Big Love

The modern version of choosing “the road less traveled by.”

In her book The Long Game: How to be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, Dorrie Clark illustrates one method of making decisions in your life. Choose the most interesting path. Make your decision by figuring out if what you are doing, or considering doing, is interesting. She also discusses this metric in a Ted Talk The real reason you feel so busy (and what to do about It).

I like it because it is simple.

How do we know our inner knowings? What Clark does not explicitly spell out is how to know if it is interesting or not. How do we tune in to our inner voice? This is something that I am currently learning to do. Journaling has been helpful, as well as sleeping on it, doing other work, meditating, and talking with my therapist.

Another way of knowing was coined by the author, Denise Linn, in regards to sensing the energy of space or deciding if an object was clutter. She describes it in regards to tuning in to your energy and the impact of an object, space, or I am suggesting, idea, on your energy. You then ask is this “energy up, energy neutral, or energy down?” Tidying professional and author Marie Kondo became famous for her similar question: “Does this spark joy?”

One thing that asking “is this interesting” or similar versions of this question does is to help bring us into the present moment. It may have been interesting, engaging, and or serving its purpose, but how about now? I do not foresee asking myself this everyday about my job, for example. But I do see value in deliberately taking moments to check in about the said job so that I am not just sailing along.