Of the Game, Not in It

This won’t leave me alone.

I want to build on social media.

But I’m not willing to become a slave to it.

I know what the notifications do.

I know there will be opinions I’ll wrestle with.

I know there will be comments I’ll want to read, numbers I’ll want to check, and moments when I’ll convince myself that picking up my phone is somehow part of the work.

And maybe that’s why I need to decide what this is before I give it my all.

The goal isn’t to become famous anymore.

It’s to be seen.

Not because I need everyone to know who I am, but because I want the things I create and the way I think to have a chance to reach people.

The goal isn’t to build a bunch of businesses and use an audience to sell all of them.

It’s to feed the two I’m already building while putting a spotlight on how I think.

And the goal definitely isn’t to spend more of my life staring at a phone.

It’s to be present and intentional when it’s time to create, and equally present and intentional when it’s not.

That means I need systems.

Systems that make me harder to reach when I’m with my kids.

When I’m writing.

When I’m sitting across from someone in a meeting.

When I’m having dinner with my family.

When the person in front of me deserves more of my attention than the thousands of people who might be on the other side of a screen.

I want social media to amplify my relationships, not replace them.

I want it to introduce me to people I never would have met.

I want ideas to travel farther than I could ever carry them myself.

I want conversations online to eventually become conversations across a table.

But I don’t want to build an incredible digital life while slowly becoming absent from my real one.

And I think there’s a line that needs to be drawn before I give this my all.

So here’s the line.

I’m admitting that I want this to grow.

I’m admitting that I want to make money from it.

I’m admitting that I want it to help take care of my family.

I’m admitting that if I take this seriously, there will be days when it feels less like creativity and more like a job.

That’s okay.

What isn’t okay is allowing the thing I’m building to decide what gets my attention.

I’ll create.

I’ll publish.

I’ll participate.

I’ll learn how the platforms work.

I’ll play the game when the work requires it.

But when I put the phone down, I want to actually be gone.

Because I don’t want to spend my life outside the arena.

I just don’t want to live inside it either.

Maybe that’s the agreement I need to make with myself:

Be of the game, but not in it.