Escaping Work Is Only Part 1 | #170
February 12th, 2022: Greetings from Austin! It’s starting to get warm here and I’ve been trying to get outside as much as possible. I did this while also having one of my busiest weeks in a couple of years. The interesting thing was how light everything felt. I find it much harder to be triggered into a high anxiety state due to client demands or other issues that may emerge. This is pretty cool!
Here’s a pic from my afternoon wandering this week:
#1 Do You Want To Escape Forever Or Do You Just Want A Break?
I talk to a lot of people that have the desire to escape work. This was the same thing that drove me to quit my job. However, this desire is not good enough to sustain a long-term self-employment or entrepreneurial journey. I lucked out - the solo path was a perfect fit for what I wanted from life and work.
To enjoy an unconventional path you need certain things going for you. Namely, interest in experimenting with your life, trying different kinds of work, seeing value in failing, being open to downgrading your lifestyle and status, and not worrying (too much) about what other people think.
This is why long-term self-employment is a terrible choice for most people given the alternatives. The anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen is not something many people want to stack on top of life’s other worries. However, in terms of learning about yourself, testing your desires and preferences, and becoming more resilient to the uncertainties of life, a period of self-employment is probably one of the most transformative things you could do for your life (and career!).
So how can you get the benefits of this without blowing up your life?
First, we need to ask: what do people really want? My take? Most people just want permission to take a break from the madness. To be able to pause the inertia of the busyness treadmill and having to continue to go through the repetitive motions of their lives. They want empty space, time to play, and the chance to reflect. Often in this space, answers emerge that help the person figure out what they were really after.
People mistake the desire to escape their current path for an interest in taking a completely different path in life forever. Quitting a job is thought of as an all-or-nothing decision that can’t be reversed. This just isn’t true. I’ve talked to many people who thought they were making a drastic change, only to return to their jobs - but much happier and feeling much more in control. Some people do end up embarking on a new path but it’s not the only way forward.
I’ll leave you with a little David Whyte here:
“We might at first label the body’s simple need to focus inward depression. But as we practice going inward, we come to realize that much of it is not depression in the least; it is a cry for something else, often the physical body’s simple need for rest, for contemplation, and for a kind of forgotten courage, one difficult to hear, demanding not a raise, but another life.”
+ I wrote about some of these ideas in my book and my take on what people really want in life: to be useful and/or to do work that connects to themselves or the world.
#2 Book Celebrations & Conversations
Per my annual review, I’m trying to do a better job of celebrating in general. The solo path doesn’t really come with any sort of promotions, raises, or clear markers of success. I prefer that to my previous path by far but have not done a good job of stepping back to reflect on how much I’ve done over the past several years.
I used the book as a way to have have conversations with two people I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know on my journey: Khe Hy and Sasha Chapin.
With Khe, we talked about our similar journeys, reflections, and “games” we are playing on the pathless path. The podcast link is here or if you prefer the video:
With Sasha, we talked about how he helped me in the book writing process, his own journey, and how we approached writing a book. As you’ll notice in this one, I’m still struggling with the whole celebrate myself thing. Check out the podcast link here or the video here:
#3 Playing Long Games
I liked this reflection from Lauren Valdez, which talks about the real story behind some recent success she’s had:
Any content creator will tell you that the way to make it is to create content consistently and get better at creating over time. Although I've never gotten a regular cadence of producing down, I have consistently come back to making content after each break. I keep playing the game.
Over and over again, I see that the people who end up doing interesting things are simply the ones that have found things they like doing.
#4 Crypto Crime is Hard
Fun recap of the $3.6B hacking of bitcoin from a few years back. Here’s a snippet:
You might think that a federal criminal indictment for $4.5 billion of Bitcoin money laundering would be vindication of the “Bitcoin is for money launderers” side, but I want to tell you: No it is not! What allegedly happened here is that hackers stole$4.5 billion of Bitcoin from a crypto exchange (and stealing from exchanges absolutely isa major function of crypto), and then they had a horrible time laundering it. They managed to extract only a relatively small portion of the money for actual spending, and each time they got money out the feds were able to trace it from the hack all the way to legitimate accounts with their names on it. The laundering efforts were small-scale, and they are also how they got caught.
Matt Levine is a fun read and doesn’t disappoint here either.
#5 Book Stuff
Had another huge bump with book sales because my friend Ali keeps hyping the book. Watch how eloquent I sound with a British accent:
The book was spotted in the wild in NYC for the first time:
My friend Kris dropped this epic review
And I ended up hitting over 800 books sold. Pretty amazing for the first 30 days:
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