Overall, the thing that struck me the most is that, even though I don't feel particularly focused... compared with 2011 Rebecca, I'm very focused. 

What a good reminder that we struggle with the same things over and over. Just because we're still struggling doesn't mean that there hasn't been progress. Even massive progress.

I just found my annual plan from 2011. It makes me smile, cringe, laugh and pat myself on the back all at once!

One of my favorite elements in it is my 'Monthly Joy List' which is a list of 30 things that I try to do every month (1 per day).

I had forgotten about this and I LOVE the idea. 

I'm going to write myself a new monthly joy list for 2018, but here is mine from 2011:

1. Send Grandpa a card/email
2. Email an Old Friend
3. Reach out to an aspirational contact
4. Do something nice for a stranger
5. Play a board game
6. Touch Ocean
7. Touch snow
8. Help someone with a skill I possess
9. Go on a hike
10. Swim
11. Write myself a love letter
12. Try a new food / restaurant
13. Make a new recipe
14. Clean the house reallllllly well
15. Go for an after dinner walk
16. Send someone an appreciation note
17. Go see live music
18. Publish an essay
19. Spend several hours in Powells (local book store)
20. Attend a talk or seminar
21. Try a new hairstyle (or makeup)
22. Have a dance party
23. Write a piece of fiction
24. Read a book
25. Wear deliciously sexy lingerie
26. Get dolled up for date night
27. Play outside (sled, climb trees, etc)
28. Take a whole day off computer / phone / etc
29. Spoil my partner for a night
30. Enjoy being spoiled for a night

This past week I was fighting with my husband about 'that issue' -- you know, the one that will probably always be an issue (we all have them, right?). I was really, really angry and resentful and my emotions were running in unproductive circles. I was not the person that I enjoy being.

I eventually had to step back and ask myself: What would help? What would help me stop being angry? 

Immediate clarity.
Immediate ability to ask for what I need.

I have to say, I am beyond proud that Michael & I made our biggest breakthrough on this issue in at least 5 years. Now that's a huge win... and it all started with a simple question.

As usual, asking great questions is an underrated skill. 

I've been dismayed by many things over the current state of political reality television. But perhaps most of all, I've been disappointed in both the left and the right by their desperate grip of black and white, frequently extreme, thinking. In nearly any complicated discussion, the most accurate view point tends to be an AND...

Globalization and free trade has been great for overall American wealth AND it hurts a portion of our society.

Capitalism is (arguably) the best system we've found for large scale societal organization AND, especially when coupled with debt, it is inherently a paperclip maximizer that needs to be regulated.

Healthcare should not cause bankruptcies AND we need to have some difficult discussions about health care consumption  and personal responsibility as a society.

Diversity is good for meritocracy AND there are very real (and innocent) losers when we increase diversity.

The freedom of speech needs to be defended, especially when we don't like what the person has to say, AND it is our responsibility to ensure that everyone is treated with the respect and dignity deserving of a human being.

White men are responsible for many of societies greatest achievements AND white men are responsible for many of societies greatest ills.

There are population level gender differences (and age, race and height for that matter!) AND women are under represented in leadership and under paid in the workplace.
note - I don't think that the author was perfectly accurate about the population level differences, but that's not to say that there aren't any.

There is significant bias against some populations AND many the people who are biased are basically innocent: they don't desire to be biased and are unaware of their bias.

We have to stop shouting about only one side. Its more complicated than that.

I'm tired and weary of the extreme positions that completely miss the muddy middle. It might not be sexy, but at least its real.

Do you burst and rest? Do you have intense periods of high energy and creative inspiration... and other times where the energy just isn't there? Can you get incredible amounts of work done in a short time? Do you occasionally burn out after long periods of intense exertion?

I do. We're sprinters.

Is consistency your jam? Do you work at a similar pace all the time? Does slow & steady sound familiar?

You're a marathoner.

Chalk this one up to the underrated skill of self knowledge.

Neither is better, but it's easy for both groups to be jealous of each other! I wish I could get that much done! /// I wish I could be consistent like you! Or, in turn, to be disdainful of each other.

Just as both groups have their strengths, each group has different needs and struggles under different conditions. Sprinters struggle doing anything consistently and may require extreme external pressure. Marathoner's struggle when they feel like they don't have enough time or that they've been being pushed too hard for too long.

Once you own this self knowledge, think carefully about what conditions will support you most effectively -- and experiment!

The very act of being human has needs beyond the physical. A need to be accepted. A need to know one's place. A need to understand and be understood.

For most of human existence, magic, folklore and then religion fulfilled these needs.

They answered who you (and your people) were, why you were here. They kept track of the seasonality of life. They celebrated births and milestones and offered solace at death. They provided a steady cadence to life.

Modern society allows many of these needs to go unmet.

We don't have built in answers to "what is the meaning of life?" or "why am I here?" We don't even have clarity over who to ask about it. We don't have the comfort of weekly guidance and an opportunity to reflect as a community. In fact, few of us has a larger community to be a part of.

As a non-church going atheist leaning agnostic, I'm hardly advocating for religion. I am actively anti-religion in its current form. I think that its wonderful that we have the opportunity to think for ourselves and determine our own beliefs. I believe in seeking our own answers, rather than accepting pre-determined dogma.

But that doesn't mean that we haven't lost something.

Weekly reflection & guidance. A larger community. A cadence to life and the seasons.

Requests for dashboards are almost always the same: I want to know what's going on.  That may be true, but that is not the purpose of a dashboard, and its not what you should really want.

Great dashboards measure the health of the leading indicators of the business.

To measure health effectively you need to:

1. Get clear on what success looks like for your business
2. Identify the leading indicators for success.
3. Measure & track how reality compares with targets

With that information, you're armed to make powerful, strategic decisions in your business. If you just 'know what's going on', you're likely to miss out on the important early indicators.

When I want to do something hard, I try to find my sweet spot: long enough to be impactful, short enough to be do-able. My friend asked me about how to work on his relationship with booze, especially after the holidays. After a conversation, he's decided to do a sober January: long enough to have a real impact on his health, his emotional coping skills and his relationship with alcohol... but short enough to feel do-able.

When I was writing my first book I was absolutely daunted at the prospect. So I tried to just write a chapter. But that wasn't my sweet spot, still too daunting. Rather, at that point, my sweet spot was just a page. I could get through a page. And enough pages strung together makes a very crappy first draft! Win.

In general, I'm a big fan of 30 day trials as sweet spots. Sometimes thats too much, sometimes not enough, but its quite often just right.

When something feels like too much to tackle, search for your sweet spot.

Big enough to be impactful. Small enough to feel do-able.