Questions are more effective than claims.

Dear friend,

You’re too young to be able to understand what this means or why it matters and that’s a-okay. You’re not too young to understand good, loving vibes. And that’s what this is for. You’re not alone and I’m rooting for you and maybe having this letter in your virtual pocket will help you someday.

It all revolves around one core idea: I’m scared.

I don’t want everything I’ve ever done to amount to nothing.

This drives me to make outrageous claims like “Look! I’m doing more than the next guy!” and “I really think I could be doing more here.” and “You should pay me more because that will make me feel more valued.”

But is it really about the money? Or the attention? Is attention ever freely given if it’s held hostage by an ultimatum?

My current claims are driving actions that I’m not proud of. I want to break that pattern. I want to be better. And so… I’m writing to you.

Another friend of mine is going through similar growing pains. For her it’s not professional fear (or anxiety), it’s social. She’s terrified of being alone and feeling unsupported. When she detects behaviors that trigger that feeling, she makes claims like “This relationship isn’t working for me!” or “It’s not my fault! She won’t respond!”

For both of us the feelings are demanding action. The feelings are uncomfortable. We don’t want to sit with them because they indicate that we’re not where we’re supposed to be. But sitting with them is exactly what we should do. We should sit and ponder and visit. We should thank these uncomfortable feelings for alerting us to potential danger.

The key learning is this: asking questions is more effective than making claims, especially when our motion is motivated by feelings.

In his useful book Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss provides a list of 17 questions that we can ask ourselves to get unstuck. Two that come to mind here are:

Is it possible that everything is actually fine?

What would this look like if it was easy?

He also explains an exercise called Fear Setting. What’s the worst case outcome? That I’ll die alone in a gutter? That I’ll lose this job and have to look for another one? That I’ll lose this job, have to look for another one, never find one, get left by my partner, lose my house, move in with my parents, they’ll die, and then I’ll die alone in a gutter?

Unlikely. And yet… I’m responding as if that outcome is imminent. I must work more hours because… I can’t join you because… I really must be going now because…

This is insane.

Tim Ferriss came to the same realization and did something about it. So have others. Shane Parrish left his cozy job and started Farnam Street. Seth Godin refuses to invest in startups because he’d rather build with his own voice. Mark Manson walked to the edge of a cliff and dangled his feet over the edge to feel the life beating through his veins more acutely. I’m a little bit sad that the four role models I just rattled off are all white dudes and… that’s a thread to pull on another time.

These four men have all accomplished phenomenal achievements, in my view. They’ve changed my life. And you’ll have no idea who they are when (/if) you hear this read to you. By the time you can read and comprehend this, it likely won’t be online anymore. One or more of those role models will likely be dead.

That’s uncomfortable to think about. Instead of gallavanting off to a conclusion we’re going to sit right here, together, and practice. And feel a little bit less alone dealing with our very human feelings.

Yours,

JT

P.S. One of your parents is a writer. I’m inspired by them. I hope they’ll get a kick out of this gift!

P.P.S I’m currently reading Ishmael and earlier this year I read The Goal. Both have been on my “to read” list for years. They were both impactful and both employ “the Socratic method,” which is a fancy way of saying that they list questions instead of just summarizing answers. I have this weird relationship with recommendations. They breed this internal claim that what I wanted to read before was inferior to the suggestion. That I’m somehow not a good reader because I hadn’t already read what was suggested, so I couldn’t one-up with a different, and better, rec. It’s gross and I don’t like it. And… I’m starting to understand it, which means I can sidestep some of the damage in the future. Maybe I should investigate and sit with that discomfort, eh?

P.P.P.S There’s a therapy medium called brain spotting that focuses on processing feelings by moving the eyes around the visual field. Because the eyes are a tool for sensing, the claim is that we can use them to find where the trauma is in the body/mind system. It worked wonders for me and I haven’t thought about it until the final moments of crafting this letter. I suspect writing works the same way. Getting to what happens next is only possible if we write down what happens now. Now is a draft for next. Always. I felt this acutely with some fiction I’m working on. I’d had the same image frozen in my mind for months. Then… I wrote down that frozen image and the next one popped up. My brain had to keep telling the story. I’m hoping to do the same thing with this particular episode of fear. I’m hoping that by writing about it I can get to what comes next. That will only work if I can target an audience, albeit a young one. Happy birthday, friend.