Week 10: Putting it all together

Time to read: 1.25 minutes

This duck says, "keep reading!"

This summer started with a simple idea: you create your days, weeks, and years. Not the news, not the people who behave badly — you.

We talked about living well is not optional homework, it's the whole assignment. We talked about being well-used and spending your life on worthy pursuits. We talked about how regret rarely comes from what we did, but from what we quietly never did. We talked about being the change you wish to see, one interaction at a time.

Here's what ties all of it together: None of this was ever about the world getting easier or kinder or more sane. It was about you deciding who you're going to be in this world, no matter what.

You choose your response, effort, kindness, integrity, and entire being, consistently, over time, in small and big ways.

Creating your life was never going to be a choice you make once. Your life is an accumulation of small choices, made every day. To be honest, even when it's hard. To be grateful when you want to be rude. To take a break when the words you are about to say are not helpful. To clean up your messes when you inevitably make them (because you are human).

Multiply those choices by a life. That's what "creating your life" looks like from the inside.

So as summer winds down, here's your homework: Keep going. Keep choosing. Keep being well-used. Keep showing up as the person you've decided to be — one day, one choice, one person at a time.

That's the whole purpose of this life.

Live well!

Week 6: How You Spend Your Day Is How You Spend Your Life

Time to read: 1 min, 10 seconds

We've been talking about creating your life so you feel well-used. I saw a great quote from Annie Dillard that said, "How you spend your day is how you spend your life."

Your day comprises a series of small choices: what to eat, how to talk to others, what to do with your time, and how you show up.

There's a common finding in psychology: people rarely regret the things they did, even the things that failed. What haunts people is what they didn't try.

You don't regret the bad relationship you left or the business you tried and failed. But the person you never told how you felt, the chance you didn't take, the conversation you kept postponing? Those are the ones that stick.

There's a reason for this. When you act, and it goes wrong, you get an ending. You get information. You grieve and learn. But when you don't act, there's no ending, just an open wondering about what might have been.

Inaction feels safe in the moment because nothing bad happens. But nothing good happens either. Doors don't stay open forever. Many doors close quietly, without you noticing, and by the time you look back, the choice is gone.

This is the wild part of "wild and precious." Not recklessness — just refusing to let fear of a bad outcome be the reason you stopped.

So here's a question worth sitting with: What's the thing you've been not-doing? Not because you decided against it, but because you never decided?

That's usually the one worth looking at first.

Week 5: How To Live With Integrity In a Chaotic World

Time to read: 45 seconds

Here's the part nobody puts on a poster: living well doesn't mean your circumstances match your values. Often they don't.

You value connection, but you're isolated. You value health, but your body won't cooperate. You value stability, but everything feels uncertain. This is where a lot of people quietly give up and decide that living well is only available to people with easier lives, or money, or beauty.

I think this is exactly where "well-used" gets tested.

Integrity in complexity, as I put it a few weeks back, doesn't mean the complexity goes away. It means you keep choosing your values inside it, however imperfectly, instead of waiting for circumstances to improve before you start living the way you actually want.

Some of the most well-used lives I've seen belong to people whose circumstances were challenging. They just refused to let that be the end of the story. They made one small choice after another until they looked back and realized they created their life.

This tenacity is available to everyone.

Week 4: Do You Have To Choose?

Time to read: 41 seconds

Ah, wonderful costume jewelry.

Yes, you always choose. If living well is something you get to create, then not choosing is also a choice, just often not a good one.

Most of us don't refuse to live intentionally. You just let the calendar decide. The inbox decides. The next obligation decides. Weeks pass. You were busy the whole time. And, do you feel well-used, or were you drifting?

Drift feels safe because it seems like you don't have to choose. When in fact, you are choosing to drift. The cost will come later, in regret, missed opportunity, chances not taken.

This week, pick one place where you've been drifting. Keep it simple. Choose one. A relationship on autopilot. A habit you fell into. A "someday" that's been someday for years.

You don't need a five-year plan. You need one choice, one action, done intentionally, today.

Next week: What to do when your values and your circumstances don't line up.

Know someone who would like a dose of optimism, positivity, and action this summer? They can sign up here.

Week 3: Was Your Day Worth It?

Time to read: 59 seconds

One thing I do with my wild and precious life is buy and sell beautiful things, mostly jewelry.

Last week I promised to talk about being"well-used." Here's what I mean.

A well-used life isn't one where nothing goes to waste, where every hour is optimized and every talent monetized. That's maximizing, not meaning. And honestly, this form of well-used is exhausting. (Believe me, I know.)

Being well-used means your days are in service of something that matters. Your effort, attention, and particular mix of skills and quirks are spent on things worth spending them on. Who measures that worth? YOU!

Some days that looks like showing up fully for someone who needs you. Other days it's the quiet satisfaction of work done carefully. In my world it's a coaching session where someone has an ah-ha, a team functions more effectively, connecting a beautiful 1950s necklace to its new person, or a conversation with my young adult children where they actually hear me. :-) Well-used is rarely dramatic. It is showing up, again, for the thing you've already decided matters.

When you drop into bed tonight, ask yourself: what did I spend myself on today? Was it worth it?

More on how to actually answer that question next week.

Week 2: How Will You LIVE?

Time to read: 46 seconds

1920s Camphor Glass Necklace. Think flappers and speakeasies. Yes, it's for sale.

This summer, I am talking about creating life…your life. In a complex and chaotic world, you are still the creator of your days, weeks, and years.

Last week, I talked about how the world you want to live in starts with you. Today, I'm taking that a step further. Fair warning: my father's death has made me philosophical. :-)

Death is certain. None of us will escape it. So, it behooves you to decide how you want to LIVE.

You have "one wild and precious life" (to quote Mary Oliver), and I think each of us gets to, actually, have a duty to, live well. How you define "live well" is based on your values, interests, and life situation.

Living well doesn't mean that everything is great all the time, that you always get what you want, or that life is always easy. It means finding your way through complexity with integrity, looking for slivers of joy and beauty, finding the good in people and situations, and feeling most days like you were well used.

Being "well-used" is next week's topic. Stay tuned.

Should You Work In Your Passion?

Time to read: 1 min, 3 seconds

People tell me, "I want to work in my passion," or "I'm not passionate about my current job."

Oh dear. Finding your passion and working in it for the rest of your life is a lot of pressure.

Young professionals feel like they must find their passion and then turn it into work. My opinion? Passion is bunk.

That said, everyone has passions…many, many of them. Those are the things you enjoy, get lost doing, and love to think and talk about. A friend of mine likes to say, "You might have a passion for kitten snuggling, and that isn't going to make a career." I have a passion for making charm bracelets, and that isn't going to pay college tuition.

It's high pressure to expect to feel passionate about your job. Some people do. Others love their job and don't feel passionate about it. Still others enjoy their job well enough and satisfy their passions outside work.

It's ok for a job to simply be a job, something that supports your life and works in total.

Relieve yourself of the pressure to work in your passion. That's a recipe for being dissatisfied with what is, and maybe what is looks pretty great once you release that pressure value.

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I hope this helps!