Month: April 2023

Once upon a time, Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, went to Japan. Admiring the “Kinkaku-ji,” the “Temple of the Golden Pavilion,” Adams pointed out to his guide that the building had weathered the ages surprisingly well, given its original construction in 1397. His guide responded that, in fact, the building hadn’t aged well at all, having been burnt down to the ground twice in the 20th century alone. This started a little back and forth between the two:

“So it isn’t the original building?”

“But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question.

“But it’s burnt down?”

“Yes.”

“Twice.”

“Many times.”

“And rebuilt.”

“Of course. It is an important and historic building.”

“With completely new materials.”

“But of course. It was burnt down.”

“So how can it be the same building?”

“It is always the same building.”

Eventually, Adams conceded that “this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view” — it merely began from an assumption he hadn’t expected: “The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survives. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.”

Whether it is a skyscraper, an essay, or a symphony, when we create things, we use whatever materials we have available to get things done. Even when the materials are an important part of the process — think bathroom floors made of Italian marble — the builder rarely cares about each distinct item. As long as it’s the right kind of marble, hand it over, and here we go.

The fabric isn’t what counts. It’s the intention, the big picture, the real sacrifice of human time, effort, and energy to create something that will, hopefully, irrevocably add value to other human beings. That’s why, no matter how often the shrine of Ise is rebuilt, or how many times each plank in Theseus’ ship is replaced, we can still marvel at the end result and pay respects to the people who infused those artifacts with meaning.

Intention is indelible. Even once the Kinkaku-ji is destroyed for good, not a picture of it remains, and no one alive any longer remembers its existence, the fact that it once did exist can never be erased — nor can the will of the people who made it so, like shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who first erected the complex, or his son, who converted it into a temple, or any of the thousands of souls who helped rebuild it again and again.

Don’t worry about the wood. Don’t lament ephemerality. Make something that matters, and, though time might, the universe will never forget.

A while ago, my dad invited me to tag along for a charity dinner. When I wandered the halls of the hotel complex, one of the many plaques on the wall stood out to me: “Service above self,” it read, “He profits most who serves best.” As it turned out, that was the original motto of Rotary International, a so-called service organization with over one million members around the globe.

It’s an intuitive yet not-at-all obvious idea, isn’t it? The person who helps others the most will see the greatest returns. Of course, the word “profit” extends well beyond its financial sense, and, given it is a voluntary non-profit organization, the intangible rewards make up the bulk of the benefit for most Rotarians. Yes, there are connections to be made and favors to be had, but the best thing, by far, of a “service above self” attitude, is that it liberates you from yourself — and it doesn’t take a club membership of any kind to embrace this ideal.

When you think about how to do something good for your customers, you don’t worry about how to extract the maximum amount of dollars from their wallets so you can spend more on trinkets. When you think about what a good father would do today, you don’t have time to beat yourself up for not feeling good enough. When you think about how you can make your boyfriend proud, you won’t waste time obsessing about how others think you look.

Service is freedom because freedom happens within but can, in large parts, only be found without. Freedom from our mind — our incessant, ego-focused, ever-chattering mind — is what we need the most, and the best way to escape our brain’s self-centered clutches is to focus on the people around us.

When you’re worried about money, give someone a dollar who needs it more than you. When you’re struggling with your self-worth, pay a friend a compliment. And when you feel like you’ve bitten into a project so hard that your teeth hurt, remember who it’s for and why you began it in the first place.

Service above self. Those who serve best will profit most. Not a bad theme for a charity dinner — perhaps even for an entire life.

“I hate that my highs feel so high, and the lows feel so low,” Golden Globe–nominated actor Jeremy Pope told his therapist, talking about the emotional rollercoaster that is his life as an openly gay Black man navigating the American show business. “I just want it to be in the middle, just be nice.”

The advice he received next is worth sharing well beyond the Actors Roundtable during which Pope told the story: “If you’re looking at a heart rate monitor,” his therapist said, “it’s going up and down. If you were in control, you’d put it in the middle — but that’d mean you’ve flatlined.”

“Life is all about the highs and lows,” the counselor continued, “and whenever you’re in a low or a high, life has told you that you’ll go to the opposite at any given time.”

We can’t choose when we’re at our best and when we’re at our worst. Even if we could plan our highs and lows to the day, wouldn’t we try to circumvent the lows just the same? But if you want the zig, you must accept the zag. There can be no highs without lows, and neither will last forever.

The next time you’re in the dumps, check your pulse before your scream. Respect the varying frequencies, and remember that life — just like your heart — moves at its own pace.

After three months of relentless work on the things that keep the lights on, I could feel myself getting antsy. Frustration builds up when I can’t (or don’t) write, but even if I do, there’s still a special kind of dread that sets in if I don’t — at least every now and then — write something that feels challenging or extra meaningful.

On most days, it’s possible to find the divine in the mundane, but if you reject the muse too many times, she’ll start poking you until it hurts. This week, I felt the sting enough to “take one for the feels.” Was it good for my business that I spent four hours unapologetically writing on a piece that’s been in the works for two years yet probably won’t make a dime? Most likely not. But did it feel extremely good? You bet.

