A Clash of Values (22/30)

Thirty essays in thirty days, number twenty-two

While I remain aware of the broader inconsequentiality of this 30-day essay thing, it still feels to me like there are high stakes.

Some of this is standard evolutionary programming. My mind tries to convince me that if I don’t publish one day or publish something different from what I promised, judgment will rain down upon me and I will be banished from the tribe. Thankfully, I can usually see this for what it is and laugh it away.

What I can’t brush off as easily are the implications and consequences around my own values. This becomes especially problematic when those values seem to contradict each other.

An example: this challenge accomplished what it was intended to by day 14. By then I had written my way through every last ounce of perfectionism, reminded myself that good work doesn’t always require weeks of painstaking editing, and consistently worked on the ideating muscle. I even got a nice bonus when I accidentally wrote 8,000 words about my favorite sport. By all measures, it was a smashing success.

Then I realized I still had sixteen days to go.

One of my values is that beliefs and ways of living should be iterative and flexible. That is, if a belief or practice is no longer serving you, there’s not much reason to keep it. These things are meant to change as our lives do.

Another of my values is that if I say I’m going to do something, I try my best to do it.

In the context of the 30-day challenge, these values clash. This has led to more than one instance where I’ve gone back and forth for more time than I’d like to admit debating whether or not I should end the challenge early. The stakes feel high. Either way, I feel like I’m violating one of my core principles. It’s a bizarrely self-inflicted lose-lose.

Obviously I’m still writing, so Keeping My Word remains the victor of those dueling values. But clashes of this nature continue to pop up. Tonight, it was a battle between writing about what I had planned and promised (another version of keeping my word, I suppose) and being honest. The honesty part came from the fact that, no matter how long I stared at the page, I did not want to write what I had planned. My mind and heart were not there. This time, of course, Keeping My Word lost. I refused to slog through writing something I didn’t want to write. Honesty won the battle, and honesty is what you’re getting.

It’s not lost on me that this is all a bit ridiculous. The world will be just fine regardless of whether or not I keep writing these things, as will I. There are no real stakes.

And yet, in spite of this knowledge, it still feels important that I earnestly engage in these little debates. Because we make these kinds of choices—deciding what kind of person we want to be—every day, every moment. Our choices often come at the expense of another part of ourselves that we hold dear. Sometimes the choices are minor and the stakes are imaginary, but sometimes they’re bigger, and the decisions we make have a real impact on the lives of others. So it stands to reason that it’s good to have a little practice.

Regarding the essay challenge, I have no grand proclamations to make. My plan is still to finish this thing. Hopefully I do. I also plan to continue the series I started yesterday. Hopefully I do. If for some reason I don’t, it won’t be for lack of a healthy debate.

Either way, it’s important to keep in mind that it doesn’t matter.

And that it matters more than anything.