On Oversimplifying

Sometimes there are too many thoughts swirling in our head to understand what we really want.

We analyze this way and that way.  Try to unpack it.  Imagine what life would look like if we did XYZ.  Weigh the consequences.  Imagine the various futures.

But when there’s so much to consider and analyze, it can become very overwhelming very quickly.  Then all we want to do is turn on the TV.

We may make pro/con lists hoping it will add up to a clear conclusion.

We may ask other people for advice hoping they’ll say something that turns the light bulb on and we’ll know what to do.  

We may table it until we’re ready to revisit, which we sometimes do and sometimes don’t.

We want to simplify it into binary terms in the hopes that it’ll be easier to make the right decision.

Tough it out in the current job with good benefits or quit?  What title do I type into the search bar?  Take the role that pays more or the one I’m more excited about?

We’re complex beings with complex experiences.  Our desires are varied and multi-faceted and exist on various planes of time and depth.  They don’t often look like a neat checklist.  

Instead, they’re often contradictory and competing, which makes it difficult to reconcile the differences.  And choosing one might mean sacrificing another, which only adds to the angst.

Trying to decipher this mess in the ether of our brain where endless thoughts can pass through in milliseconds is highly ineffective and easily frustrating.

Our brains are (usually) good processors.  But they are rarely good organizers.  So, as a starting point, we have to see what we’re working with… Get the thoughts out of our heads and down on paper/screen.

Consider what you want in the farther off future.  And I don't just mean the surface stuff like money, possessions, and accolades, but rather the qualities of the experience you want and the motivators that drive you.  

What environment do you want to wake up in?

Who do you want to spend your time with?

What problems do you want to solve?

What impact do you want to have?  

What do you want to feel each day?

How do you want others to feel after interacting with you?

What skills do you want to use?

What kind of world do you want to live in and how do you want to contribute to it?

Why are you here?


These kinds of questions are directly tied to our day to day experiences and choices.  If you’re skeptical, consider what you’ve wondered to yourself when you’ve felt lost or confused about the direction your career or life was going.

What we want from our lives is the foundation on which we build the individual dreams... the dream job, relationship, family, home, etc.  Those dreams then inform the goals we set and the priorities we make.  

But we often start with chasing the individual dreams without having defined the foundation, then wonder what went wrong when it falls apart.

These days, we want so much more from our work lives than generations past… purpose, passion, joy, fulfillment, money, benefits, travel, friendship, stability, inspiration, impact, community, etc.

It’s a lot to ask.  But we can’t even begin to ask for it if we can’t be clear about what exactly we’re looking for.

How can work give us purpose if we can’t define what our own purpose is?  How can we ask for more money if we don’t specify a dollar amount?  How can we ask to be inspired if we don’t know what inspiration looks like to us?  How can we ask for community if we don’t know what we’re looking for in a community?

And it’s not so much that we don’t know… it’s just all in our heads.  We don’t often do the work to detail out what these things mean to us specifically, which makes it a lot harder to find the specifics in the real world. 

Like any ideal, we won’t get everything we want.  But don’t we owe it to ourselves to attempt to define it first before we conclude that what we want doesn’t exist or we should settle for ______?

It’d be easy to end on a cliche and say… Don’t Settle.  The sentiment is there, but it’d be lazy and oversimplified.  

If we want the reward of a fulfilling career and life, it’s our responsibility to define what specifically that means with details and colors and gradients and depth and personality.  

We all want a full, rich life, but that looks very different for every single one of us.  We may use similar core adjectives and nouns, but if that’s all we needed the paintings of our lives would look the same… like what we drew on construction paper in our first grade art class.

Paint your own picture with every medium at your disposal, every color in the spectrum, and every ounce of your imagination.  And don’t stop adding to it.

The clearer the picture is to you, the clearer your decisions will be because they’ll be rooted in a foundation of your design.  It doesn’t have to be a toss up.  That just sounds stressful. :) 


🙏🙏,

Pam