The Paradox

This week I watched a video titled "A Hero's Journey" by a speaker from Acton School of Business (I looked but couldn't find his name). He talked about entrepreneurial journeys, which they call hero's journeys at Acton, the "Power to Become" and the great paradox of them both: The hero’s journey is all about you, but it’s not about you at all.

I'll admit, this didn't stick with me the first time I watched the speech but reviewing it struck a chord with something else I've been pondering this week. In a past business class, I watched a short clip from Guy Kawasaki talking about making meaning and how if you set out to make meaning you will likely make both meaning and money, but if you set out simply to make money you're more likely to make neither, and if you do make money it will have no meaning. 

Over the years I'd been told on more than one occasion that I should write a blog but I had always dismissed it until I saw a free webinar about making a profitable blog. Suddenly the idea of a blog was appealing and I even purchased a URL. I then proceeded to do the square root of nothing with it because every time I started to think of an idea I was paralyzed by the question of whether or not it was something people would actually want to read and if my pictures were quality enough and what about all the clutter on my counter that was visible in the back and on and on. I wasn't trying to do it for any reason other than to make money so I couldn't come up with anything meaningful. 

Then, one day I was listening to a talk from the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October of 2018 by Elder Gerrit W. Gong called Our Campfire of Faith. In it, he spoke of a time that another church leader, Elder Richard G. Scott, had invited him to watercolor with him, which he eventually accepted but expressed his reticence to be a burden on Elder Scott because he, Elder Gong, had no experience or skill at watercolors. He then quoted something Elder Scott had written previously that hit me hard: 

Attempt to be creative, even if the results are modest. ... Creativity can engender a spirit of gratitude for life and for what the Lord has woven into your being. ... If you choose wisely, it doesn't have to absorb a lot of time.

I am yet to act on this to extent that I want to, but now when I think of a blog I think of doing something creative every day and documenting my experiences and progress for my own benefit and possibly to help and inspire someone else. I want to share Elder Scott’s testimony and my own and recognize God in anything I am able to create.

Will it be successful? That depends on your definition. Will it make money? Who knows? Maybe no one will ever see it, but even if that’s true I will grow in creating it and so it will be successful. If someone does read it they may choose to change something about themselves or their lives, to try something new or have the courage to fail at something, to recognize God in their lives. But, even if they don’t I will have succeeded in sharing, which is all I can do.

I want whatever I choose to do to be about me – and not about me at all.