Tears and Laughter Make us Rich

Every Christmas, Robyn and I watch It’s A Wonderful Life together, and every year I cry harder.

This year, I felt myself resisting, but eventually, I let myself go. And when Harry Bailey walked in the door and said, “A toast, to my big brother George, the richest man in town,” I just wept.

And it’s not just this film, I’ve noticed. When I read A Sick Day for Amos McGee at bedtime, I cry harder and smile bigger because the simple story of friendship between a zookeeper and his animal friends reminds me of my own experiences of friendship. When I hear the song Joe, I can’t help but feel my lips tremble mid-verse while I’m singing it in the car, even though I’ve never lived through addiction or recovery. It just gets me, because the protagonist—a gas station attendant—is a hero because of the content of his character and his success in slaying his own demons, not because of any external measures of success.

Or in Finding Nemo, now, I cry for different reasons in both eyes. When Nemo and Marlin reunite, I now understand the perspective of both father and son. And I find myself marveling at the beauty, relevance, and power of children’s stories—these tales we dismiss as childish often hold the simplest and truest wisdom.

And when I watch comedy specials—whether it’s Matt Rife, Hasan Minhaj, Dave Chappelle, or Trevor Noah—I laugh and laugh and laugh in ways I didn’t know were possible without being a bit drunk with my college friends at the pub.

As we get older, we just get it more. Because, if we’re doing this right with each passing year, we’ve actually lived more.

I see now how courageous it is to be an everyday guy who consistently swims upstream to do the right thing, like George Bailey does in that classic film. In a way, writing the book Character by Choice has been my attempt to figure out how to be more like George Bailey.

I find him so remarkable as an example of what a good, everyday man can look like. Because at the end, George doesn’t even “win” in the conventional sense. He doesn’t walk away with a big payout or a victory over the villainous Mr. Potter—he’s still a modest business owner. But his years of sacrifice are validated when the rest of Bedford Falls comes to his aid.

Now, I get how special it is to sacrifice for others and to accept the sacrifices they make for me.

And I also see the mirror universe of what my life could’ve been, just like George Bailey does after he “saves” his guardian angel, Clarence. It’s like I started making choices for myself as a teenager, and each of those choices was a fork in the road—left or right. Over time, those choices compounded as I kept making right turns. Again and again, at each fork, I went right.

And now I see so clearly what my life could’ve been. I could’ve been richer, with fewer kids and responsibilities, probably living in Washington, D.C., or San Francisco. That version of me would’ve had a nicer house and a more vibrant professional and social life. But would it have been a universe where I was here with Robyn, Riley, Robert, Myles, and Emmett? Probably not.

Honestly, I would’ve probably found a way to rationalize my story if I had made all those left turns instead of right. I might have convinced myself I was content. But damn, I’m glad I’m here and not somewhere else. And that clear, honest realization—that it may never have been this way—keeps my heart from stiffening.

And so the tears flow.

Maybe this is good, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s a sign of strength, maybe a sign of weakness. Maybe both. Honestly, I don’t really care. I’d rather avoid the culture wars and punditry about men and crying. That kind of commentary—no matter where it comes from—feels reductive and unnecessary.

Because at a minimum, I think crying and laughing harder is an indicator of acceptance—of life and all that it brings. It’s a sign that I’m letting myself live life—letting it soak into my bones and my soul, rather than keeping it at arm’s length.

It’s not the choice everyone makes, but for me, I can only hope that as I age, I let myself live more and more. I can only hope that with each passing year I cry harder and laugh harder. Because in my own way, that makes me feel like one of the richest men in town.

Why I'm a Part-Time Capitalist

I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to be a part-time capitalist.

What I mean by this is that I want to create enough material wealth for my family and society to live a good life, but I don’t want capitalism to dominate my identity or values. I want to earn a living, but my goal in life isn’t to be a good producer or consumer. I’ll engage with capitalism where it serves me—maybe the equivalent of two days a week—but I won’t live and breathe it as though it’s my religion.

This realization didn’t come to me overnight. It simmered for years, as I wrestled with the game society handed me: capitalism. From an early age, we’re taught to measure success by wealth, status, and accumulation. For a long time, I felt like I was failing at it—even though my family and I were doing just fine. Capitalism has a way of making you feel like nothing is ever enough. It whispers that you’re not climbing the ladder fast enough, not maximizing your earnings the way you could.

