Three weeks of writing every day. Three weeks of being as active as I’ve ever been. And this morning, sitting with a podcast in my ears, I had to admit something: nothing’s changed.
I was listening to Blake Mykowski’s interview with Gabor Maté on No Magic Pill. I put it on because I’m trying to figure out what I’m actually doing in the world. Who I am. What I’m building toward. I left my old life and told everyone, including myself, that it was to find something more meaningful. Looking at it straight this morning, that wasn’t quite true. I was just pointing the same status and the same ego in a new direction. It felt different. It wasn’t different.
Maté spends a lot of the conversation on how much weight rides on parents being emotionally present for their kids, and how most of our trauma, capital T and lowercase t, traces back to an early wound.
Then he turned it on Blake. Pushed him on what he’s actually doing with his Enough movement, all the mental health content, the mission of it. And it landed on me because it sounded exactly like what Maté described doing with another guest earlier, someone chasing “enough” by making the big splash, the big impact. I’m not certain I have that name right, so take it loosely, but the pattern was unmistakable. Making a big impact to prove you’re enough is still ego. It’s just ego wearing a nicer outfit.
Sitting here this morning, I saw the same thing in myself. My mind is still on success. Still on work. Still on finding the path, instead of putting all of that down and just living the life I actually have. Which is: raise my boys. Be a husband. Be an Orthodox follower of God. That’s it. No more.
There’s real freedom in saying that out loud, even if I’m not entirely sure what it means practically. Ultimately, I still need income, but I can craft a story around what that income should look like. The reality is, fulfilling a family’s needs requires very little. It doesn’t have to come from my own business or follow an entrepreneurial route that others admire.
It can be simple, off LinkedIn, off Substack—something that just pays the bills so I can focus on the work only I can do: loving my boys, my wife, and loving God. That’s enough. The key today might be to ask whether the income source you pursue needs to be impressive or just effective.
I’ve been writing these posts daily for three weeks now, and honestly, it’s been fun to write again. But I noticed something else this morning. This is another version of the same move. Another way to prove to people I’m enough. That I’m worthy. That I’m doing something productive I can point to.
So I’m slowing down. Instead of daily, expect something from me maybe once a week, longer and more considered.
What I’m reading. What I’m thinking about. It will be less about what I’m building, but more about who I am becoming.
Appreciate you all. Thanks for riding along.
Foley
THIS is the post I’ve been waiting for. 👏