what I've been thinking about lately
comparison, shipping fast, living not for man's approval
Sometimes I get really stuck trying to create big, verbose things (quantity) or produce perfection (quality). All of these invite stagnation – similar to how it might be foolish to say “I want to make a huge impact on the world one day,” and then in the intermediate doing nothing.
Just because it’s not long and well-developed, doesn’t mean it’s not worth writing and sharing. Shoutout to and her gem of a newsletter for inspiring this thought.
Below are some compiled notes on things that have been on my mind lately:
Comparing myself to my past self.
I’ve discovered that I compare myself way too often to my high school self. Almost like I’m stuck in the past. Why? Because then, I (feel like I) was mentally tougher, more confident, and overall healthier. Now, I experience anxiousness and resoundingly feel less mentally tough. The only thing I can attribute to this shift was the pandemic and the months of quarantining.
Maybe I wasn’t ‘better’ in high school. Maybe I was just a better fit for the playground I knew as my environment. 5am wake-ups everyday, back-to-back classes and extracurriculars, and sports practices all characterized a rigorous but well-balanced life. The college environment invites a higher level of complexity though.
A higher level of complexity means that I’ve got to adapt (and maybe I am adapting?). The habits I cultivate now are the ones I’ll carry into the rest of my life. In a way, the environment around me now is a playground, too. A playground for life. One with bigger swing sets and higher handlebars on the jungle gyms. It’s the end of my junior year and I’ve got a lot more growing to do.
Shipping fast and perfectionism
I’ve been working on a piece for this newsletter for the month of April but it’s been a taking a while to ship. That’s one of my flaws (in schoolwork, building product, executing important actions) – I get caught in the attempt of perfection and never get to executing.
This combined with my newly-discovered ADHD is not a good mix. It’s something I’ve got to be mindful of and beware of. I feel the pain of perfectionism most acutely when I’m writing – formal proofs, essays, emails. In every sense, I can’t seem to get myself to get that first draft out. As a result, deadlines are painful.
I expect this is a muscle I’ll have to strengthen. That is, being okay shipping what’s not great.
Living for the approval of man.
I’m ever so slowly detaching more and more from a desire for the approval of man. The more I feel I’m moving past it though, the more I realize how much it remains in my life. I long to live only for God’s approval and not man’s. To live in light of the fact that one day I’ll hear, “well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).
I lean on these verses for paradigm setting, all by the Apostle Paul:
“With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.” (1 Corinthians 4:3)
“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)
If you’re interested, check out CS’s Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory.”