Sometimes, the right sacrifice is to stop sacrificing, if only for a little while. Treating yourself applies to work as much as ice cream. Why not spend a Thursday afternoon on a pet project that might go nowhere? How about making the slides extra pretty, just because you can?

Usually, indulging in the parts of the work that we enjoy the most does nothing but make us feel good — and that’s already plenty. If you can tackle a boring task with more rigor, vigor, or detachment after completing a fun one, the latter still pays its dividends.

Sometimes, however, the things we choose to do because we can, not because we must, will open the most important doors. Perhaps your design skills get you noticed by someone who has a better role for you in mind. Maybe that video you edited for fun will blow up and turn into a whole new career.

Will “Fiction Friday” be the thing that gets me a book deal for a novel? Doubtful. But it makes me look forward to the end of the week, and the next one, and the next one. When you don’t “feel it” anymore, try taking one for the feels — it won’t solve all your problems, but it might keep you on an important track until you’re back in calmer waters.

A few weeks ago, a friend scored a big freelance gig. “Huge brand, the CEO reached out to me personally, I can’t believe I was handpicked for this! Feels like I’m in way over my head,” he told me. His impostor syndrome kicked into high gear.

Having been in a similar position several years ago, I shared what worked for me back then: “Just focus on the work. Forget all the names and labels and expectations attached to them. You were chosen for a reason, so as long as you do your best to deliver a great result for your customer, you’re going to be fine.”

Yesterday, in a group call, my friend confirmed everything went well, and, between the five of us, we realized we all still suffer impostor syndrome on a regular basis despite being around a decade or more into our careers. But we’re also doing well all things considered, so perhaps, we mused, a little bit of impostor syndrome isn’t such a bad thing.

Impostor syndrome is not exactly synonymous with humility, but that’s partially where it comes from. You don’t think you’re better than other people, and you want to make those you work with — or for — proud.

Of course, too much of any syndrome is bad. When you drill too far into your own mind, you become paralyzed, unable to deliver. But when we spin in circles, we usually worry about ourselves, not other people. Drop the ego, become other-conscious, and re-center on who the work is for.

Ultimately, however, “when you completely lose your impostor syndrome, that’s when you’re screwed,” one friend concluded. Have you ever met someone who was 100% sure of themselves yet also 100% wrong? Perhaps even across skills and disciplines, none of which they had truly mastered? Impostor syndrome isn’t the greatest feeling, but it’s a whole lot better than the alternative: being the overconfident under-deliverer no one wants to work with.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? The only true impostors are the people who never suffer from impostor syndrome. They’ll gladly cause train wreck after train wreck, too blind to even see they are the source of the problem, not its solution. I don’t enjoy paranoia any more than the next person, but a little bit — sometimes even a good amount — of perfectionism is a trait I’ve observed in nearly all the best people I have worked with.

Don’t worry about being worried. We’re all out of our depth here in this miraculous spectacle we call life. Realize that worrying about how you’re perceived is your ego getting in the way. Drop the me-attitude, and a true attempt at being of service will follow. Stay humble, and focus on the work. Problems come and go — including syndromes — but showing up lasts forever because, as Maya Angelou once pointed out, even if they forget your words and your actions, “people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Austin Butler was a shy kid. “I would whisper to my mom and say, ‘Could you order this for me?’ and she would order for me at a restaurant.” He lacked a way of expressing himself, he confesses in a recent Actors Roundtable.

When he was 12, however, he walked onto a movie set, and his life would never be the same. What started as a small gig being an extra on kid’s shows like Drake & Josh eventually became a full-fledged acting career, including a role in a Tarantino movie and, most recently, the portrayal of Elvis Presley, which won him a slew of awards, including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.

But it all started back then, when an awkward teenager realized: “You can only focus on so much at once. All those times that I’m self-conscious or insecure, if I can get my attention off of myself and onto how I’m trying to affect someone else, then I’m not self-conscious. I’m other-conscious.”

The free chocolate chip cookies at lunch, having found his kind of people, finally being able to communicate with the world through some medium — all of those things were great, but the realization that, yes, acting is a noble art, a true service one can perform for others, that’s what eventually kept Austin in the game.

When our worries are too big, chances are, our sense of self is just inflated. Let the air out. Forget about your balloon, and start handing out balloons to others. Whether you’re a 15-year-old trying to find your place in the world or an award-winning actor ready to tackle your next big thing, life flows more easily when you’re other-conscious — and being at a restaurant is the most fun when you order for everyone, not just yourself.

“How do I live the death of a bachelor?” Brendon Urie asks in Panic at the Disco!’s same-titled song. It’s a tune about moving on, about growing, but also about mourning the loss of a character we no longer get to play.

I can only imagine Urie’s rockstar lifestyle in the early days of PATD’s global success, and while I’m not sure how much he really regretted giving up the bachelor life when he got married in 2013, a decade later, he is retiring many roles at once to take up the mantle of being a father, including some that defined his life for the last 20 years.