But at some point, I started to ask myself: Why am I even playing this game? What if I don’t want to “win” capitalism? What if I’d rather play a different game altogether?

That’s where my sons come in. They love soccer. They play with an abandon and joy that makes me envious. Watching them, I realized they’ve found a game that suits them—one they’ve chosen for themselves. Soccer has creativity, fluidity, and rhythm. It’s nothing like football, the sport I played for years growing up.

I chose football because that’s what my friends were doing. As a Michigander, it felt natural to play, and I enjoyed being part of a team. But looking back, I see that it didn’t suit me. I wasn’t built for it—physically or mentally. It was someone else’s game, and I just happened to be good enough at it to get by.

That’s how capitalism has felt for me as an adult: the default game I got pulled into. Like football, it has its virtues. It provides structure and can even be exhilarating at times. But it’s not the primary model for how I want to live.

I’m never going to “win” at capitalism, and I don’t want to. I’m not willing to make the sacrifices required to maximize my earnings or climb higher, because I value other things more. I love being a father. I’m drawn to public service. I care about relationships, creativity, and dignity far more than accumulation.

For years, though, I struggled under capitalism’s invisible grip. People told me I had talent and potential, which I heard as: You could be doing more. This latent anxiety followed me everywhere. Could I provide enough for my family? Could I live up to everyone’s expectations? That sense of “not enough” became like a chronic cold I couldn’t quite shake.

But then came my a-ha moment: I don’t have to play this game—not fully, anyway. I realized I could be a subscriber to capitalism part-time and play my own game for the rest of my life.

For me, this shift has been about aligning my life with my values. It’s why I’ve embraced a nonlinear career, oscillating between government and corporate roles to find balance. It’s why Robyn and I have crafted a marriage that works for us, breaking free from traditional gender roles. She works a flexible schedule, and I’ve leaned into an unconventional path as a husband and father. We’ve structured our lives around fairness and teamwork rather than default societal expectations.

It’s also why we’ve chosen to raise our family in the city instead of a suburb. The city challenges us, inspires us, and aligns with the cultural and inter-religious values we’re navigating as a couple. Every one of these decisions reflects a conscious choice to reject the "default game" and build something that works for us.

This path isn’t easy. Freedom is exhilarating, but it’s also daunting. Choosing your own game requires courage. It means setting boundaries, risking judgment, and often swimming upstream. That means being willing to be a little weird or out on a ledge, at least some of the time.

But it’s worth it. Recently, I’ve started to feel the effects of this mindset as I’ve entered a new job. Do I have to be the best at work and think about it constantly? No. Do we need an excess of money to complete every home renovation we want this year? No. Do I need to loudly reject capitalism or evangelize my alternative path? No. I’ve chosen my line in the sand, and I’m okay with where it puts me.

While I wish I’d started sooner, I’m grateful to be starting now. Better late than never.

So here’s my question for you: What’s the game you’ve been playing? Is it one you chose, or was it handed to you? What would it look like to redefine the rules and build a life that fits you?

The process isn’t easy. It’s challenging, peculiar, and sometimes lonely. But it’s also liberating. It’s your life, after all—why not make the rules yourself?

The Easiest Way to Become Popular

To me, it’s not so much that being popular great, it’s that being unpopular is usually terrible. To articulate why, I look to the greatest explanatory model for social dynamics there is: high school.

I’ve been on both sides of popularity in my school days. When I was unpopular, I was constantly stressing about girls, being harassed, being lonely, or missing out on having fun. When I was popular, I flourished. I had a lot more fun and it was a lot easier to just be myself and have energy when I was liked and not constantly feeling under siege. 

I get why people, myself included, will go to great lengths to avoid being unpopular. For me, it wasn’t that being popular was great, it was that being unpopular was much worse. 

And the simplest way to avoid being unpopular is to become popular. So how to be popular? Again, it’s informative to think about high school.

One road to popularity is to be the best at something, to have a niche. It’s easy to be at least somewhat popular when you have a lane - whether it’s academics, athletics, arts, or an extra-curricular activity. If you’re the best in the school at something or have a varsity letter on your jacket you earn the respect of your peers.

