Last week I spoke at the business school where my daughter is a sophomore.
A friend wanted to hear how the talks went, so I sent him this:
Good afternoon overall. Ended up talking a fair amount of book material so I got that first one out of the way. Got good feedback, met some nice people and saw my kid. Solid day.
I read it back before I hit send and thought: that isn’t enough for the day.
Good feedback. Nice people. Saw my kid. And some part of me was still scanning it for a result.
He wrote back:
Love this text message
He didn’t think it needed to be more than it was.
Not everything has to be life changing.
We’ve gotten to a point where people review everyday meals like they should be moved to tears by a bacon cheeseburger.
Sometimes meals are just sustenance. Sometimes vacations are merely a few days where you sleep in a hotel and don’t have to go to the office.
And sometimes a day speaking to students is giving to them, and fun, and engaging, and produces nothing concrete at all.
That’s fine.
Grading every day is its own kind of hedge. If a day has to justify itself before you’re allowed to enjoy it, you’ll start optimizing days instead of having them.