July 25, 2026
Starting Over Again...and Again.
People are their worst critic which prevents them from pursuing their true desires. Renewing or regenerating yourself is a continual process.
10 min read
My last week
Two experiences stuck with me this week and I’m intrigued by their connectivity. And how relative they are to my current situation.
I came across a quote from the influential psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung regarding why people judge themselves so harshly and end up saddled with the weight of regret. People spend so much time living in the past, thinking about what they could have been or should have done. The curious thing is that we can’t change the past since it has already occurred. We can only look forward what happens in the future and we can only do that by making changes to what we are currently doing. Jung concludes:
“The world is full of people suffering form the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know:
the life they mock is the life they were meant to live.”
Fast forward to the end of the week, when I attended a Creative Mornings meeting in my city. This morning’s talk was led by Brian Phillips, a founding principal with the architectural firm, ISA. Pulled from his company’s website, “Brian is nationally recognized as a leading thinker in the fields of urbanism, housing, and sustainability, and oversees the firm’s design direction and research initiatives. (ISA/People)
I thought this might be a chance to learn a bit about the various styles of architecture in my urban environment, but Phillips’s topic that morning was on competition. That’s all he was given to work with.
Phillips has a way with words. The words he uses to explain his work and his company’s efforts evoke a motion, or rather an “e“motion, that is so approachable and not commonly found in the world or architecture, or in the world of creatives. Phillips spoke of ’the dialogue’ between older historic buildings and new projects built alongside or surrounding them as they work to coexist and compliment each other.
He spoke how sometimes doing less allows for a space to make itself more accessible to a larger and wider variety of people since the purpose for the environment isn’t so predetermined by its over construction. His approach feels very genuine and you get the feeling that he tries to care for the purpose and use of the project by the neighbors and community where his projects exist.
How do we define competition?
Phillips saw himself competing in three different realms:
- Competition against others
- Competition with himself
- Competition FOR others
Against
I took from his discussion that, in an attempt to stand out and be recognized, he initially competed with others. Something many of us experience when we are starting out. We work longer hours, we work hard to be better than others and maybe even work towards being the best in our area of expertise within our firm or university.
With(in)
Phillips also realized along the way that this was also a time of intense competition within himself. He was trying to prove to himself he really was good at what he did, maybe even that he was worthy of the success he was seeing.
I was attracted to this concept and it’s one that I hadn’t really recognized prior to this talk. In an effort to identify what we are capable of, we drive ourselves to learn new skills and take on stretch goals or assignments to acquire skills we don’t currently possess. Through these efforts we possibly achieve recognition a little earlier than we are due. We aren’t trying to rise above others, we are working on building our own muscle and seeing what we are capable of. It’s all an internal competition.
For
He then shifted and shared that in the current point in his career, he finds himself competing for other people, which I thought was a really interesting concept. His firm is involved in a not-for-profit called Meantime, which seeks to activate underutilized storefronts within our urban communities.
The main question they ask is: What if vacant storefronts could be employed to test creative ideas for retail? By finding a purpose for a previously unutilized and vacant storefront, they bring foot traffic, light and life to a previous void in the urban fabric. A void that not only withdraws energy from a community, it can also create a threatening appearance to an otherwise gentle neighborhood.
All the while, they are providing a stage for an entrepreneur or artist to demonstrate themselves, their craft and their abilities.
It might simply be that at this point in Phillips’ career and life that there is less to prove. He is comfortable within his skin and that affords him to be able use his time and energy, not to compete against anyone, but for communities and people. It felt to me that he was including mentoring and guidance in his list of what drives him now.
It’s about renewal
Whether we are talking about an urban fabric or individuals, the idea of renewal was the common theme from my last week. Phillips’ discussion identified that renewal must be an ongoing process. It also doesn’t occur without some purposeful improvement by an individual. Jung, on the other hand, calls out what outcome awaits us if we forgo personal renewal. While we may justify our resentment with the belief that we were wronged or the cards were stacked against us, in reality the world wasn’t any more cruel to us than anyone else. What really fuels our resentment is that we let ourselves down. We let go of who we were or wanted to be and we settled for less.