Another way is to have rich parents. Which I don’t actually mean flippantly; it’s not about being able to buy “friends”. But rather, if you have access to money, you don’t have to say no to fun stuff. You can go to the movies whenever someone’s going. You can take your friends to concerts and sports games, or host fun gatherings at your house with ping pong tables, nice food, and maybe even a pool. Money doesn’t buy friends, but it creates opportunities to have fun and make friends.

In my experience, character and leadership also matter. In high school, if you’re genuinely nice and can transcend the pettiness of the cafeteria or the hallway, people want to be around you. If you can rally people around a shared purpose - whether it’s a charity drive or social change, people want to be around you. If you can stand up for injustices or do something innovative, people want to be around you.

But those three strategies - being a star, being rich, or being a leader - are actually pretty challenging. The easiest way to be popular is to be aggressive.

We have likely all seen this play out, it’s basic in-group out-group stuff. We can be popular by talking crap about people behind their back or bullying other kids. By excluding others, we can build strong cohesion with our peeps (which makes us popular), albeit cheaply and darkly. Also, if the rest of the school knows you roll deep and are willing to be mean, most would prefer to stay out of your way instead of challenge your dominance.

The easiest way to be popular is to be aggressive. Sadly, it works almost every time.

And yes, maybe in high school the stakes aren’t as high because everyone’s awkwardly going through puberty, and everyone leaves in four years anyway. Everything’s made up and most of the time, the points don’t matter.

But these dynamics don’t stop in high school. I’ve seen them play out in every organization and company I’ve ever been a part of. And after high school, it’s not just that people try to become more popular, they try to become more powerful. The stakes and consequences get bigger and realer.

And yes, in the real world - whether it’s in the workplace, at church, or just socially - some people gain power by being a star. Or they gain power by being wealthy. And luckily, in some cases people gain popularity and power by leading people toward an inspiring, noble, shared purpose.

But damn, lots of people take the easy way. Like at work, people get aggressive at the water cooler by demeaning a project team, their boss, their direct reports, their peers, or the customer. Or in social settings, people gossip about the other people in their club, the congregation, the neighborhood, or even their extended family.

A lot of times, I think people intend to lead with integrity and do start with a noble purpose in mind, like: ending the patriarchy, saving the American dream, stopping racial injustice, or preserving freedom. And they inspire people and lead them to achieve something meaningful. And then they get popular, and then they get powerful. And it’s great, because you’re doing what you think is right and you’re popular, too.

But at some point the streak ends. And not everybody is a Dr. King or a Gandhi. Not everyone realizes they have to do the work of self-purification to stay true to their principles and integrity. And then that well-intentioned person devolves into aggression, and brings in all the chest-thumping, and the outrage, and the vitriol to stay popular. And they become a bully in the end, when all they wanted to do at the start was noble and virtuous.

The easiest way to be powerful is to be aggressive and it’s so easy to fall into unintentionally. This stuff starts in high school but for damn sure doesn’t end there.

A through-line of my writing and thinking is the concept of intentional choices. Some choices we make have huge consequences for ourselves, for others, and for the culture itself. These are the choices we should make intentionally, but it’s so easy not to. How to be popular is one of these unassumingly consequential choices.

I think we all want to avoid being unpopular and powerless (because it sucks). The choice we have is how. What path will we take to avoid unpopularity? What strategy will we use to become more popular?

Will we try to be a star and make a huge contribution to earn respect? Will we use our money to create amazing, memorable, experiences that bind us with others? Will we build a deep sense of purpose and fellowship by leading with integrity? Or will we make ourselves part of the in-crowd by making someone else an outcast?

The choice of how to be popular is one we should make intentionally.

When the pandemic ends, our generation has a choice to make

Our family had a nice run.

We made it through the peak of Omicron before the first member of our household tested positive for Covid-19, this weekend. Thankfully, we’re all fine so far. God willing, our nuclear family’s bout with Covid will pass in a few days and fall into the footnotes of our family’s history.

Ironically, the moment we saw the positive test, it felt like the beginning of the end of Covid-19, for our family at least. Assuming we get through this week without requiring hospitalization (which it seems like we will, fingers crossed), Robyn and I can breathe easier through the next few months as the pandemic hopefully transitions to an endemic. We’ll have gotten it and got through it. Our family is in the endgame. Thank goodness this didn’t all happen the week of Robyn’s due date.

