Priorities

It’s been one of those weeks, writing-wise. Hell, let’s be honest, it’s been one of those weeks life-wise, too. The ones where you start quite a bit – snippet here, paragraph there – of a bunch of different projects, but can’t get your thoughts together long enough on any one thing to see something through to its completion. They’ll all get there at some point. Just not necessarily this week.

Part of the reason is that in my various roles, both at Rivalcast and in my day job, it is widely understood/assumed that I am In Charge; that is, I have a track record of responsible behaviors and knowing where to find things to Get Shit Done, and therefore must be able to do anything at any time with a certain level of competence and panache. This is a dangerous assumption and one that I try to minimize whenever possible, because being In Charge naturally leads people to assume I Have Answers and thus come to me with all kinds of problems I am most assuredly not qualified to handle. People come to me with situations and are pleased because I seem to be taking time and thinking, but honestly, most of those thoughts are trying to control the panic over figuring out what can possibly be done and why the person is coming to me in the first place. Pull a few rabbits out of your hat and people begin to think you’re a magician.

And those are the easy ones.

The more difficult problems are the ones you don’t see me write about often. Those are the kind that take place in hushed whispers of the most private conversations, the kind that continue in one’s mind long after the tears are stopped and the phone is recharged. I’ve dealt with a lot of those conversations this week, and spent many a late night reading spy novels or playing Sims just to avoid sleep and the nightmares that would come with it. I know all too well the horrors many of them faced. I also know how it feels to get to a point where you can trust another human being enough to talk, only to be pushed away. The rational part of your brain tells you it’s just that the person can’t handle the information presented, and the emotional part says it’s you and you’re better off burying it. I know all too well what that’s like. People can’t abandon you for things they don’t know are there.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being In Charge, maybe it’s something else entirely, but when I’m presented with those problems, they take priority. The most important aspect of leadership is making sure your people are taken care of, which means you can’t shirk the tough stuff. What good is making a deadline or booking a show guest if someone you care about is suffering?

If all that weren’t mind-consuming enough, the other part is that I have a very big test on Thursday. It isn’t the kind of test you can study for, and I’ve already been counselled on what the results will likely be (being wrong would actually be a good thing). Oddly enough, I’m not really worried about that part. I’ve survived worse, and life has far more horrifying potentials than a couple quirks of biochemistry. What bothers me is that we don’t know for sure one way or the other, and it takes forever to get the stupid tests to find out what other stupid tests need to be taken and on and on until finally, FINALLY, you have a reasonably good idea as to what’s going on and can set up your Plan. Not having a Plan is the other reason why I’m lying awake until 3:30 in the morning running over contingencies. How is this going to affect RivalCast? What projects do I have running? What ones do we have in the pipe that are time-sensitive? Are all the show prep assets backed up where the guys can get to them easily? Who should I entrust as my backup with operational accounts? What info they need to do the things? Do I need to rearrange travel plans? Why can’t they get these godforsaken tests done so I can talk to people about this without inciting panic? Why can’t other people be more rational? Am I sure I’m being rational? (No, no, probably not.)

And above all: worst case scenario, what pieces of my life take priority? What am I willing to give up, what are my nice-to-haves, and what are my non-negotiables? Which places do I want to see? What things do I want to learn? Which people do I want to have conversations with, and how do I get a hold of them while there’s still time? To hell with the past and the future, the story is going on right now, and we’ve only got one shot at making it a good one.

So what things are taking priority?