It might not feel like it. At the time. Now, for example, when I feel empty, drained, without something to say. And yet, at the same time, saturated with the news, the pains, struggles and strife in the world. The people kidnapped, stripped of rights, imprisoned. Courts seemingly indifferent to the constitutionality of such an experience. The callousness of neighbors and the cowardice of legislators. Or the calls for war and taxes and healthcare and investment.

This is the paradox of life at the moment: that we feel as if there is nothing and also everything to say at once. And in light of that, I’m inclined to figure out how to speak anyway.

The dawn of the social media era brought incredible oversharing. The favorite joke of 2010 was to mock people taking pictures of their food. Now I watch reels of people making food to pass the time.

The point is not that there is too much content or that we should regulate ourselves. It is that there is, in a sense, too much regulating and too little investment in things that matter, in being people who matter, in creating a world that matters.

A broken pattern

I frequently open up a document to prepare for a post and don’t have any idea what to write. Which leads me to brainstorm ideas. But this isn’t a real brainstorm, it is an activity that looks something like this:

1. Peruse Facebook looking for ideas.
2. Getting stuck or
3. Exploring a couple of ideas and leaving them in my notes.
4. And I’ve wasted about an hour.

or it looks like

1. Opening my notes app and staring at the screen.
2. Getting stuck or
3. Exploring a couple of ideas and leaving them in my notes.
4. And I’ve wasted about 20 minutes because I go and do something else.

But what is not happening is a proper brainstorm where I come up with a bunch of ideas. What I’m doing is coming up with a few ideas and immediately filtering them through a fictional credibility engine I make up on the spot that helps determine if the idea works or fits the blog. One of those filters is labeled USEFUL and another is labeled SHAREABLE.

Here’s the thing: we silence more ideas than we share. And more importantly, we silence them before we even try to put them into words. Do that and then decide.

Share anyway

The thing about having a thing to say is that all of us have something worth sharing. So we ought to share it. And when in doubt, try putting it into words and then decide.

I’m not writing here everyday, but I’m writing nearly every day. And the truth is that I very well could be writing everyday. It isn’t a lack of ideas, but the abundance that stops me. It isn’t a lack of clarity, but an obsession with clarity that stops me.

But mostly it is time and the desire to use it differently.

There is no right strategy. But there is living a life and each of us has someone who wants to hear from us. Do it for them.