Soon enough, the collective Covid endgame for our country and world will come, too. And when it does, I expect the narratives of what’s next to start forming. It’s what we do in contemporary human society: when crises end, we start to rewrite history.

It’s perhaps unnecessary to say something this obvious, but I don’t think the stories we’ll tell about the end of Covid will be along the lines of, “we just went back to the way things were.”

Our collective minds have changed; something inside us has snapped. We all went just went through an existentially-affective experience. Everyone has lost someone in some way. Some of our communities were ravaged. We all went through waves of lockdowns and uncertainty.

I don’t know about you, dear Reader, but I do not feel like the same person I was two years ago. Like, I feel like a very different person that I was two years ago - with different perspectives on family, work, gender equality, social policy, leadership, health, and public service.

And because we won’t just go back to the way things were, the question becomes - what will the story be? At the end of our collective reflection, what will the call to action be as we emerge from Covid-19? What narrative will be choose to accept and make real?

Speaking as a member of the millennial generation as I write these words in early 2022, the next 20-30 years are ours to lead. We’re at the age where our parents are retiring and we’re stepping in. And if the next 20-30 years are truly our turn to lead, what will our story be?

To contemplate questions with generational implications, I prefer to think in generational terms. The best judges of how we lead as a generation are not us, but our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

So what I think about is what my children will say to their grandchildren about me. When Bo and Myles tell their grandchildren about how their father and his contemporaries acted between 2020 and 2050, what stories will they tell about us? As the true arbiters of our history, how will our grandchildren and great-grandchildren judge us?

I see two prevailing narratives, starting to form already. The one I think we all expect is the one typified by the big speech.

This is the story that begins with the President and other world leaders making a national address on television, ritualistically performing all the usual elements of pomp and circumstance: claiming victory, honoring the dead with semi-sincere words and and calculated phrases, and celebrating the front-line workers who carried the burden of the pandemic. In the final overtures of the speech that politician - whether Republican or Democrat - will play into our fears and darker memories of the pandemic, and vow: “Follow me, and I’ll make sure something like this never happens again.”

There will be a blue ribbon panel, scapegoats will be shamed and punished. There will be grand, short-sighted gestures implemented to help the nation feel like something will be different, whether or not they actually make things different. And then a few years will pass, the next crisis will emerge, and the same farce - muddle through crisis, posture and stoke fear, gloss over problems, and move on - will repeat.

I do not want that fear-based narrative to be how our grandchildren and great-grandchildren remember us.

The other prevailing narrative I see brewing already is that of enlightened self-awareness. It goes kind of like this.

First, there’s an awakening. Something shaken up in our heads because of the pandemic. We realize life is too short for jobs we hate and keeping up with the Joneses. We lean into our family life or our passions. We, as a generation, pursue our own dreams instead of everyone else’s. We become a generation, not of dreamers, but people who actually chased their dreams and poured everything into the relationships that meant the most to us. We become heroes because we stayed true to ourselves; the generation the finally broke the cycle and began the process of collective healing. The story is so intoxicating, and feels so familiar, doesn‘t it?

Lately though, I’ve worried about the slippery slope of that hero’s journey. If we all pursue our own dreams and build up our own tribes, where does that leave the community? Will we balkanize our culture even further? Will we put ourselves on a path of endless tribialization and greater disparity between those who have the surplus to “do their own thing” and those who don’t? Isn’t it so easy for this narrative to start as as a story of self-actualization but then end as a story of narcissism, self-indulgence, or elitism?

It seems innocuous if we individually pursue our own dreams and invest in relationships with our own loved ones. But what happens if we all narrow our focus to that of our own dreams, our own passions, our own families, and our own tribes? What will happen to the bonds that bind us? Is that a world we actually want to live in?

I sure as hell don’t want to be known as the generation who perpetuated a cycle of fear. But I don’t want to be the generation that turned so far inward that we lost the forest for the trees, either.

What I hope, is that our children and grandchildren remember the next 20-30 years as a time where our generation looked inward, and in addition to advancing own passions, families, and tribes, we also took responsibility for something bigger. 

