Doing the work is easier said than done. It takes persistence. Dedication. Discipline. Motivation. Energy to spare. Stick-to-itiveness. 

I don’t have those things in spades. Sometimes I don’t have them at all. But when I do find just enough of those elusive qualities to do the work, I have seen the pay-off. 

Doing the work got me into college. It’s gotten me jobs. It’s helped me form relationships. It’s led to me diving hundreds of feet beneath the ocean and running more miles than I can count. It’s helped me develop habits that make me a better version of myself.  

When I look back on the times where I have done the work, I notice a pattern. I find myself most capable of doing the work when I set a tangible, time-bound goal. The thought of not meeting that goal (particularly if it’s a goal I advertise prematurely) acts as the kick-in-the-ass I need to do the work and make sure I get to where I set out to go. 

This project is me setting that goal. It’s me putting my intention out there in public view and I believe (if history has shown) that it will help push me to do the work. 

But what is the work? Why must it be done? 

I’ll start by answering the why: 

Reason 1: finding a reason for being 

I frequently find myself feeling like something is missing. It’s been hard for me to pinpoint what exactly that something might be, but the Japanese concept of “ikigai” has helped me put it into words: 

Ikigai or “reason for being” is the idea that everyone has a purpose in their life and that finding that purpose will make you happy and feel fulfilled. There are four criteria that make up your reason for being: 

• What you love
• What you are good at 
• What the world needs
• What you can be paid for 

There are definitely people out there that have figured out how to do all of these at once. I, sadly, am not one of them. Yet. 

My current job checks three of these boxes: what the world needs, what I am good at, and what I can be paid for. But I don’t feel like I love what I do. It’s been hard for me to come to terms with the fact that the path I’ve set myself on isn’t necessarily something I’m passionate about. But I also have used it as an opportunity to ask myself three questions: 

1. what am I passionate about? 
2. is it [my passion] something I can/want to get good at? 
3. will the world benefit from it [my passion]?

At this stage, I don’t ask myself if I can make money from it, because I have no plans to quit my day job. This helps to lower the stakes and make the overall objective feel more achievable. 

This project is an attempt at answering those questions and helping me bring a stronger sense of purpose and ultimately balance to my day-to-day experience. 

Reason 2: Building a practice of learning

When I applied for college, one of the essay questions was about intellectual vitality. Essentially, they wanted to know if I liked learning for the sake of learning. Did I have any examples of a time where I demonstrated an innate curiosity and ravenous desire for knowledge? 

At the time, I do think I possessed intellectual vitality. But over time, I feel like that quality that once drove me to try new things and ask questions has diminished. I don’t learn as much as I used to – and part of the reason is because I think I am out of practice. 

To learn is to have the discipline to build a new skill over time and be okay with the in-between part where you aren’t an expert and maybe are even “bad at it”. I’m not good at this for two reasons: 1) I’m a bit of a perfectionist and 2) I am impatient. I’m the first to drop a new activity as soon as it gets tough. Or I’ll call it quits after one round of success and never pursue a deeper understanding of the craft. 

I’d like for this project to stop that cycle and help me actually find joy in the act of learning again. I want to build patience by working through failure. I want to gain expertise by doing the research.  

Reason 3: Making the intangible tangible

Over the course of my education, I was asked to make log books on a few occasions. A log book is essentially a documentation of process. How do you get from point A to point B? What ideas are on the table? What did you try? What worked? What didn’t? How did you iterate and what was the result?

Log books can be a form of creative expression – the most successful ones I’ve seen (and made) are a collage of sketches, blurbs, cut-outs, and diagrams. Log books are a test of penmanship and are the reason why today I write in all uppercase (maximum legibility + every design professor I ever had wrote in all upper case and they all had pretty cool handwriting). 

My log books are still some of my most prized possessions for the reasons above. But I think the primary reason why I find the concept of log booking so meaningful is because they somehow accomplish the impossible. Log books take something incredibly transient (an experience, an internship, a class) – and allow you to put it on paper. Sure, you will also have the stories you tell and the memories you look back on, but your log book lives outside of you and can be shared as an artifact of your journey. 

This project is essentially that – a log book of my experience so that when I get to the end (if there is an end?) I have something to look back on. Something that lets me say “hey! look what I made!”