Just Sufficing Sucks

It might surprise most readers to know that I actually had a pretty great time in school. I learned a lot, made great friends, and had some very good teachers. There are a lot of positive aspects of school that should be preserved even in alternatives.

What I don’t like about school, though, is the incentive structure it presents to students. School teaches all sorts of bad things like doing work to please others, submitting to arbitrary authority, and my least favorite of all: doing the bare minimum.

The first two I dodged somehow, but doing the bare minimum is ingrained somewhere in my brain. It doesn’t rear it’s head all that often, but when it does, it’s ugly.

And, to be clear, I don’t blame school for it. It’s my own responsibility to condition my mind and to not fall prey to bad habits, and I failed to do that in school. So maybe I was out in the cold, but it was my own fault I didn’t bring a jacket.

I want to be great. Not the type of great where you’re celebrated with statues and speeches, but the kind of person whose output is great. I want my work to impact people for the better. If someone were to watch me for a week, I’d want them to think, “Wow– it’s amazing how much quality work he gets done.” That’s probably my highest aspiration. I don’t know what level of impact on the world I’m capable of effecting, but if I’m putting out a good volume of my best work every week, I’ll reach whatever potential I have.

And yet sometimes I find myself treating a day like a checklist. I didn’t write a masterpiece of a blog post, but I sure did get five hundred words typed into a text editor. I listened to my language tape, but I was browsing the web at the same time so it was only half absorbed. I worked on Sett, but just as an employee, not an owner who cares about the direction of the business.

I’ve had to train myself to dislike these days. That probably sounds funny if you’ve read any of my stuff about how I’m always happy, that I would be counteracting that on purpose. School trains us that these are good days. Get your work done, and reward yourself by going out to play. Don’t try to learn more, don’t try to create anything. Your job is done, now go.

And this is how much of the workforce is, too. Show up, don’t get fired, go home.

Yesterday I had one of these days. I wrote a bad blog post, which happens sometimes, but I didn’t really try to write a good one. I just tried to write. I started a new language, Egyptian Arabic, and didn’t fully engage. And I tackled small Sett things instead of a big new feature that I’m excited about.

And I went to bed thinking I did good work.

I caught myself, though, as I sat in bed about to go to sleep. I asked myself simply if that was the best I could do. The answer was an obvious no. Once is a fluke, twice is the start of a habit. No matter what, I thought, tomorrow must be a good day. You have to be excellent and treat life like it’s the miracle that it is. Act like your goals matter to you.

Failure doesn’t scare me, but mediocrity does. My worst fear is to be average, because it implies never having really tried. It’s easy not to try, and it’s just as easy to convince yourself you are trying when you’re not. So these days of sufficing terrify me. Today I tried to write a good blog post. Even if people don’t like it, I’m happy with my effort. I’m about to go to the gym, and then I’ll do my Arabic tape with the focus it deserves. The rest of the day is for Sett, and you’d better believe I’m working on big things and pushing it forward.

How was your day? How will your tomorrow be?

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Photo is a dead tree on the beach on the island.

Who ended up buying the mini KEM cards on ebay? They were $20-30 per deck when I started buying them, but now that I’ve written about them in all of my gear posts, people are paying $200 for them!


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