Some existentialist motivation for you - ft. Kierkegaard. Clickbait amirite?

Last week, Hard Work Club celebrated its 2nd anniversary. Two years in business, two years running payroll, two years paying taxes, administering group insurance, buying… office supplies. Plus of course the actual job of making stuff for our clients.?

That’s an achievement. A reason to celebrate even. So let’s celebrate with a little existentialism. Yeah, that’s right. Watch out Tony Robbins - this is the start of my existentialist motivational speaking empire.

See, I believe within existentialist thought there is a truly optimistic outlook on work and life. We can learn a lot about how we get things done. How we achieve things. How we succeed at things.?

We have a tagline at HWC - ‘Grit makes great’. We explain it this way: ‘great is the culmination of a series of small, incremental feats.’

I love that. And it reminds me of Kierkegaard (the first existentialist), who wrote this:

“The philosophers say that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”?

Woah.

Let me explain. I love this because we all (not just the ‘philosophers’) tend to evaluate things in retrospect (ie we look backwards). And when you do that, you look at the totality of the accomplishment more than the steps that took you there.

We are seduced by narratives that feature sweeping and sudden changes. Silicon Valley is full of them - sudden disruption changing the way we live our lives. Promises of implausibly big changes to society which are often mere hyperbole designed to raise more capital (see: Holmes, Elizabeth… and clearly she skipped all those incremental little steps with Theranos). More than often these projects fail (see: disproportionate rate of failure in silicon valley).

This Silicon Valley narrative can make ‘regular folk’ like us feel that our efforts are futile. Our progress, amounting to very little. But progress doesn’t happen in sweeping shifts. Instead it happens slowly, with lots of people doing their little part, every day.?

That kind of incrementalist perspective is deeply existentialist. This is a philosophy that’s often thought of for its examination of anxiety, dread, isolation, and meaninglessness. But at its core it is about individual autonomy. Our responsibility over our own actions and outcomes. Living authentically and with some sense of purpose. That we make ourselves and the world as we go (reconsider that Kierkegaard quote perhaps).?

And that gets us back to ‘Grit makes great’. Small feats add up. They can create meaning and purpose. The effort itself, adds up.?

So wherever you are, if you feel stuck, don’t worry. If you feel like you are waiting for something ‘MAJOR’ to happen, relax. Keep on taking little steps. Accomplish those small feats. They add up. Maybe to something major over time. We make ourselves and our world as we go.

Cameron Stark is a Co-founder and Brand Strategy + Growth Lead at Hard Work Club - a creative and design agency (or club) with great hard-working folks across Canada.