What if in the next three decades we came out of this with an awakening, yes, but an awakening of honestly embracing reality. Where we really understood what happened, all the way down to the roots. Where we asked ourselves tough questions and accepted hard truths about our priorities, our institutions, and our sensibilities about right and wrong. 

And what if instead of pursuing quick fixes, we acted with more courage. What if we stopped putting band-aids on one big thing. Just one. Maybe it’s one issue like caregiver support or global access to vaccines. And we drew a line in the sand, and just said - this global vaccines thing is hard, but we’re going to figure this out. We’re not going to kick the can down the road any longer. We’re going to invest, and we’re going to do the right thing and do it in the right way.

And what if that one single act of courage, inspired another. And that inspired another. And another and another. What if instead of a cycle of fear, we ended up with a cycle of responsibility?

I know this is all annoyingly lofty and abstract, and probably a bit premature. But after every crisis comes a VE Day or a VJ Day or something like it. After every crisis comes a writing of history. After every globally significant event comes an inflection point, where the generation taking the handoff has to make a choice about what comes next.

For us as millennials, we’ve drawn the cards on this one. The end of the Covid-19 pandemic is right when it’s our time to take the handoff from our retiring parents, and step into the role of leading this world. It’s our time, our turn, and our burden.

When the Covid-19 endgame finally arrives, and our handoff moment is finally here, I don’t want to be swept up in it so badly that I can’t think clearly. I want to choose the narrative for the next 30 years with intention. 

And the only way to do that I can see is to start thinking about the handoff we’re about to take, right now.

And I hope the narrative we choose is not fear, nor narcissism. I hope the story we choose and the story we commit to write, in each of our respective domains, is that of courageous responsibility.

The fear of wasting our talent; living a happy but unremarkable life

The funny thing is, I still feel this dread, even though every day I have bubbles, and even overflows, with joy.

This, decidedly, the life I chose and I wanted. “Family first” is our mantra and “It’s a good life, babe” is our refrain. We have a fairly simple life that’s fun, and fulfilling. And joyous. And meaningful. Our days, admittedly, are remarkable mostly because of their consistency.

Our kids waddle into our room, wearing their pajamas of course, at about 6 AM on most days. Robyn and I work our jobs. If it’s a school day, we go through our morning routine with the kids and “do drop off” as a family. If it’s a “home day” we all move a little slower as I prep for the work day and Robyn prepares herself for a day with the kids - mixing in walks with Riley, swim lessons, doctors appointments, snacks, and other modest mischief and adventure throughout the day. 

What anchors our day, on most days, is a free-flowing sequence of cooking dinner while the kids play, followed by a family dinner, dessert, tooth-brushing, potty, pajamas, two stories, and a lullaby before tucking them in.

Our nights and weekends waltz and sashay with different versions of roughly the same activities. We do whatever remainder of work we haven’t crunched through during the day, which luckily isn’t as pervasive, urgent, or stinging as when we both worked in public service. We have chores that never seem quite finished - dishes for me, laundry for Robyn. In the rare instance we watch television, it’s either a British detective drama like Endeavour, or a music competition like The Voice or The Masked Singer.

If it’s a weekend, our chores remain but are different (groceries don’t buy themselves, yet, at least). Our excursions outside are a little longer and a little more like a sauntering ramble than the focused, brisk walk Robyn and I take with Riley at lunchtime when we’re both working from home. 

And then there are the weekend’s mix-ins. We take Bo to soccer practice and try to go to church and participate in civic and cultural life as best we can. We do our best to see our family once a weekend and nurture friendships with our small group of close ties, our neighbors, or extended family. We both steal away an hour of exercise, as many times we can.

I try to write and chip in to the efforts of the neighborhood association and Robyn tries to explore her budding interest in photography, plans trips, and tries to support the other young moms she knows through small but deliberate acts of kindness.

The moment of the week I relish most, probably, is a short window between 8 and 10pm Friday nights. That’s the one part of the week where Robyn and I are most likely to be able to spend together, doing nothing but enjoy each other’s company. This, again, is remarkable only because of the consistency of our activity - we watch a show perhaps, open up a bottle of wine, fire up the power recline feature of our La-Z-Boy love seat, and or listen to some light music while absorbing and reflecting on the last week of our life. It is the time of week, I feel most comfortable.

