On Connecting Inputs With Outputs

First and foremost, I want to say that I wrote the original piece that this will be working from a long time ago, and I’m not operating at a peak while typing this, so I may fail to do it justice in its now (hopefully) improved, revised and reworked form. The basic concept that I’d like to work with here, if I can describe it in a few words, would be something like, “how might we align the outcomes (e.g. performance, success or failure etc) with the inputs that got us there?” The reason that I’m choosing this particular topic is because I’ve noticed over the years, that it’s incredibly common for us to attempt to divorce our successes and outputs from the underlying health of the system that produced them. The reason I think this is important, is that so many people of great success, have a tendency to chalk up willpower or discipline or being a hardass in some way to the ultimate reason for their outcomes, and we often miss the part of the conversation that I’d like to see more of, where we discuss what allows them to have such discipline, or willpower, or energy or what have you. It’s easy to say, “well I’m successful because I work harder than everyone else”, but it’s not very deep to my mind. It may actually be a good thing that it isn’t complex because the simplicity of, “hey dipshit, work harder and knock off the fluff”, may be empowering and useful to those who can be easily energized by simple wisdom, but for those of us who are already maxing out our ability to push, and fight the whole world, and whatever else, who perhaps have run up against the limits of their human vehicle, I think will not be impressed to be told that they must, “sleep less and work more”. My ultimate point here is not knock the age old wisdom of, “work hard, smart and long”, because it is effective for people that happen to be able to utilize it effectively, which I’ll elaborate on in a moment, but I’m not sure that it’s useful to hear this from everyone with a platform. To my way of thinking, we need more varied and interesting answers and explorations into how people become who they are, and how they are able to produce what they do at the level of the math, the code and the hardware of things. In other words, if we can’t have a conversation about how someone without enough electrolytes to stand is supposed to run across the desert, we aren’t going to illuminate any of the behind the curtains work required to take someone from zero, or perceived zero, to one. If our goal is to bring more people into, “the good life”, by their own merits, we should look to spend more time discussing the things people don’t already know, or couldn’t figure out in a dream or on a walk, or in the shower or in these simple moments of daydreaming and directionless pondering. We should provide the actual elements that form the secret sauce and be very clear that you don’t become world class just by being the hardest worker. These hyper-simplistic answers are great if you imagine you’d get in trouble for giving deeper ones in an interview, but when given the opportunity we should get into the weeds on some of the things that allow people to live and function at a high level. Perhaps part of the problem is that we take for granted that people already know 99% of what they need to to make it, however I don’t think this excuses the lack of depth that I see in so many books, in so many interviews and on so many canvases where we can paint any story we want.

To return to the point about who can and who may not benefit from the “work harder, sleep less” meme, I think we should appreciate that many of us, in fact probably most of us by sheer number in the modern world, are under nourished, exhausted, overweight, uninspired, and enervated, may be working through one or several clinical or sub clinical conditions that we don’t talk about, and generally are not in a good position to execute or benefit from the previously mentioned aphorism. This is not intended to be any kind of defense for people not showing up in their own lives, my point is simply that being tougher on people, without caring about all of the people who could be helped with a slightly different message doesn’t strike me as being productive. Obviously I’m open to discussion and constructive disagreement or what have you, but I don’t see why this point would not be taken. In essence, breaking down the steps, inputs, habits, questions, lifestyles, upbringings etc, that make people who they are and allow what they do to be possible, from my perspective, is critical to offering people things they can actually do to improve. Rather than make people feel worse about their inadequate reserve of willpower, we help them to actually build more, brick by brick. It’s still up to individuals to apply the lessons, but if people see an actual path that looks traversable at least by some conceivable effort, I think they will be much more likely to take a trip down said path.

I hope that this was useful in some way and perhaps explores ideas worth greater exposure, and I hope you will be well.

Orion Aeneas Webster,

FourthEyeBlog author