I didn’t grow up in a family—or a country and culture, for that matter—where people talked about the idea of manifesting. They didn’t talk about the law of attraction, or cosmic energy, or anything that might make them sound—as they might put it—woo-woo.
As you might know if you’ve been reading for a while, I decided some months back to start publishing a blog post every day. I wanted to reconnect with a part of myself that I hadn’t paid enough attention to for a long time. I wanted to find my people; to build community.
I started writing with no specific expected outcome. I simply hoped that if I put the right stuff out there, something might eventually be returned to me. This, for me, is my version of manifesting. I didn’t try to will some concrete reality into existence, nor repeat some mantra to myself before I went to sleep. I just made something, every day.
I’ve spent the past decade working in the world of computing, mostly as a software designer. I loved computing, and I still love computing. I love the—remarkably brief—history of it and the creativity that these machines have unlocked in countless folks all around the world.
A love that I’d ignored for far too long, however, is writing. To me, writing is everything. It’s thinking made visible, dreams articulated, and the wonderful recounting of destiny fulfilled. I make sense of the world and of myself through writing, and I wanted to honor that.
Today, I’m unspeakably proud—and somewhat surprised—to be joining the design team at Medium. If you don’t know of Medium, it’s the computing company that cares the most about writing; the platform that helps people to share their ideas and experiences with the world.
Given what I just shared, you might be thinking that this sounds like a suspiciously good fit—and you’d be right. A person—me—with “a love of computing and storytelling” suddenly starts contributing to “the computing company that cares the most about writing.”
You can read more about why I’m joining Medium’s design team in a post I published—unsurprisingly—on Medium. This post, though, isn’t really about that. It’s about what that turn of events caused me to believe more than ever; about my increasingly woo-woo view.
That belief? That you—as in one, but also you—must start putting things into the universe with no guarantee that anything will be returned at all. You might coax and cajole the universe, but I believe that same energy could be used to make something and put it out there.
I believe that if you—me; any of us—make something every day and share it, that’s inherently good. I believe that the making itself is important, and often more-so than the outcome. I believe that—despite our forced indifference—the universe will take note of the effort.
If you’re sat here today wondering whether you should start (whatever it is that you’re making), I believe that the answer should be an emphatic yes. If you’re wondering the next day whether you should continue, I’d shout it even louder—and the next day, and the one after that.
You’re not guaranteed any specific outcome, but I think that you might feel more connected to the work that you want to make. I think that you might notice things you’d been missing, and gain newfound confidence to pursue your passions with conviction.
Even if none of that’s true, I suspect that you might simply enjoy yourself, and find pleasure in being out for your own fun. When it’s all said and done, perhaps that’s really the whole point.