On Commitments

Jordan Peterson, the author of 12 Rules for Life, talks about picking one thing, sticking to it for a period of time, and then seeing what happens. The outcome doesn't matter, the end result is that you have changed as a person for doing it.

I was having a conversation with a friend last week about how starting businesses and failing are immensely valuable. As an entrepreneur, your first business might not take off. Misfortune and inexperience might have led to failure. Good. Now you know what not to do. Knowing what not to do is just as valuable as knowing what to do. You keep iterating, the second venture you start might fare better.

That failed too? You try again. At some point either you will have a functional business, or you have gained enough skills in entrepreneurship that you can sell those skills to folks who are trying to start their own business.

Net gain for you either way because you stuck with it for a period of time.

Now, what does all of this have to do with this post?

I haven't been writing as consistently as I would like to. I didn't want to commit to it. Commitment meant showing up. No excuses. I'd have to write online and expose myself to potential criticism. And a million other reasons.

This is just the Resistance talking. The Resistance, a concept from War of Art, stops us from pursuing anything meaningful. We must fight it. Every day.

To combat Resistance, I am making a public commitment to write two newsletter articles for a year. The first one will be out on Wednesday (the one you are reading is the first issue). The second one will be on Friday.

The former one will be random topics of interest to me along with ideas I've consumed in the past week (inspired by Tim Ferriss' 5 Bullet Friday). The latter will be focused mainly on the software engineering industry as that is my primary day job and will be easier to write about.

Two a week is a number I picked to ensure I am writing consistently without burning out after a few weeks of writing.

I don't know if this commitment will help me build an audience but at the minimum, it will improve my writing skills. The ability to think and write clearly is still as powerful as ever.

What I've read this past week:

I read and reread parts again of Almanac of Naval Ravikant. This book has the highest wisdom per page ratio of any book I have ever read. The insights are profound. These are three things that resonated with me the most:

• Productize yourself.
• You can never be rich by renting out your time, optimize for independence rather than pay.
• Happiness is a skill that can be learned. Happiness is more peace and less joy.