I can’t remember the last time I stayed up past midnight due to pure excitement. Though I’m exhausted now as I write this early the morning after, the buzz is still there, though it’s not quite as strong. But I’m glad I capitalized on the energy because I once read that inspiration is perishable, so you should act on it when you’ve got it. I’m sure if I tried doing what I did last night right now I wouldn’t be doing it.
I’m sure you’ve felt that energy . . . that signal . . . before. It shows up at odd times. But I’ve found it appears with surprising regularity two times every year—January and my birthday, both serving as reminders of how quickly time passes.
It’s tried to make itself known for many years now, and I’ve followed it through so many roads, thinking I was getting closer to it when in reality I was just heading toward a dead end.
It’s elusive—the signal—and capricious. If you search for it too hard, it’ll vanish, but if you don’t search for it, then you’ll find yourself dissatisfied.
What’s puzzling about this whole matter is that as we age, the signal tends to be drowned out by so many cautionary (and sometimes imaginary) voices, and sometimes, those voices actualize themselves inside a real throat.
They come from our parents, our bosses, our loved ones, our friends. They come from the indirect ways that society tells us what we should be doing. After enough time, that voice becomes our own, becoming more challenging with every passing year, holding us back any time we try to optimistically make progress toward a future we’d like to actualize today.
“You’re too old.”
“That ship has sailed.”
“You’re not smart enough.”
“You’re not good enough.”
“What will they think of you?”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“How will this make money?”
“AI will just replace this anyway.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?”
“You have a mortgage.”
“You have a business.”
“Really?? You’re going to [write poetry, paint, learn to code, buy a microphone, buy a camera, start a business]?
Over time, our own voice gets louder and fiercer and starts to build a case against us like some kind of relentless lawyer trying to pile on the evidence as to why what we are attempting to do isn’t worth doing. And we believe ourselves. Because we’re convincing. And the signal gets weaker.
Yet what I’ve learned over the years is that we hold the keys to our own cell. Outside of societal laws and those of physics, majority of the rules we follow are arbitrarily created by humans no smarter than you or I. Often, we are the designers of those rules we find so constricting, the rules preventing us from living the life we want, the rules preventing us from hearing the signal trying to pull us toward our aspirations and dreams.
At any moment, we can change. We can drown out every critic (both real and imaginary) attempting to throw stones at us as we walk along our path. We can bravely take the first step toward the future we want today, and with time, it becomes easier to do so. We can run as many experiments as we want, and no one will show up and slap our wrist and tell us to stop.
The culmination of all those experiments will turn into something that gets us closer and closer to the signal whose energy seemed to have faded away. Eventually, if we’re lucky and persistent, we’ll create something that is an extension of our truest selves. And when we do, that’s when we know we’ve found the signal.
But the hardest part will always be finding it.
I’ve come to realize that the signal manifests itself as excitement. The signal has no sound, so it can only make itself known as ideas and the associated excitement that comes with them. When an idea pops into our head, the only way to actualize that idea is through acting on that initial burst of exciting energy. The quicker we capitalize on the energy from the signal, the quicker we can learn whether it was real, or just another experiment getting us closer to it.
This article is the culmination of so many experiments and false starts I’ve had over the years in an attempt to get me closer to my own signal. So many years of dabbling and tinkering and building and tweaking and posting and launching and ending, the only constant being my sole focus on my career (like all of us, doing what I have to do to pay the bills).
All the while my deep enjoyment for writing has remained a signal trying to make its presence known in the background, telling me it’s there, though I’ve never stopped to pay attention.
Until last night.
I hope you pay attention to and find your signal.
This is me finding mine.