Your Hard Drive Is Showing
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Last Sunday at my church — The Bridge in Cleveland — the pastor said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Our reactions and responses build a reputation that becomes our legacy. He was talking about legacy. Not what we accumulate. Not what we achieve. The reputation we leave behind — built one moment at a time by who we choose to be to the people right in front of us. Then he put up a chart. Two columns. Reaction on one side. Response on the other. Reaction is impulsive. Reflex. Emotional. It comes from a place of surviving, of being triggered. It is driven. Response is something else. Constructive. Reasoned. Rational. It comes from a place of thriving. It is governed. He called it our operating system. Our reactions and responses, he said, reveal the operating system of our lives. I sat with that for a long time. Here is what I know about myself. Vulnerability doesn't come easily to me. I can be warm. I can be present. But truly open? That is harder. I used to think it was just who I was. Then I thought about my mother. She couldn't go there. Not ever. Not with me, not with anyone as far as I could tell. She wasn't cold exactly. She just couldn't crack the door open. And so I didn't learn how to either. Not with her. Not really with anyone for a long time. She was running off her hard drive. And somewhere along the way, I started running off mine. Here is the thing though. When I watch someone react — sharply, defensively, in a way that stings — I am learning to ask a different question. Not why are they doing this to me. But what are they running from. That shift changes everything. It doesn't make the reaction hurt less in the moment. But it makes it less personal. And it makes me more patient. With them. And honestly, with myself. I've noticed something else too. The difference between my closest friendships and every other relationship in my life comes down to one thing. Whether I let myself be known. Not liked. Known. That requires vulnerability. Which requires the pause. Which requires choosing — even for just a second — not to run off the hard drive. Every pause is a choice about the reputation we are building. Every pause is a choice about our legacy. Jaycee is currently running entirely off instinct, which is to say she is napping at full speed and has no notes. P.S. If something in this letter landed for you, I'd love to hear it. Just reply and tell me. And if you know someone who might need this on a Sunday evening, forward it along. They can subscribe at janeandjaycee.com/sunday. P.P.S. This week's Sunday Push goes deeper on exactly what we just talked about — the operating system you're running on, and how to start interrupting it. Your first month is on me. After that it's $6 a month. Cancel anytime.
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The Jane & Jaycee Project
Practical wisdom for women starting over.
There is a workshop I have been building called Before It Happens. The name says everything about what I wish someone had done for me. Before the money was gone.Before I stopped trusting my own instincts.Before I couldn't hear the people who loved me anymore.The idea is simple.Reach people before the hard thing hits.Give them something to hold onto before they need it.But the more I sit with it, the more I think the workshop is only part of the story.Because here is what I know now.The thing...
Hi friend, I got the news at work. An email I'd been waiting on for a long time, sitting right there in my inbox. I read it once. Then again, slower. It was good news. The kind you brace for so long that when it finally comes, you're not quite sure what to do with your hands. I could have gone home. I could have gone to our usual park, where I throw golf balls for Jaycee until my arm gives out. But none of that felt right for this. So I did something different. I picked a trail near me. Well...
Hi friend, This is where you'll usually find me lately. First cup of coffee, still warm in my hands. Maybe ten minutes after my feet hit the floor. Jaycee curled up beside me on the recliner, not quite ready to start her day either. And lately, before anything else, I open a little app called Yuno and let it teach me something. This week it taught me that the Vikings reached America. In longboats. About five hundred years before Columbus. Long before the story I was handed in school. I sat...