Tag: inspiration comes from strange places

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The Thing I Learned From “Lost.”

I was a huge fan of the show “Lost,” and still am. It was an epic show — 6 seasons and 121 episodes. But a lot of “Lost” fans are still mad about the way the show ended.

I always thought that was funny. I stuck with that show for six years. It started when I was in high school. It ended after I graduated college. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent talking about the show with friends, trading theories and sending email after email about it. For six years, me and my friends shared that show. It became ours. There are some episodes and characters in there that I count among my favorite ever.

Which is why I think it’s so funny that fans hate the show because they hate the ending. That makes no sense to me.

Did you enjoy the journey starting in season 1? I’ll ask them. Did you enjoy most of the stories?

Yes, they’ll usually say.

So why does a bad ending invalidate everything that came before? I’ll say. What does it matter that it didn’t close the way you hoped? You watched, and you enjoyed the ride. Isn’t that what matters most?

Yes, endings can be fickle and strange and not all that we hope for. But that doesn’t make the journey any less rewarding. The ride to the end matters.

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Following Up Matters.

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I’m going to brag about my little sister for a second.

A few years ago, my sister announced to me that one day, she was going to move to Colombia and do… well, she didn’t know. But she was going to move there.

Okay, I said.

And then she graduated from college and moved to New Orleans. She worked at a school. She had a lot of fun. We weren’t sure if she was going to ever leave.

And then she decided that Colombia was back on her radar. She was going to go.

Okay, I said.

She applied for jobs, and applied for visas, and she waited. I don’t know how qualified she was for any of these jobs — in college, she majored in Spanish, and being fluent in Spanish in Bogota isn’t all that impressive — but she actually got an internship at an art museum. She got her visa, and we got her on a flight to Bogota. The internship was supposed to last six months. We didn’t know what would happen after.

And then she announced that she was going to stay in Colombia and get a new job as a teacher.

Okay, I said.

She applied to more jobs and more places, except this time was different. She was in Colombia, which let her interview in person — and that does make a difference.

And after each interview, my sister decided that she’d send a thank you note in the mail. Not an email — a hand-written note thanking each place she’d interviewed at for their time.

A few weeks later, my sister got a job at a school. They’d interviewed a bunch of candidates for the job, but they loved her note. It stood out, they told her, and they figured anyone who’d take the extra couple of minutes to write a note like that was the kind of person they’d want on staff.

I’m still amazed by this. A few hand-scribbled words made a difference for my sister. There were lots of candidates, but a thank you note got her the job.

Why aren’t we all doing this, again?

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Saying The Things We Do Not Want To Say.

This past weekend was Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. It’s a day where — most notably to the outside world — Jews fast from sundown to sundown.

To Jews, it’s known as the Day of Repentance. We gather together to ask for forgiveness — from ourselves, and from our God.

It is not a particularly happy day on the Jewish calendar, but it is an important day. It’s a day where we Jews are asked to take stock of our lives, and consider how we can do better in the coming year.

But something else occurred to me on this Yom Kippur: It’s a day where we get to say a lot of the things that we never get say.

On Yom Kippur, we are given the chance to apologize for things we have done. We get to hear others say the same. We get to talk about transgressions and misdeeds and mistakes.

And we get to do all this out loud.

There are certain things that we never really want to say, but on this day, we are given permission to do so.

What a wonderful thing, this opportunity. If only we had more days like it — more chances to say the things we want to say, but rarely do.

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Stop Worrying About Endings. Just Keep Going On.

A lot of things have been kicking around lately, and it started with this tweet:

And I thought: Well, that’s not right at all.

I don’t think about endings that often. I think about the journey a lot, and I think about the next steps, but I don’t think about endings. That’s for another day — somewhere far off, I hope.

But I do think about the journey. I think about the steps I take every day to get somewhere, and the goals I keep setting and resetting for myself as I go. There are a lot of steps — but no true endings in sight.

And when I read a quote like the one above, I think: What’s the flip side of that? If things are working out, does that mean this must be the end? And what happens at the end, anyway? Do I quit? Do I give up on the work I’m doing?

That doesn’t sound like much of a happy ending to me.

So that’s the first thing that’s been kicking around in my head.