This is our life. And as I said, it would otherwise be unremarkable if not for its consistency. Because it truly is unglamous, and seriously is not for everyone. Plenty of people would probably go bonkers under our roof, as we would under theirs.

But for us it works. Because as consistently unremarkable our daily grind is, the moments of laughter, joy, love, and gleefully, willing suffering & sacrifice - the moments we live for - are consistent and remarkable.

It’s hard to explain, but there’s an inexplicable ease and warmth I feel when our sons cast spells of “giant golf ball powers!” completely unannounced. Or when we have 60 minutes of struggle and yelling and tears to get out the door, only to spend an hour and a half with someone at their birthday party. Or when we get to walk outside and see the majestic 100-year old trees triumphantly changing color down our block. And there are dozens more small moments like this, which are unremarkable in isolation, but their consistency feels remarkable.

This is the life dreamed of when I was wandering through the badlands as a younger man. It’s the life Robyn and I wanted together and that we both still want, even though we have to hustle for it damn near every day. It is a happy life, made more exquisite by how challenging and sacrificing it is.

This is the life we chose, intended with each other. It is a life on purpose. Every day is a good day, truly. Our life is admittedly quite opposite of a novel, flashy life - much closer to boring than glamorous, more like monochrome than technicolor. But it’s still a thrilling adventure - healthy, prosperous, joyful, and meaningful,

And yet, I hear the echoes of my father’s stubbornly accented voice and the dream-like memory of him talking to me in the kitchen of my family home - “you are a very capable person,” he said, in a way that was straining, almost exasperated even, to make me understand how serious he was.

And then, on top of my serene and happy state of mind, the existential dread sets in.

I have been brainwashing myself to stop comparing myself to others for the better part of a decade. And I’m mostly there, I don’t feel jealously of my peers like I used to. I don’t have the addiction to keep up with the Joneses or stack up my professional resume like I used to. Instead of being acute, my inclination to social comparison and seeking the approval of others is now more of a chronic condition - something I can manage and live with, rather than having to treat intensely after a bad episode. I am more comfortable doing my own thing than I ever have, and I have a better grasp of what “doing my own thing” or “being myself” actually means, than I ever have in my whole life.

This relatively nascent state of contentment has come from looking inward. It has come from consistent, intense, reflection trying to understand my inner world and how that inner-self can integrate with the broader world. I suppose you could say, I’ve tried to put into practice an “examined life” as Socrates put it in Plato’s Apology.

But in that act of examination, I haven’t been able to help but contemplate whether I’ve lived up to my Father’s assessment of my talent, or even my own assessment of my own capabilities.

Because it’s true, I am a capable person, even if I was afraid to accept the responsibility that came with acknowledging those capabilities for most of my life. And so I wonder, have I lived up to what I’m capable of? How much of my talent and time have I squandered?

To be clear, I’m under no delusion (anymore) that given different choices, I’d be more wealthy of famous than I am now. The way I operate and think, I’ve accepted, it not attractive of fat profits or paparazzi. And, I know for sure that I’m not a once in a generation genius whose wasted talent has become a missed opportunity to bend the trajectory of humanity.

What I long for and am haunted by, however, is contribution. Meaning, lower-case “c” contribution. Like how many more people’s days could I have made by now, had I made different or better choices? And by different choices, I don’t even mean sacrificing family or my own sanity to work harder or longer hours. But maybe if I had focused differently, or made different choices on the margins, or gotten drunk on fewer weekends in my twenties, or just tapped into my talents more intentionally or earlier..

How much higher would the literacy rate be if I applied myself to it? How many fewer people in Detroit would have been shot or killed had I stayed in public service for longer or been better at my job? How many companies could I have started by now if I acted on one of the dozens of businesses that I’d thought of with my buddies that ended up becoming profitable enterprises? How many people could I have brought out of a dark place had I lived up to how capable I actually am and been more generous? What might’ve happened if I buckled down and finished this book two years ago? How might the world be a little different, and hopefully better, if I were better and contributing my gifts?

