Go Narrow. Go Deep

Originally published on February 16th

On New Years Eve, it hit me. You've found your things. Now go narrow and go deep!

At this moment of realization, a wave of freedom and relief swept through me. With the fresh new year of 2022 laid out before me, I could boil down my entire life's focus into five distinct buckets. No more exploring, at least not for now. I knew beyond doubt I had found my targets, and this year would be the year to pursue them with the full weight of my focus.

The five buckets:

Write of Passage: I have my dream job. We have a strong foundation and long-term plans. Now, it's time to deliver. Deliver the best possible cohort; deliver the best possible Student Experience for every student in each cohort. That means hyper-attention to detail – student communication, community structure, live session transitions. While I usually like thinking big-picture, I go hyper-focused when it comes to planning and delivering Write of Passage. 2022 is the year in which we continue to perfect the course.

Writing: I love to write. In my best moments, I know I can write well. I think about writing all the time (both for work, and in my free time). My bottleneck? Actually writing. A common challenge with a uniquely devilish personal twist. I'm proud of the quality of my writing in 2021 (example, example) but not the quantity. 2022 is the year my writing habit evolves from sporadic to regular.

Reading:  For the past five years, no activity has brought more joy to my life. I love to read, full stop. This year, I want to read widely to inform my writing. I'm prioritizing reading fiction, because it brings me joy and because soaking my mind in beautiful prose can't but help my own flow of words. I'll sprinkle in some nonfiction for the sake of learning, but only the best ideas from the brightest minds.

Chinese: The only activity that brings me more joy than reading. If hobbies can be soul mates, I've found mine. Practicing Chinese feels like plugging into an always-on intravenous drip of Flow. I've found my perfect method, too: parroting, where I say exactly what a native-speaker podcast host is saying, to practice my tones and learn new vocab. It's free and perfectly challenging. I have exciting long-term visions for where learning Chinese can take me, but for this year, I'll be working hard, quietly, and mostly in private.

Family and friends: In college I tried to meet as many people as possible. Now I subscribe to a new line of thinking: you'd rather have four quarters than one hundred pennies. I'm prioritizing deepening existing relationships rather than forging lots of new ones.

Go narrow, go deep. 2022: it's go time!