The telic versus atelic
Why do you do something?
Last week, we discussed taking action and that with action comes either success or failure.
The odds are not in your favor.
99.4% of authors will not be able to earn a living from publishing. To put that in perspective, a BUD/S Candidate starting hell week to become a Navy SEAL only faces an 85% washout rate. Yet, there is a prevailing myth that earning a living as an author is easy. The reason this feels so hard is because it is.
When a seven-figure author says, “If I can do it, you can do it too,” they believe what they say.
However, they have survivor bias. Confined to the world of the 0.6%, they can’t see the other 99.4%. Instead, they live in a world where all citizens feel blessed for their achievements.
To have tried and failed
I applaud and support you for still choosing to go for it. It takes true character to say writing is so important to you that you’ll do it despite the odds.
For those that do try and find out in the future that they have not been able to earn a living from writing, respect that you chose to do it, gave it your best shot, and in the end, you had similar results to 99.4% of the market.
This gets us to the central question: why are you writing?
On average, a human has four thousand weeks on this planet. If you are thirty and live to be eighty, you only have 2,600 weeks left for writing.
While this email touches heavily on productivity, it will not be in the way you expect. This week, I’m drawing on the work of Oliver Burkeman and his appropriately titled book, Four Thousand Weeks.
This book is an amazing treatise on productivity because it isn’t like other productivity books. It is a series of essays exploring the ideas of productivity and the best use of time. Burkeman does this not by giving you life hacks to get more done but by making you think about what should be done. His central premise is that you’ll never have enough time to do everything you want to do.
In one sense, of course, nobody these days needs telling that there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our overfilled inboxes and lengthening to-do lists, haunted by the guilty feeling that we ought to be getting more done, or different things done, or both. (How can you be sure that people feel so busy? It’s like the line about how to know whether someone’s a vegan: don’t worry, they’ll tell you.) Surveys reliably show that we feel more pressed for time than ever before; yet in 2013, research by a team of Dutch academics raised the amusing possibility that such surveys may understate the scale of the busyness epidemic-because many people feel too busy to participate in surveys. Recently, as the gig economy has grown, busyness has been rebranded as “hustle”— relentless work not as a burden to be endured but as an exhilarating lifestyle choice, worth boasting about on social media. In reality, though, it’s the same old problem, pushed to an extreme: the pressure to fit ever-increasing quantities of activity into a stubbornly non-increasing quantity of daily time.
In fact, the more productive you become, the more tasks others will give you to do. Burkeman illustrates this point with the example of email. You have a finite amount of time to answer emails. However, the supply side of incoming emails is infinite.
The act of answering an email has a high probability of triggering a response, thereby creating more work. The better and faster you are, the more others will rely on you to get the job done, thus increasing your workload.
What’s the answer?
The telic and atelic.
Telos is a philosophical concept that refers to the ultimate purpose or goal of something. It represents the intrinsic direction or aim towards which something or someone is naturally inclined or destined. Telos encompasses the desired end result or intended outcome that guides actions and decisions.
Are you publishing to make bank? If so, money is your telos.
Or…
Are you publishing solely for the sake of publishing—the creative act in itself?
This isn’t a judgment. There is no right answer. If you want my opinion, it is both. When you do something just for the act of doing it and not the result, then you get better results. You just need to get clear on the atelic and telic of the act.
The point is that sometimes we take a walk to get somewhere, like the store. Other times, we go on a walk just for the sake of walking—to see the countryside.
When you get to the point of exercising just for the act of doing it, then you get the benefit of being stronger and healthier over time. Fixating on the distance between where you are today and your end goal can be demotivating.
I challenge you to look for the atelic (non-result) purpose rather than just the telic (objective-based).
It is when we attach other purposes to the act that it becomes stressful. When we find joy in the atelic, the telic is achieved.
Our expectation of results creates a wanting and pressure.
In today’s publishing landscape, you are expected to reach full-time status as fast as possible. If you don’t, it’s assumed you don’t want it enough.
However, life determines the tempo, and the better you tune into the creative act and embrace the atelic, the more the results will naturally manifest.
As I write this, I’m days away from going on a three-week trip with my family to Australia and New Zealand. When my business partner, Lisa, offered to cover for me for the month of December, I was struck with a fear of missing out and an urge to remain active in the business while traveling.
That’s me not honoring my past work by not appreciating the results it has delivered. My previous efforts have led to my current situation where I can spend this time with my family.
What better way to exemplify the importance of family and living your best life than to set boundaries with the person who violates my boundaries the most – myself!
Trusting the atelic
I’m also leaving all the Author Nation work to others. The result of past work is that there is an amazing team in place, working in their areas of expertise. The best thing I can do for the show is to refill my well and give my life the space for additional inspiration. Accepting that doing less can be more is a challenging yet valuable lesson.
Getting the telic from the atelic
While overseas, I will be spending time with family and friends. I have relationships spanning decades that I benefit from, not just as transactions but as fellowships. I will hang out with old friends to create new memories. I can’t think of anything I would enjoy more. These relationships were built from past actions and have set the stage for these precious moments in the near future.
Can you embrace the atelic?
Read: Competition Versus Cooperation—Challenging Mainstream Wisdom