Perhaps the dread I feel is better described as remorse. I have everything I dreamed of, and it truly is enough - I feel fully happy, complete and satisfied. And yet, I feel this guilt and a lingering malaise because I know I had more in the tank to give. I know that in a different version of my life, somewhere else in the multiverse, I would’ve been able to create a cherished and charmed home life while making a greater contribution to the world outside our backyard.

And I suppose it’s true that life is long, and many people don’t hit their stride until well past middle age, some even not until their sixties or seventies. It’s just this bizarre reality where I feel confident in the choices that I made, feel blessed and complete in the life I have, but still feel the heaviness of imagining counter-factual life.

I wonder often if this must be a new phenomenon for people coming of age. Because now, for people coming of age right now, we have a much broader understanding of the world and our role in it. The amount of information we have or travel we can do or people we can interact with, gives us a difficult awareness both of who we are and how we influence others. This heaviness of imagining a counter-factual life probably wasn’t possible for nearly as many people even 30 years ago.

What I’ve tried to take relief is is that despite how informed or worldly we can be in today’s time, we still know very little of how far our actions actually travel. We don’t know the extent of the wake we’ve created for others to be cared for, to grow, to live more freely, or to thrive. Because now, the contribution and goodwill of our actions can travel much farther than they could 30 years ago. This is true because of how globalized our world is, even if most of us aren’t destined to have a litany of press clips to our name because of what we do on this earth.

What I hope for now is that even though most of the contributions that most of us are able to make are unremarkable, we just keep doing them. Over and over. If we consistently put good things out into the world, maybe just maybe it will turn to be remarkable and make an extraordinary contribution. With any luck, if we’re at least consistent in being unremarkable we’ll be towards the end of our lives and we’ll see that our talents weren’t squandered and we’d been making a remarkable contribution all along.

Adult Bullying

There are four basic responses to being bullied: confront, ignore, retreat, and assimilate. Being bullied is a terrible thing, so basically everyone responds to it in one way or another.

Confronting a bully is what most of us aspire to do, like in the movies. In a moment of glory, we resist the bully’s actions and once we stand-up to them, they stop. This is hard, especially if you have no support or real power.

Ignoring a bully is also hard. When choosing this response we just keep doing what we’re doing and don’t give the bully the satisfaction of a response, despite the harm they’re inflicting on us. Eventually, they move on to a more participatory target.

Retreating is when we fold back into our crew and go back to our circle of support. Retreating is not necessarily “weak”, it’s simply a strategy of avoidance and getting back to a community where we’re protected. Strength in numbers, I suppose.

Assimilating is the, “if you can beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach. If the beefy football player is your bully, become an even beefier football player. If the bully is cruel and wicked toward the weak, assimilate to also become cruel and wicked. In this scenario you get out of being bullied by becoming a bully.

What I’ve just tried to invoke are the feelings we had in middle and high school, when basically all of us were either a bully to someone, bullied by someone, or both. Adolescence is where we see explicit bullying, at least in America. 

But I don’t think we leave bullying behind once we graduate high school. Even if it’s not as overt, I’ve come to see that there is adult bullying.

How is talking about a colleague’s flaws and failings when they’re not around that different from trashing how someone was dressed at the Homecoming dance? Put downs are put downs, no matter how old we are when it happens.

How is flashing images of an expensive house or expensive hobbies that different from lifting weights to get big biceps and wearing a varsity jacket (literally everywhere)? Asserting dominance is asserting dominance, no matter how old we are when it happens.

How is yelling at a customer service rep on the phone that different than picking on the “unpopular kid” in the cafeteria? Verbal abuse is verbal abuse, no matter how old we are when it happens.

How is humble bragging about the big promotion we got, that different than humble bragging about who we made out with over the weekend? A pissing contest is a pissing contest, no matter how old we are when it happens.

I used to think that the reason why I’ve been obsessed with career trajectory, my resume, Google self-search results, and all that stuff is because of social comparison and this basic human need to keep up with the Joneses or something. I thought it was just “psychology.”

But I’m wondering now if it’s just a response to adult bullying. Like, maybe I feel bullied by what other people are saying and doing and I’m trying to make the pain stop by getting a promotion of my own.

Thinking of my existential angst about career as an assimilation response to bullying instead of an inevitability of human psychology is a very different ball game. 

Because if I’m intentional about it, I can choose to respond to adult bullying in someone other way than striving to become an adult bully myself. I can choose to respond differently.

