When distracted, choose your values

“You become what you give your attention to.” - Epictetus

As the “building in public” movement continues to gain popularity across the internet, the line between connecting with like minded people and staying true to yourself has blurred. As the line continues to blur, our focus becomes compromised and we become distracted to what our peers are doing.

These past months, I’ve become a victim to this - falling deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole. The more you compare yourself to others, the less you become grounded in your own pursuits.

Putting all your eggs in one basket is something I’ve been trying to put into practice, but it’s hard when you’re unsure what basket is yours.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “comparison is the thief of joy” - and it cannot be any more true for me. However, focusing on other people’s baskets doesn’t help the cause. When you begin looking into these communities and seeing how the members interact and amplify each other’s ideas, you build a fear of missing out.

And this makes sense because after all, human beings need a sense of belonging.

In an attempt to reap the benefits of belonging in a community, we may find ourselves neglecting our true self. I personally have many interests - ranging from startups and tech, to of course, landscape photography. And while deep down I know what exactly fills my void, I’ve quietly ignored it in exchange to be a part of other exciting communities.  These communities that I’ve engaged in, though of strong interest, aren’t “the one thing that keeps me up at night”.

A particular example of this has been my involvement in the startup space where in awe of other young founders, I’ve tried to build something to feel as though as I can have seat at the table and claim the external validation. And while my ideas not taking off could be attributed to a lack of execution/over-perfectionism; it’s probably also a reflection that my heart was never truly there in the first place.

“Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.” - Epictetus

The answer is right in front of you

Without a doubt, photography has been and in my opinion, will always be my north star. Yet despite acknowledging this, I’ve avoided doubling down on this - for a few reasons:

• I’ve grown fond of Jack Butcher’s philosophy of “building once, selling twice” - I have speculated whether my photography can be scaled and have tried pivoting into building something which is a byproduct of,

• Me wanting to be part of this “indie hacker” club of building sub communities, audiences and transforming them into users for whatever platform I build

• Me believing that photography is too “oversaturated” and there’s no way for me to stand out

These defeatist excuses are an ultimate reflection of one thing.

Distraction from external noise.

I truly believe that the reason why I haven’t doubled down on my true passions is because I’ve been too caught up with what so and so has been doing. What starts off as a brief scan for inspiration becomes a vicious cycle of self doubt and speculation.

And what a shame, because if I really want to create something, then honestly, photography is a pretty authentic way of doing so.

Greg McKweown, James Clear and of course Naval, all preach about the art of living the essentialist life. The art of saying no to things that are noisy and sticking to the one or two things that truly matter.

The thought takes me back to a Lyft driver I met a few years ago in San Francisco.  He had spoke about how his role model was the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street because the definition of passion/love was simple. For the Cookie Monster, all he cared about was cookies so that’s all he did.

“The universe is rigged in such a way that if you just want one thing and you focus on that, you will get it. But everything else, you got to let go.” - Naval

Explore and exploit

To my defence, however,  I do believe that most of the “distraction” was just me simply exploring.

James Clear mentions this with reference to explore and exploit framework, whereby individuals are inclined to first explore their interests by expanding their horizons. Then once, key interests and strengths become clear, it’s time to exploit these opportunities.

I think for me, this exploit stage is looming closely and I’m very excited. I’ve done enough exploring and I believe it’s time to go hard with truly makes me tick. I’m sure that whatever I was dabbling in briefly will come back to me to help with my future endeavours.

Tiago Forte on a podcast episode on Modern Wisdom (excellent podcast which I highly recommend) mentioned this idea of the convergence of life and fractal patterns. The universe will teach you lessons that you need and while it may not make sense at the present time, it will often come back later when its most

There’s a saying I heard a few years back and it still remains til this day.

”Eat the fruit when it’s ripe.”

It’s all in your values

As a final thought, I do believe that choosing and sticking something you truly care about starts with your values.

Your values are an extension of who you truly are and who you aspire to be.

By asking yourself what you truly care about as well as ranking these; as well as your operating principles, you can become better at anchoring yourself - especially during times of distraction. Julian Shapiro has a great guide on this which I highly recommend checking out: https://www.julian.com/blog/life-planning

For me, I hope that this cathartic moment will cause a change in tide for my pursuits and push me to double down on my photography and share my work with the world.