johnmaconline

If you identify as a Christian, Easter is supposed to be the Super Bowl of holidays.

But it’s not. At least not for most. Christmas is the Super Bowl.

Christmas is the holiday when we can unabashedly intersect all of the Christian right-isms^††  — right-thinking, right-feeling, right-living, right-guilting, right-judging — with all of the advantages of current western culture, such as materialism, overindulging, narcissism, and status. We just throw it all into the bowl with the butter and sugar, hit it with the whisk and a little heat, and 13 minutes later, we got tree-shaped justification cookies, plenty sweet enough to take the bitter edge off. 

For me personally, and I think for many mid-life Christians, Christmas is complex. It’s definitely my favorite time of the year. I still get excited. Every year. 

Yet, it drags along with it some very visceral stressors. The stressors of making those cookies plus the stressors of personal history. Existential experiences of living in this world. Memories that somehow hit harder during this season. I’ve even found myself thinking, “maybe I’m not such a fan of Christmas anymore.”

But I am. Even in moments of doubt, it’s never truly faded. 

Because if we’re looking for it, Christmas gives us a gift. And this gift is available for all. 

Underneath the complexity, the stress, and the hypocrisy is hope. Hope for unity. Hope for happiness. Hope for love. Hope for brighter days. Hope for salvation. 

†† Not to be confused with politics

If you’ve trained for an iron man distance triathlon, you know how to be miserable.
If you’ve written a book, you know how to be miserable.
If you’ve bootstrapped your own business, you know how to be miserable.

Embracing the misery is not the same as seeking it out, but you know how to get through it.

One foot in front of the other. One word after the next. One dollar more.

The other part of being miserable is recognizing that the next step, the next word, or the next dollar spent might not move you forward in a straight line. Adding to the misery, you may not ultimately be successful.

You might not finish the race.
Maybe nobody buys your book.
Your business might fail.

However, even though this particular race, book, or business might not work, you know it’s part of the path you must traverse. You can’t go around. You must go through.

Therefore, you have no choice but to get good at being miserable.

We’re often fooled into thinking that our competition is the other person, other team, or other philosophy.

We’re wrong. That’s The World hocking its wares.

The competition is always the one staring back at you in the mirror. Once you and I realize we’re not competing, we’re unstoppable.

It’s one thing to study business. It’s another to run your own.
It’s one thing to study war. It’s another to have served.
It’s one thing to study marathon training. It’s another to have run one.

Academic study is critical to move the genre and collective forward. Academia generally sits above and behind, and from this vantage point, one can remove emotional complexities, see the whole picture, and create new solutions.

Experience is, yes, anecdotal, but the only way to know how you feel doing it. What decisions will you make? How will you react? Where is your comfort zone?

Don’t confuse yourself by thinking that just because you studied something, you know how it feels to do it.  

Once Rupert Murdoch established his “news” and media empire in the US, he uncovered a new business model. 

Once technology delivered a broadcast studio into every citizen’s pocket, it doomed the objectivity model. 

The intersection of these two events inevitably birthed the narrative (formerly called “the party line”) model that we currently enjoy. The media can no longer serve the two masters of objectivity and profit, so they’ve had to choose. That choice was easy because Murdoch showed them the path.

But the problem isn’t the narrative. Not really. The problem is we shove our heads into the echo chamber and start nodding along.

Turn off the damn news.

Posting with #ISupportUkraine or #maga is a virtue signal.
Abandoning Twitter for Mastodon or Truth Social is a virtue signal.
Wearing a mask while running outside is a virtue signal.
Investing only in companies that have high ESG scores is a virtue signal.
Bringing your own hemp twine bags to the grocery store is a virtue signal.
Asking the clerk if the water comes in a glass bottle rather than a plastic bottle is a virtue signal.
Driving around in a giant pickup truck with an American flag flying from the bed is a virtue signal.
Buying a Tesla is a virtue signal. And paradoxically, now, so is getting rid of your Tesla.

Virtue signaling is about communicating personal moral values and the moral values of our tribe. It’s one way of gaining or maintaining status.

But there’s usually something more to it than just signaling moral superiority. As humans, we like to take action. We like to do something. We like to do the right thing. These signals are ways of doing something.

But just because you feel strongly and take the virtue-signaling action doesn’t mean that others are doing nothing, believe the wrong things, or are just plain dumb. 

They’re just doing different things to make the world a better place. 

Building a home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina is very rewarding. But it’s also risky.
Building a home in the desert of Nevada is very rewarding. But it’s also risky.
Building a home in a mountain valley in Colorado is very rewarding. But it’s also risky.

It’s easy to forget about the risk as technology, status, and social norms progress. But that doesn’t mean there is no risk.

Sometimes when we feel victimized, before we drain our outrage budget, we oughta think about rerunning the risk/reward spreadsheet.

We sometimes confuse trust with agreement. I know I’m guilty.

We erroneously think that because we agree with someone or some tribe, we can trust them. This also leads to the flip side: when we don’t agree with someone, we believe we can’t trust them.

We see it all over social media. Can we trust experts? Can we trust the politicians? Can we trust the media? But we’re really just asking if we agree with them

I once had two engineers on my team who disliked each other immensely. I spent many hours listening to each moan about how bad the other was and how “I can’t trust him.” Here’s the thing: each was a good engineer with a high degree of integrity. They just saw the world differently.

I found a solution that appealed to each’s integrity and allowed them to build trust, if not in each other, at least in their work. We created a contract (actually a requirements specification). Each could concentrate on building his piece to conform to the contract, and as long as they trusted that the other’s work conformed (which he could prove through objective testing), we had success. We discussed disagreements in terms of the requirements, not each other’s work. Their commitment to their personal integrity kept us moving forward.

Fundamentally, trust is about integrity, not agreement. The real solution to rebuilding trust in our experts, politicians, and media is to focus on each’s commitment to their integrity.

We like what we like. We get stuck. We confuse inertia with discipline.

If nothing changes, nothing changes. Evolution requires the randomization of some inputs.

Here’s a great idea that’s easy (something I’ve done a few times recently):

• Choose a new or different restaurant.
• Sit at the bar.
• Open the menu and put your finger on something random.

The beauty of this kind of randomization is that it gets us out of our comfort zone and exposes us to a different perspective. Even if you have a bad experience, it’s still a different experience.

And what if you have a great experience?!

The path to empathy and understanding requires new perspectives. New perspectives require different inputs. Randomization can provide different inputs.