I’ve intersected with many people throughout my years who expressed a desire to be or to be doing something other than what they currently were. Friends who wanted to take up an artistic craft and colleagues who thought they deserved to be further along in their career than where they found themselves. Each one had a different small voice inside their head that limited their thinking. This voice told them they weren’t good enough to even try; they would embarrass themselves. It told them they would never amass the quantity of finished product to achieve what they wanted, so why put in the effort? Or, it told them that they didn’t have the time to devote to their dream or desire because of their family or the demands of their primary job.
The excuses I told myself to explain why I wasn’t writing sounded like these:
- I didn’t have the right tools (I wanted fancy fountain pens and notebooks!)
- I didn’t have the time while I was raising kids as I needed complete quiet for a few hours to maximize my output. Or, my work got in the way…I should write another feature or scope of work if I had free time.
- I was worried about other people’s critiques and criticisms. I went so far to make up scenarios where I’d be speaking about of something I wrote and someone would heckle or criticize what I had created. And I wasn’t able to defend myself or my work.
The first two were just baseless excuses I made up to procrastinate. The third was an unfounded hypothetical fear that I used to scare myself out of doing what I wanted to do. Why would I assume the aboslute worst instead of staying focused on the positive outcomes that were possible. I think because I wanted to create a justification for not pursuing my dream. This way, it wouldn’t be my fault.
I couldn’t see myself dedicating enough time and energy to write a book which was something a few people suggested I do. But I do like the form of writing for a blog; just one idea at a time. My first attempt was to create a blog using WordPress back in the day. It was very time intensive as I was trying to compete with the visually stunning blogs that were popular back then, and still are. As I began to build an inventory of essays, they began to drift into the political happens of that day. I didn’t like the darkness of that time and the negative focus of my essays, much less my thoughts. So I shut that attempt down. And left writing for awhile.
Repetitive, or Incremental Renewals
Within the last year, I found myself processing another path in life, retirement. While I didn’t choose the timing, I was prepared for it so I chose to look at it as an opportunity. An opportunity to do what I wanted and to do it for that reason only. I am not trying to make money from this endeavor. I am not after becoming recognized in my craft or field. I simply have a lot of thoughts in my head and I want to become a better writer.
I have always loved technology so I joined a computer club focused on teaching people how to build their own website, something I had never done before. I chose to create a blog to host my writings. And it’s a blog focused on words, not beautiful pictures and graphics. It’s focused on topics that matter to me.
I don’t really share the URL for my blog. I don’t care if someone stumbles upon it. I am doing this for myself in order to be able to formulate what I think about certain topics and to hopefully be considered a decent writer. My wife has asked me how will I know if my writing has improved if I don’t have other people reading what I write. I’ll know. I re-read my writings and it is easy to see the changes that occur over a two or four year period of time.
What drives me to work to improve my writing is that someone may be reading what I write. If I wrote it on a piece of paper and then put it in a drawer, securing knowning that no one will ever see it, I don’t think I would have the same incentive to improve what I do.
What’s different this time?
I am reading voraciously these days. In the last decade I might have finished three books a year on average. Pathetic. In 2026, I have so far read 29 books. One way to improve one’s writing skills is to read and then read some more. Writing’s basic component is words and how they are assembled. There is no better way to educate yourself on spelling, sentence structure, and phrasing than to read other authors. You create your own voice from what you read.
I’ve also decided to not allow comments on my blog. I posted my email address and if someone wants to share their thoughts and create a dialog they can send me an email message. Something I can easily block if I find them offensive. :) Or, they can write a response to my post on their blog and pin me in their article or essay. The way the blogging community used to work when the Internet was in its infancy.
I’ve also changed my purpose. My purpose isn’t recognition and it isn’t even some grand outcome at the end. There isn’t a novel or self-help book at the end of all of this. There is just a blog that contains essays of topics that interest me. If I can weave them into a coherent concept, I could aggregate them into a single document or book at some point. But that is not the end game that I am driving towards.
The point is to get these thoughts out of my head an onto something so I can sit with them, edit them and research them. And I can be proud of them because they are outside of my head. I can be proud of them because of my critiques and not because of someone else’s .