The Artist’s Choice

To continue as artists, we have to keep making a choice to be out there on a lonely limb. Because artists, by definition I think, break new ground. Artists explore ideas and techniques that haven’t been done before. To be artists we have to create tension and push cultural boundaries further. It’s what we do and it’s our job.

The hard part about pushing boundaries is that it requires some level of independence and that cultural distance can be isolating.  We cannot do our job pushing the boundaries of ideas and culture if we’re beholden to them. And so we have to set ourselves apart from orthodoxies or operate in the spaces between worlds. For me, this  manifests in a feeling of, “I feel like I can exist almost everywhere, but I don’t belong anywhere.”

And so the choice. We can be artists that create tension and push the edges of things or we can be craftspeople that masterfully create something that’s already accepted - not both.

To be clear, I don’t apply this definition only to who we conventionally think of as “artists.” Sure, photographers, painters, actors, dancers, musicians, and sculptors are all artists. But so are the chefs, computer programmers, corporate strategists, public servants, doctors, parents, physicists, and teachers that push up against the conventional wisdom of their domains to explore new ground.

In addition to being lonely, choosing to be an artists has frustrating trade-offs. The idea of a “starving artist” captures it well. 

It’s hard to be paid handsomely for your work when you’re pushing boundaries, because the world doesn’t know it wants to pay for this weird, uncomfortable thing we’re exploring. If we’re lucky, maybe the world will develop a palate for what we’re doing while we’re alive, or even we’ve gone ahead. But maybe it never will.

I have felt this tension in my own vocation. I don’t really fit in anywhere in a corporate setting, even though I’ve always worked in them. I don’t have a career aspiration that’s as simple as, “I want to be a CFO” or “I want to run my own company.” A lot of the time, I don’t think my colleagues have any idea what to do with someone like me, because my skill set and aspirations are bizarre and hard to fit into existing functions. 

I suspect that if I told people at work, “the aim of my work is to bring goodness to the world by creating high-performing governments and help organizations to stop wasting talent.” They’d be like, “what the hell are you talking about?”

But that’s the choice, isn’t it? We could probably be wealthier than we are, or have more status than we do now by just creating what we know people already like. 

But that wouldn’t be art.

When I’m feeling used up

As a general rule, I don’t advocate for myself. It’s not that I avoid it or find it uncomfortable, I never really think to do it. The reason why, making a long story short, is that I’m a people-pleaser. I’m motivated more by making someone’s day than I am by a feeling of personal accomplishment.

To be clear, this is a personality flaw. Because I am a people-pleaser, I end up feeling used and used up a lot. Other people ask for my time and energy and my default position is to say yes, which leaves me feeling depleted.

This is a choice, with trade-offs.

How I respond when I feel used up is also a choice.

On the one hand, I could start saying no. I could protect my time and energy by setting boundaries.

On the other hand, I could insist upon reciprocity. Doing so would make day-to-day life more of a give-and-take rather than a mostly-give and sometimes take.

And seemingly paradoxically, I could give more. By digging deep and giving more, I could practice and get better at expanding the boundaries of my very little heart, and learn to give without receiving just a little more.

In reality, I should probably do some amount of all these things. Honestly though, I hope I don’t have to set boundaries or insist upon reciprocity. I hope instead that I can dig deep within and give more when I feel used up. I hope I’m dutiful enough to give to others, even if it means bearing more weight and sacrificing status or personal accomplishment.

I don’t know if the sinews of ethics and purpose holding me together can sustain that. I am definitely a mortal man, and not a saint. But still, I hope that I can dig deep and give more. It seems to be the choice most likely to create the world I hope to live in and leave behind.

But the revelation here is that it is indeed a choice. I feel so much pressure from our culture that the way to handle feeling used up are things like, “say no” or “self-care” or “manage your career” or “give and take” or “know your worth”.

And all that probably has a time and a place for mortal men like me. But that’s not the only choice. This choice is what I’ve found comforting.

Another way to handle feeling used is to live by wisdom like, “service is the rent we pay” or “nothing in the world takes the place of persistence”or “no man is a failure who has friends” or “be honest and kind” or “the fruits of your actions are not for your enjoyment”.

How I respond to feeling used up is a choice.