The new paradigm requires you to stop pushing

Sisyphus was a Greek god who was cursed to push a large, exceedingly heavy boulder up to the top of a mountain, only to have it crash all the way down to the bottom. He'd return to the start, and push it back up to the top again.

We are living in a reality which presupposes that we are to live this way, work this way. Caught in a loop.

Sure, there is a cyclical nature to work and venture-building. It keeps continuing, never ends.

But we are linear beings, with bodies anchored to a linear timeline. Birth, life, death. This is a blessing!

If we were not mortal, nothing would matter. Everything would extend forever, losing all meaning.

But thanks to the ever present awareness that our time being this specific person, is limited, we have a reason to work, to achieve, to become great. To make a legacy that extends far beyond our our tiny mortal vessels. To celebrate all that we are, and to impose and assert ourselves into our environments before we disappear forever!

It's the linearity of time which activates us out of a stupor and enables us to feel good, not the circularity of endless work.

How do we make a switch from focusing on the endless circularity of work, to focusing on the linearity of time, instead? This is the activating switch in our brains that will enable us to defeat entropy and achieve what we came here to accomplish:

• Decide to stop pushing/working. Instead, start creating. This switch will single-handedly take a lot of the Sisyphean tasks off your plate when you realize they're useless.
• Don't work just for the sake of working. If you're not feeling it, ground into your body and ask what wants to be created, instead.
• Don't create in order to gain validation from others. Just create in order to activate yourself into the good and purposeful feeling into your body.
• If you have haters, relish in their criticism, because you're putting out strong energy, and that's a great and brave thing. (I'm not talking about people giving you valid feedback, but about people who are just hating because they're triggered. You should know the difference.)

And remember that you are not Sisyphus. Why? Because you are alive, and by virtue of that fact, you are a different person every single day.

Your cells regenerate every six weeks. Your mind is continually evolving. Your body is accumulating the lived experience of every passing day.

You wake up a brand new person every single day - especially now, since our planet is accelerating at a breakneck speed.

Which means that today, you can do something different.

Let go of the damn boulder. It wasn't worth it. Let it smash to smithereens.

What will you create now?

This is the starting place for the founders of the truly great ventures.

Did you enjoy this? Let me know in the comments below if there are any topics you want me to address in future newsletters.

New Paradigm Venture Capital is my weekly newsletter - and live podcast - for investors, founders, and thought leaders creating a new paradigm for your industry and humanity. Subscribe now to join the community.

(It's a love letter because I believe in founders, and I think venture capital is the most powerful tool on the planet to create a new paradigm in all of our critical industries - e.g. healthcare, education, and more - in order to impact humanity and transform industries at scale.

My content is based on my lived experience of 15+ years in the impact venture space across the world. These are purposely opinion pieces, not rigorous academic pieces (though I have plenty of those, published at places like Harvard, UMich, and Kellogg.) Take what resonates. Leave the rest. And never, ever be a troll.)