And the second is this video that’s been on the internet for a long time. It’s from a Texas high school football playoff game in 1994. One team is up 41-17 with three minutes left in the game, and that’s when the comeback begins. There’s a touchdown to cut the lead, and then a recovered onside kick. And then another touchdown. And another onside kick recovered.

And then another touchdown. And another onside kick.

And then one final touchdown — from 41-17 down to 44-41 up in just three minutes.

Which is where the story should end. Which is where we want it to end.

Except… that’s not where it ends.

Because life isn’t about where it ends; it’s about where you go. It’s about what you do along the way. It’s about what you make of all of this — the good, the bad, the everything else.

We search for endings because stories must end eventually, and each of us is writing our own story. But our stories are not over yet.

We keep going. We keep pushing. We resist the urge to write that ending.

There’s still more to do.

That image at top comes via @_michelada44_.

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Things Move Forward.

“The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel — these are the things what will endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events themselves.” — Vince Lombardi

 
Football kicked off this weekend. This is fantastic news. I love football. A football Saturday or Sunday is a special thing.

And yet: This football season feels different than any that’s come before, because for the first time, I feel like the majority of fans have accepted these two simple facts:

Football is ridiculously dangerous, and will have to change, because it is too dangerous for humans to play in the way that modern football is played.

Football is really fun to watch, partly because it is so dangerous.

Something is going to happen to football as a result. Maybe parents will start keeping parents from playing, and will shift kids to other sports — soccer, lacrosse, wrestling. Maybe the rules will change dramatically. Maybe the technology for helmets and pads will get better.

But something is going to happen. And football fans will be outraged. They will bemoan the death of tradition. They will complain.

But this is how things works. Things change. The rules change. The game changes.

I do not know what happens next, but I know that things will change, and I know that a lot of people are going to be unhappy. But we won’t keep doing what we’re doing — we know there’s something wrong, and we fix our wrongs. It will not happen fast — this is just how our world works. There is too much money and too many players involved for it to move fast.

But it will change. We change, or we watch it change us.

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It Doesn’t Have To Be This Hard.

I read this sentence this week, and it made me pause:

In 1931, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary had listed “Rube Goldberg” as an adjective, defining it as “accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply.”

And I started thinking about how much I love those Rube Goldberg machines. They really are fun to watch.

And then I started thinking about how complicated they are. They’re needlessly complicated, aren’t they?

And then I started thinking about my own day-to-day workflow, and the unnecessary steps I sometimes throw in when I’m trying to get from A to B on a task. Why do I do that?

And I ended up here: There are jobs where having a Rube Goldberg mind is a plus. Like storytelling. Storytellers have to be able to set those dominos up and then knock ’em down, and the ones who do it right often knock their stories out of the park.

But most of us don’t want to be Rube Goldbergs. We want to move quickly and efficiently. We want to get through the work and onto the next. And the more we set up for ourselves, the more we’re going to have to trudge through to get to the end result.

And it’s the end result that really counts, isn’t it?

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Just Remarkable.

World Domination Summit 2013 - Portland, OR

“What’s amazing about a leap of faith is how everyone around you is so sure it’s gonna work out, when deep down, you are so sure it won’t.” — Tess Vigeland

 
Back in July, I went to Portland for a conference, and I saw this talk. I have been thinking about it a lot.

It’s the story of an NPR reporter who quit her job because she wanted more. She wanted something else. She wasn’t sure what the something else was, but she wanted it.

But listening to it, I don’t really hear her story.

I hear her words, but I remember mine.

Because I, too, have felt ambitious. Really ambitious.

And scared.

And confused.

And lost.

And hopelessly broke.

On that journey, I spent a lot of time, too, just asking myself: What the hell am I doing?

I look back now on that point in my life. Yes, I had faith in my ability to do something great, and enough desperation to want to do something that wouldn’t suck. But at the exact same time, I had this overwhelming sense of terror. I was so, so scared.

Doing what I did — and what many others have done, and what you’ll see Tess Vigeland talk about in a second — was insane. It was crazy. But also: It was a fantastic thing that changed me, and changed how I think about everything.

And to see it echoed back to me? I felt all of it all over again.

It’s gotten me thinking again. I’ve spent the last few weeks wondering if I’ll ever find the courage to do something that crazy once again.

I hope I will.

