WHAT A DIFFERENCE A MONTH MAKES . . .
Despite our better wisdom, each time we embark on the month-long newsletter hiatus in August, there is a small voice whispering to us that says, 'what if . . . '.
What if . . . people forget about you, or you become irrelevant, or you lose the (writing) muscle that you've trained week-after-week. What if you lose momentum, or - worst of all - lose interest?
We know from experience, this voice and its questions are the ones that actually hold us back. The ones that deplete us and keep us running on fumes. They are the internalized messages that chip away at our creativity and leave us feeling helpless and uninspired.
Today we are here - we are back - brimming with ideas and interests, and excited to reconnect with you. The break was, of course, precisely the thing we needed to sustain us.
One of my favorite leisure activities these days is to play games with our newly six-year-old kiddo, who can't seem to get enough. Whether they are card games, Wordle (and its every offshoot like Quordle, Octordle, Worldle, Flagle, etc.), or board games, she seems captivated by learning the rules of each new game and - even more - hell bent on mastering whatever system the game puts in place to win . . . most especially if there are points.
On one recent morning walk, I listened to the 'A Life-Changing Philosophy of Games' episode of The Ezra Klein Show podcast, and it reaffirmed something I've always experienced: life is ultimately richer when we change the game. There are so many times in my personal and professional life when I recognize that the point system laid out does not get me - or us - to a worthwhile goal. In the current cultural 'gamification of life' it warrants us stopping to re-evaluate whether the game laid out is one we actually want to win.
What if, as we embark on the fresh feeling of a new school year, we all commit to changing the game. We don't equate the point system to 'likes' garnered through Instagram reels, by what we can buy, or by how life looks on the outside.
What if we instead measure our work and our worth through metrics that matter (and often ones that can't be easily measured by a machine): how many lives we uplift, how many experiences we enjoy, and how we feel on the inside? What if we value quality over speed, and longevity over instant results? What if we - one by one - reject external notions of the way things 'should' be and build something better?
Let's change the game together,
Tay + Dor
photo by Christine Han
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