What Have I Learned?

This is the 50th newsletter I have shared on LinkedIn

The 56th story I’ve posted on Medium

And the 60th formal dissemination of what started as the Truth of the Day

I don’t share those figures in an attempt to feign expertise or lucrative insight

Rather, an attempt to ask myself

What have I really learned?

What do I see differently?

Where do I want this to go?

What’s changed?

What do I still not know?

Without coincidence, questions like these are what led to writing in the first place

This started as an experiment of sorts

I’ve kept journals, notebooks, and far too many Word documents to keep track of

Trying to get thoughts out of my head, seeking a better understanding of life

What am I doing here?

What really matters??

Where do I want to go?

What might I try differently?

Why am I here?

Deep, existential questions

The more I asked, the more I wondered, the more I thought

For a while, I found myself conflicted on what to do with all of this

Part of me felt like the right thing to do is to share it

Perhaps it could help someone trying to navigate through their own thoughts and experiences

The other side of me felt too embarrassed

To put myself out there

To share my work

To accept the vulnerability that comes with being open

It’s easier to judge the creations of others, than to create ourselves

Who I am, to ask these questions??

Who I am, to share these thoughts??

Who I am, to have something to say??

I have experienced extreme highs and lows in life

That doesn’t make me special?

To a varying degree, we all have our ups and downs, our peaks and our valleys

If we are willing to share that with others, our internal experiences create external connection

There have been times when I woke up thinking everyday was bound to be the best day of my life

There have been extended periods where I have battled depression, suicidal thoughts, and the constant mental refrain of “I don’t want to be here”

I don’t share this out of desire for praise or pity, but rather perspective

The paradigms through which I see life and myself continue to change, transform, and evolve

Throughout it all, I have had a desire to document this process, this journey

To leave behind some record of my own experience

How I was feeling, what I was seeing, and how I thought about things

More than anything, these journals are something I want to leave behind

A window into how I saw the world

How I experienced it

How my own perspective shifted

That desire began to push me to challenge the fear that came with sharing my thoughts

But it wasn’t enough

What was the tipping point??

Not merely the idea of leaving some history of myself behind

But the idea that someone else could benefit from it

That in reading about Jack’s perspectives, others may see their own lives differently

To offer a reminder that you can go from seeing a glass half-empty, to seeing the beauty of the glass itself

No one accomplishes anything alone

We were each brought into this world by actions outside of our own

This wisdom, experience, and perspective left by others, continues to shape my life paradigm?

For that, I will forever be grateful

To share in wealth of knowledge, that man has left behind

Is in itself a blessing

To contribute my own understanding, is walk on the shoulders on giants

We tend to forget

We are all on the same team

We are all human beings, trying to navigate through this journey we call life

No one knows how the story will play out

But there is one thing I know

To work, to live, and to act in order to serve the greater whole, is the greatest privilege we will ever know

To leave behind all we touch, in a better place than we found it

To contribute to a collective purpose

That is what is most important

That is what I have learned

As I began this draft, my plan was to share some lessons, insights, and themes I’ve picked up

Those seem trivial compared to what really matters

I see now that this series is not truly a newsletter

But rather a series of my journal entries

(I will save my extended takeaways for a future entry)

Best to not to water down the clarity of this thought

What did I really learn?

That to serve others is our greatest privilege

And that this journey is just getting started