Laser Sharp, Loud and Proud

The week before Christmas and New Years is an an annual time of personal reflection. It's a great time to look back and look forward. Some advice I read this year about writing from the book Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark is helpful in this process

In looking back, I look to the blog. I write to reflect and to think. I also write to remember. This blog is a journal of sorts that reminds me of my journey this year, of what I thought and studied and learned. And I want to remember all that I learned this year. I want it all to mean something, and I want to take it all with me in my next post, my next practice, my next meeting with friends, my next month with my family, my next workout. But I can't take it all with me. Part of life is knowing what to keep.

Clark writes about the challenge for writers of sorting all that they've gathered and narrowing their focus: "New writers often dump their research into a story or essay. 'By God, I gathered all that stuff,' they think, 'so it's going in.' Veterans use a fraction, sometimes half, sometimes one-tenth of what they've gathered. But how do you decide what to include and, more difficult, what to leave out? A sharp focus is like a laser."

All of what I've written and thought about is important into getting me to where I'm at today, but there's no way I can prioritize all 50-60 thoughts and "lessons" that constitute my 2013 writings. If you attempt to be good at everything, you'll be good at nothing. Instead, I've got to look back at common themes, at both the major events that really mattered and the minor thoughts that consistently, from some unconscious corner of my brain, nudged my thinking. Ideas like the reason sports are worthwhile, the approach I have to maintain in coaching, and the approach I have to take amid the uncertainty of not coaching. Or the realization that appears over and over again in blog entries - that I'm not just living my story, I'm in hundreds of stories going on around me that I get to be a part of, and one big story that is already determined. Or what I've learned from sticking with goals for a solid year (see tomorrow's post for more on that). In looking back, we can keep all our memories; but we can't keep them for long. Use the laser and take with you what you can, what you must, to grow into who you need to be tomorrow.

In looking ahead, I'm influenced by Clark's advice of "saving string." We often feel too busy to do the big projects we'd love to tackle, but Clark writes that we do not have to drop all of our responsibilities in order to chase what we'd really like to do: "Right now, buried in routine, you feel you lack the time and energy to undertake enterprising work. . . As you perform your routine work, talk about your special interest. Gather opinions and anecdotes from across the landscape. Scribble them down, one by one, fragment by fragment, until one day you look up and see a monument of persistence, ready to be mounted in the town square."

Whoever or whatever it is you want to be but can't be right now, what you can do is talk about it. Talk about what's important to you, what you want to do, or what you're interested in. Gather conversations, ideas, and thoughts on it. Infuse what you want to be into your identity; eventually other people and you yourself will see you in that light. In the same way that some people's identity is as a Hawkeye guy, or a Ford guy, or their thing is quilting, or gardening, or biking, and therefore that's what people ask them about, make whatever it is you want to do or be your "thing." Read a little, talk a little, write a little, and all of a sudden you've gathered enough string to start something. You become what you started just talking about.

Whether you want the future to hold you as a runner, a reader, a biblical scholar, a bowler, a devoted spouse, or a comic book aficionado, announce your intentions. Boldly speak where no you has spoken before.

Join me if you choose in looking behind and looking ahead this week. Use a laser, then shout out loud.