Happy New Year! We couldn’t wait for 2016 to end even though 2017, let’s be honest, is not going to fare better.
To say that 2016 sucked is a gross understatement. My father passed away on April 10 while I was 7,447 miles away. I still haven’t processed this. I am working up to it while being slowly eaten empty by guilt and regret.
I am not one to make New Year’s resolutions. I mean, I am very good at making them, I am just horrible at keeping them. My best record I believe was one week for keeping a journal. Journals are in general a bad idea: the thing about secrets is that as soon as they leave your mind, they stop being secrets. I did make one resolution for 2017 however: Read more real books instead of trying to read every single article saved to Pocket.
I’ve reached a, what should I call it other than a cliche, crossroad in my professional (and personal, though I am in deep denial on this one) life. So for the first time, I picked up one of the 10,372,763 recommended “this year’s best business books to teach you how not to jump in front of a moving train on your commute home every evening”, called Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, chosen out of, yes, self-aggrandizement. Adam Grant made an interesting point on quantity vs. quality:
It’s widely assumed that there’s a tradeoff between quantity and quality—if you want to do better work, you have to do less of it—but this turns out to be false. In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality… On average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality.
I’m taking this as a permission to crank out as many streams of consciousness as my mind can dictate.
“…the most important possible thing you could do,” says Ira Glass, the producer of This American Life and the podcast Serial, “is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.”
Make it up on volume. Sorry Internet. Blame it on Ira.
This makes sense. I got to the point I felt like I had to hold out until I had something of quality to write before posted… Then I reread my old posts & realized two things:
1. Most of my favorite posts were contained among the flurry of random crap I posted every few days.
2. What I considered “quality” was crap that was only slightly less crappy than the rest of crap.
Maybe I’ll just go back doing things the old way…
Vinny C recently posted…Snowball 3 – Moving Man.
You and me. Same. Let’s word vomit together!
I’m so glad you are getting back to blogging. I have been working my way back, as well. I think that you are right about needing to push past the feeling that we should only share what we consider our best quality. It is stifling to creativity.
2016 really did suck in so many ways. For the country. For the world. (I’m sorry about your father, too.)
Alejna recently posted…balls, dropped and otherwise
I’m hoping that 2017 doesn’t surprise us the way 2016 did me. I was and have been very happy for your getting your degree. Congratulations Dr!!!!
I am so sad you lost your Dad. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers this new year.
God bless.
Life with Kaishon recently posted…Lifeguarding 101
Thank you. Hugs.
I’m not producing quantity OR quality…. Should that OR be a NOR…
See what I mean?
2016 was like a bizarre revelation – everything you think of as your reality- blown away. Eye opening and terrifying in equal measure.
Dufmanno recently posted…One Week, Three Kids, Two Dogs and a Squirrel That is Clearly Mocking us
We will walk into 2017 with our eyes wide open. It’s terrifying indeed. Here’s to never think this is normal my beautiful gorgeous fearless friend. xo