Anyway, for now, just watch:

That image of Tess at top comes via.

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We’re Talking About Practice.

“I’m not shoving it aside, you know, like it don’t mean anything. I know it’s important, I do. I honestly do… But we’re talking about practice man. What are we talking about? Practice? We’re talking about practice, man.” — Allen Iverson

 
There’s a new book out this week by a Sports Illustrated writer, David Epstein, about athletic performance, called “The Sports Gene.” One of my colleagues at BuzzFeed wrote about it. And this one thing from the write-up caught my eye.

In Jim Ryun’s first race on his high school cross-country team, in 1963, he finished 21st on his own team. The next year, as a junior, he ran a four-minute mile, only a decade after the first human had ever done it. Epstein writes that genes make us respond differently to training — in studies, people doing the exact same workouts every day improve their fitness at drastically different rates. Basically, some people are actually born to be better at practice than others.

Read that last sentence again: Some people are actually born to be better at practice than others.

Which means two things:

1. Yes, Allen Iverson, practice really can make a difference.

2. The way you practice makes a huge difference. There is no one universal solution for practice. Finding the right way to put in the hours can change everything.

Yes, you can get better — at running, at writing, at building something from the ground up. And yes, you have to put in the work first.

That photo at top comes from the SI archives.

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Otra! Otra!

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“En la vida hay dos cosas ciertas // Son la muerte y el cambio.” — Ozomatli

 
If you ever go to see Ozomatli — and you really should; they’re an amazing band from LA that’s a fusion of all sorts of sounds and languages — then know this:

At the end of their set, they’re going to come into the crowd with drums. They might lead the crowd in the hokey pokey. Or the chicken dance.

But follow them. When they go, follow them.

Following them is how a friend and I ended up on a ledge on Saturday night, dancing with the band, as a few hundred fans screamed out “Ole!” chants back at us. Following them is how I ended up next to the horn section, losing my damn mind.

And when it was over, the crowd started cheering for more. Ozomatli’s songs are mostly in Spanish, so the encore chant came in Spanish, too. “Otra! Otra!” they cheered.

What an amazing response. A whole crowd of people, having just seen this band give them everything, having literally conga-lined out of the venue with them, and they wanted more. Refused to leave without more.

One more. Just give us one more glimpse of whatever you’ve got.

Something for all of us to strive for.

I took that photo at top from our vantage point on the ledge.

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Why Money Doesn’t Buy What Matters.

“Joy is repeatedly being reminded that you believed in the right kinds of people.” — Dharmesh Shah

 
In 2011, three psychologists released a study about money and happiness. The title of their report summed it up nicely: “If money doesn’t make you happy, then you probably aren’t spending it right.”

They dug in further:

“Wealthy people don’t just have better toys; they have better nutrition and better medical care, more free time and more meaningful labor—more of just about every ingredient in the recipe for a happy life. And yet, they aren’t that much happier than those who have less. If money can buy happiness, then why doesn’t it?”

And then they came to heart of their research: Money gives people opportunities. It gives people the chance to have resources and possessions and experiences that those with less cannot have. But money does not guarantee that the people with money will spend it in a way that will actually make them happy.

It’s not hard to guess what we think will make us happy: Just watch an hour of TV around Christmas-time, and see what the advertisers are selling. That fancy sweater. That new car. That dream home.

But what the psychologists found is that the happiness from those things doesn’t really last. We get excited about that new car, and then we sit in a traffic jam and forget all about it. We buy that new home, and special wood floors to match, and then we have to spend money on upkeep.

So what actually makes us happy? The psychologists point to two things in particular:

1.) Experiences: Going on trips. Spending money on an interesting new restaurant. Seeing a show. You’ll enjoy it in the short term, and even months later, you’ll think about something you saw or ate, and you’ll smile. (Think for a second about a restaurant you love or a concert you enjoyed, and you’ll understand.)

2.) Giving: Giving your time to charity. Volunteering. Any sort of helping — from mentoring to listening to a friend for a few minutes — tends to come back to you. Even giving gifts can make us happy. When we’re spending time and money on others, we’re usually happier than when we’re spending money on ourselves.

Of course, this all leads back to three simple questions: What matters to you? What do you actually care about?

And are you going to spend money on it, or not?

Photo at top via @russeyler

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