So I’ve been promising that after my university duties were done for the summer that I would lock myself in a hole and not come out until I had published. So far, I’ve been having trouble finding the hole to get into. So far, I’ve hung out with my kids (good, good), went dancing with my wife (good, good), hung out with friends (good, good), and worked out a bit (necessary.) But so far, I have neither seen nor heard of said hole. Has anybody seen it?

The truth is, sometimes you’ve got to dig your own hole. And that’s what I’m doing tonight. I dug it by leaving the house and going to a book-store (all the ambient noise is comforting), and now I’m writing away...just kidding, I’m making a social media post.

So, now that I’ve dug the hole, I’ve got to actually get in it and get to work.

Resistance. Oy.

I've never liked buzz-words. Marketing speech. Corporate mission statements.

They all smack of crowd-think and the distillation of complex ideas into alliterative bullet-points. Compassion. Creativity. Connectedness. Gross.

That said, I watched "The Founder" on Netflix last night and I was impressed with a buzzword that encouraged me--persistence. Not that Ray Kroc was a man of integrity (something about putting a hose in a drowning competitor's mouth), but his tenacity and persistence (at least narratively) were impressive to me. In short, the film was a reminder that no matter how many times I've tried big things and failed, I shouldn't give up.

Next post: overly-sentimental phrases of self-encouragement.

-j

Dig your own hole.

Persistance