Decide to _______

One of my goals for 2025 is to become a creator and a builder. To become proactive and express myself into the world around me rather than being an echo and a reflection of what I take in throughout the day. This requires Deciding to be an active participant of the world. Deciding to paint, make music, cook, develop talents, discuss and debate, craft, host parties. I want to look inward and then propel myself into the world rather than observing and retreating to contemplate. The world is rich with ideas; but I am also rich with ideas. Instead of laboring through the world in hopes of stumbling upon a nugget of something interesting, I want to try refining and explore what I have in stock myself. To that end, I have Decided to Write.

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Deciding to Write actually fulfills a number of areas in which I’d like to grow in 2025. It is a way I can create and it is also a way to take action. It is a push to avoid prolonged debate and wavering non-opinions. I’ve long known that I can be on the … less decisive side of things. I’ll chalk it up to a mix of things that I’ll leave for another time. Nevertheless, I’d like to be more able to jump into things and then adapt. I want to balance potential over-planning with improvisation once things are already underway, whatever they may be. The list of things to dive into are all over the map: picking a restaurant, a sofa, a movie to watch. Deciding to broach an issue or question with someone or deciding to speak up when something doesn’t sit right. The list is nearly endless and many of the decisions are rather mundane. But it’s a list that is real, and I’d love to save myself the countless hours by being a bit quicker to action.

Furthermore, writing is a critical skill for better understanding your own thoughts, tastes, and opinions. In today’s onslaught of content and soundbites, deciding what you actually think and why you think that can be an underfunded department of your brain. Sure, it’s not hyper critical while you’re watching a humorous video of a baby goat that repeatedly walks right in front the farmer and poses a tripping hazard. But is it important when that video is followed by a cut-up segment of a politician’s speech? Then a stitched commentary about state funding for XYZ issue? I can take the goat at face value — pretty cute. But the other two deserve some actual consideration.

To circle back, writing forces you to process your ideas and consolidate them into something coherent and robust. Flimsy ideas don’t do well in the writing process (a process I’ll be likely rediscovering). Writing helps you confront yourself by offering an immediate reflection on the state of your ideas. It transforms your thoughts into something tangible and volleys them right back at you, challenging you to decide if that’s really what you think. Reviewing and drafting help you refine and zero in on ideas. Through this process, you’re building for yourself a stronger mental foundation of ideas and mental models. This foundation can help you more quickly and proficiently tackle the fast-moving world around us.

Leaning into a creator mindset and using writing for thought distillation and refinement, I hope I can discover a deeper level of agency and self. I want to take more control over default behaviors and opinions. I want to depart from the comfort of casual routine and build the patterns and practices which will really get me where I want to go. This is not a rejection of common knowledge and thought. It’s taking a step back and reflecting and plotting a purposeful course forward.

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I have ideas for how to put my thoughts together. I don’t think thoughts are isolated essays, nor something to be chronicled by time or a specific sequence. They’re a web — a graph of nodes and vectors. They are inherently a little messy (and I think messy is not necessarily a bad thing). I hope to put this vision together in a public setting, since a little peer pressure will probably keep me on track. The goal is not a perfect end product, but the enjoyment of the mental workout and the discovery of concise insights. The enjoyment of wondering and wandering.