September 4, 2018
Mike
I probably shouldn’t be writing this email. And you probably shouldn’t waste your time reading it. I just got back from a funeral and my state of mind is, well... altered. You’ve been warned.
The death was unexpected, so yeah... I knew it was going to be a rough night. But still, I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of what actually took place. Seeing the rollercoaster off in the distance is one thing, but riding the rollercoaster is another thing altogether.
And now I’m back home and my head is exploding with metaphors and lessons and takeaways and advice and cautionary tales and every other type of self-centered existential rationalization that your brain gins up to try to make sense of a senseless situation.
But sharing any of it seems futile because nobody outside the situation ever really seems to understand, until they experience something similar themselves. It’s like when someone tells you a story that they think is funny but you don’t get it and they nod and say, “Yeah... I guess you kinda had to be there.”
So why am I writing this? I don’t know. I guess it’s because I’m a writer. And what do writers do? They write. So that’s what I’m doing.
I want so badly to take this experience and distill it into something that you might find helpful. But everything that comes to mind is a total cliche. Then again... cliches are cliches because they are so true, and this one has never felt more true to me than it does tonight:
So...
Do that thing you’ve been putting off. You know the thing I’m talking about. The important one.
Yours,
—J
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