I’m not married yet, but I don’t have any jitters about hanging up my “bachelor’s cape,” mainly because it’s a part I was never good at playing to begin with. “Bachelor Nik” is one of my weaker characters — and weak characters die easily. In the real world, unlike in action movies, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If a role you desperately want to play refuses to fit your soul like a second skin, perhaps you need to work at it. You can’t be a writer if you barely write, and being a good friend requires actually picking up the phone when people call you.

Before you rush to the dressing room and dive headlong into a new identity, however, ask yourself why you so badly wish to step on the stage in the first place. Is this the role you want chiseled onto your tombstone? Do you just long to be cool? Is it a character you want to be for its own sake, or is there some ulterior motive? Depending on where the probing leads you, you might find it’s easier to just bury a false god instead of worshipping it.

If you’re not good at keeping up a certain image, perhaps that’s not a facade for you to maintain. Quitting isn’t always the right thing to do, but it sure helps to remember you have the option — especially when society pushes you to wear a pair of shoes that really won’t fit.

“The death of a bachelor seems so fitting for happy ever after,” Urie sings. Whether it’s our weakest performance or our strongest role, sometimes, who we were needs to make way for who we’ll become. Losing even a minor role can feel painful, but what’s a little sadness in exchange for the unknown but plentiful rewards of new beginnings — like “a lifetime of laughter at the expense of the death of a bachelor?”

“Do you know your neighbor? Do you know both of your neighbors? When’s the last time you had a picnic in your neighborhood?”

An hour ago, the man in his blue hoodie and red shorts was a complete stranger. Now, the private jet owner is asking Noah questions about the meaning of life at a cruising altitude of 41,000 feet.

“We’re always looking so far away from us.” He points at his heart when he says, “we’re the last people to come and look right here.” Whether it’s covid, the global economy, or a war happening halfway around the world, when we’re too busy worrying about what happens elsewhere, we have no attention left to take care of what — or who — is right in front of us, James thinks. His primary reason for owning a jet? To save time. To spend less time away, less time in the air, less time at airports — and more time at home.

“It shows how ill we are as a race [that] we are constantly looking for things that we have zero control over — [especially] when we don’t do anything to fix things we have 100% control over.”

What’s waiting for you right under your nose? What’s something good you can do right here, right now? It might not get you a private jet, but nor will worrying over the news — and neither are what “being home” is truly about.

Before coming to visit me in Munich, my sister asked whether I knew any places that serve Aperol spritz to-go. “That would be my dream,” she said. After picking myself back up from the floor and telling her that, surely, an Aperol to-go could be arranged, the incident reminded me of an Abraham Lincoln quote: “It is well to be humble.”

The opposite, however, is also true: It is humble to be well. A while ago, my girlfriend said, “I wish we had a robot that does our laundry for us.” “We do,” I said. “It’s called a laundry machine.” “Oh yeah! Right! That’s totally true!”

Imagining a tomorrow that is easier than today takes no effort, but the result is discontent. You have to wait for a future that’s not here yet. Ironically, the only way to truly alleviate our burdens in the moment is to remember how hard they were yesterday. You can focus on the fact that you still have to fold your own laundry, or you can be grateful that you don’t have to wash your clothes by hand. Choosing to be well — that today is good enough — is a form of humility.

Germany is home to over 25,000 castles. When you inevitably bump into one of them, it’s hard not to imagine how the people lived who built them. No running water. No heating. No electricity. And yet, they built these beautiful monuments most modern architects can only envy.

Sometimes, people suggest yesterday shouldn’t be our standard of comparison. “That’s not what is anymore, and if everyone thought that way, we’d never get anywhere.” But there is a difference between improving life and lamenting it. Better to know the giants on whose shoulders we stand than to feel entitled to a reality we had no hand in crafting.

It is well to be humble. It is humble to be well. Choose to be both, and you’ll enjoy a beautiful today while contributing to an even better tomorrow.

Everyone always tells you that, as a couple, you’ll have to “grow together” — overcome shared challenges, find new and exciting adventures to go on, and evolve as individuals to make room for one another. All of those things are true.

What no one tells you, however, is that, over time, you’ll also naturally, almost effortlessly “grow together” as in “become more aligned” on issues and habits that, when you first met, might have been sources of friction. From clothing to food choices to sleeping habits, you’ll be shocked to see how easy certain patterns can feel given how strenuous they seemed to be at first.

When I first met my girlfriend, I didn’t eat too much Asian food. Not because I didn’t like it, but because it just wasn’t my default choice. Now I eat it several times a week without a second thought. Similarly, my girlfriend now munches on bread and potatoes a lot more frequently than she used to.

When your partner values something more than you do, you’ll soon value it more too because they do, and, in the long run, this is how love makes all the difference — by making differences disappear.

One day you’ll be two separate particles floating through an indifferent universe, the next you’ll be an inseparable unit, joined at the hip. It’s important to grow together, and there’ll be plenty of steps you can take by providing a leg-up for each other. When it comes to spending the rest of your life with someone, however, little beats “growing together” — because for every adventurous vacation, you’ll have to agree on a hundred dinners, and there’s nothing quite like knowing what your partner thinks before they say it.