This is something I hope my kids learn from me. Maybe they do so with a combination of this writing and the example I set. Maybe there are just enough breadcrumbs between my words and actions that they at least ponder this often.

The balance is living in the future, dreaming about what could and should be true. And then finding those moments, spaces, connections and relationships in the now - irrespective of how incongruent they may be with that future, dreamt state - that makes today worthwhile.

These are two oppositional forces that often want the same outcome.

The logistics are harder than the ideals.

Often the lure of picking one over the other as an absolute answer is merely a mirage. (I have been fooled often.)

You have to endure. Navigate the discomfort. Find meaning in that journey.

It is often a sub-par outcome when we accept the status quo.

It is often a missed opportunity when we neglect this moment we’re in.

How much magic is somewhere in the balance of both of these?

I’ve heard Dave Hause explain that Damn Personal is a song he wrote about a dear friend.

Whenever I listen to it, though, I hear the words as if I’m singing and saying it to myself. It never fails to strike a chord.

In acknowledging my tendency to push beyond my natural bounds, these lyrics from the songs especially resonate:

“I hope you’re every little thing that I can’t be tonight. (…) I hope you know I’m thinking of you, and I love you because you took it a little too far”

There is magic in not letting oneself off the hook entirely.

I mean, I am the common denominator in all of my mistakes.

At the same time, there is magic in allowing oneself just enough grace actually to move forward. Stagnation is always the worst outcome.

What I truly love about these lyrics is that despite the imperfection (“taking things a little too far”), there is still love.

The nature of that love might not be despite the imperfection but because of it.

Regarding self, I at least recognise that the most likely path to happiness/success/[add positive noun] is to be uniquely myself.

This inevitably requires holding myself to a higher standard and cutting myself some slack daily.

I’ve been traveling in the last week, and on a recent late-night walk around the city, I found myself (yet again) making plans.

Always thinking, ideating and being ambitious.

This wasn’t new or alien to me. I’ve defaulted to this natural state and motion for as long as I can remember.

As I walked*, a simple thought popped into my mind:

My aspirations can never exceed what I have to give.

I find myself in a proverbial half-time of my life, and my recent past has pushed me to re-program some of the things that have felt so natural until now.

I’ve realised that this always-on, constantly pushing forward motion is not very natural. And especially not when I’m trying to alter reality.

Instead, what is more natural (and thus better and sustainable) is to push only within my capacity.

Success is not to be measured by (artificially) trying to give 110% of myself to anything. I now think this is a fallacy. I can never be more than 100%, so where does that mythical extra 10% come from?

Aspiring always to be my best, unique self is already 100%.

No need to risk burnout or other adverse second-order effects by convincing myself I need to or can push beyond that.

And if I just did that, I would still likely accomplish many of the aspirational, ambitious things that often occupy by mind.

*Probably bouncing with some air-drumming as I was also listening to some (angsty) punk rock.

Years ago, I read Eliot Peper's Breach, and I have always thought that these two passages from the book beautifully make a case for authenticity:

“Instead of trying to cover up the damage, the repair is illuminated, the imperfections transformed into a source of beauty. I’ve always seen kintsugi as a physical manifestation of mono no aware, the pathos of impermanence, the gentle awareness that everything, all of us, are fragile and transient, that change is the only constant, that we are, at our best, lovingly reconstructed patchworks of our shattered selves.”

"It was possible to be both broken and beautiful at the same time. Restoration was an act of becoming. Every song was a remix. Every tale was a retelling. Creation was reconfiguration. Things that fell apart could be made whole, and even transcend themselves."

I understand the instinct to want to hide one's imperfections and put one's best foot forward. I also appreciate the benefit of being able to do this well consistently.

However, this approach is somewhat counter-intuitive to our inherent human nature, which includes imperfections and missteps.

The above passages are not only a call to embrace those imperfections as a way to just represent and be as-is. It also invites us to believe that a transcendent experience might occur because we do so.

There is this beautifully striking passage from Ruha Benjamin in a recent podcast with Trevor Noah:

“I think part of it is that I don’t identify strongly with this very uptight, insulated sort of ideal of what it means to be an academic or professor. I have one foot in the academy and always one foot out. I will never turn to these institutions for my sense of self-worth or self or mission. It’s like, I don’t give them my all, and so they can’t take anything from me in doing this either.”

Capitalism rewards obsession, passion and diligence. Especially when you’re all-in.

We understand that this laser-focus is one of the most reliable paths to progress.

The challenge is that when we go all-in on something, our ego attaches our self to this thing.

And that is the riskiest of places. That is the place that burns us out, partly because we’ve convinced ourselves of that supposed truth.

The better truth is that the longer we can run, the further we’ll get. One foot in front of another, all applied in the general direction of a finish line.

Some parts of what comes next will suck. Others will be downhill.

Neither should diminish your conviction, and neither is a measure of who you are.

When you survive this onslaught on self, you have so much capacity for tackling the real world problems you have already identified.