Embrace your insignificance

"Eventually, all our graves go unattended."

Welcome to the first weekend in December. You have about 15 minutes to finish your Christmas shopping (or, at least, that’s how it feels!).

1. “Nobody gives a shit.”

I’ve always been a bit career-obsessed. I knew I wanted to be a newspaper columnist by seventh grade. I didn’t follow an optimal path to get here (a long story for another post), but, by the time I made it, it’s fair to say that I defined myself by work.

A couple years ago, I walked away from my dream job as a columnist, taking a buyout from The Indianapolis Star and joining Axios. It’s probably the healthiest professional decision I’ve ever made. In order to quit being a columnist, I had to kill an idealized version of myself (and my future) that I had conjured way back in my teenage years.

As I wrote in my farewell column at the time, a Conan O’Brien quote in The New York Times helped me develop a framework for that decision.

“This is going to sound grim,” he said, “but eventually, all our graves go unattended.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter how great we are at our jobs. We can be the GOAT. We can host a late-night talk show on network TV. We can land on the moon or become U.S. president.

We’re all going to be forgotten, eventually.

I thought about that quote again this week as a Sports Illustrated story on Adrian Wojnarowski made the rounds on social media. Wojnarowski was an ESPN reporter so dominant at breaking NBA news that his scoops have their own term: Woj bombs.

Wojnarowski retired in September, a shocking decision, which turns out to have been somewhat based in a health scare. He explains in SI:

Cancer didn’t force him out, Woj insists. But it did bring some clarity. “I didn’t want to spend one more day of my life waiting on someone’s MRI or hitting an agent at 1 a.m. about an ankle sprain,” he says. In May, Woj traveled to Rogers, Ark., for a memorial for Chris Mortensen, the longtime NFL insider who died in March from throat cancer. Mortensen spent more than three decades at ESPN. When Woj arrived in Bristol in 2017, Mortensen was among the first to welcome him. Many ESPNers made the trip to Arkansas. What Woj was struck by was how many did not. “It made me remember that the job isn’t everything,” Woj says. “In the end it’s just going to be your family and close friends. And it’s also, like, nobody gives a s---. Nobody remembers [breaking stories] in the end. It’s just vapor.”

Reporters dream of becoming the next Wojnarowski. They sacrifice time with family, physical health and maybe even mental well being to work around the clock, networking and building sources.

I hope those reporters read that SI story.

I’m as surprised as anyone to find myself back at IndyStar writing columns. It’s rare to get a dream job in the first place, much less to walk away from it and then more or less walk back into it.

I’m proud of my work so far in my second stint. This very well might be the best year of my career. But I have to be honest: I’m not as good of a columnist as I was in my first run.

I skip events I should attend. I turn down more meeting invitations than I used to, and I’m too slow to reply to emails and texts. I write faster and spend less time crafting lines that are likely to get quoted on social media.

I work hard, don’t get me wrong. I’m often banging away at my keyboard before sunrise and after sunset. I still have high expectations and aspirational goals. But I’m usually not working during the hours when my children are home and awake.

The boundaries aren’t perfect. One night, when I was working in a lobby while on vacation earlier this year, another father walked by and gave me some unsolicited advice: “You know, lots of people could do your job, but you’re the only person who can be a father to your children.”

I was annoyed — but mostly because he was right. I had slipped. Everyone has already forgotten the column I was writing that night. But my son might still remember an activity that I could have otherwise been doing with him.

In my better moments, I’ve embraced my insignificance. As Mitch Albom wrote earlier this year, the world isn’t holding its breath for anything I might do:

While I fretted over my timing, and foolishly imagined the world needed my input on these big events, the truth is, it doesn’t. There are plenty of other people who do what I do, as I imagine there are others who do what you do. We are never as important to this world as we believe.

When I reflect on how forgettable I’ll be, I feel freer to reject the marginal career benefits of a night away from my family. Some events or meetings are absolutely worthwhile or even necessary. But most aren’t.

This version of my columnist self will have to be good enough. If it isn’t, well, then I already know I’m comfortable walking away.

We are people connected to other people. Everything else?

It’s just vapor.

2. Real talk

Ok, but now I have to be real with you. Parenting has kind of sucked lately.

My 5-year-old son wouldn’t listen over Thanksgiving weekend. Going out to watch “Moana 2” was a rage-inducing experience, and then we stopped even trying to leave the house. The not-listening continued into this week, and his school has been all up in our text messages over his behavior.

I’m bracing for more of the same later this month with the long — oh, so long — Christmas break ahead for both my children. As I’ve struggled this week, I found comfort in this Thanksgiving post from Melinda Wenner Moyer:

It's Fine If Your Kids Ruin Thanksgiving

Kids are typically pulled out of their routines around the holidays, too, which makes things worse. To children, routines signal safety, and novelty can signal the opposite. On top of that, if they have to travel or spend time with extended family they don’t know very well, they may feel excited, yes, but also anxious and apprehensive, which can spark clinginess and meltdowns. (They may also sense and respond to our anxiety and apprehension, which we often feel around extended family.) Instead of stepping up, our children act out — and then we interpret those “failures” as our own. We conclude that we have raised thankless brats, when really, we have raised totally normal and healthy tiny humans.

Just reading that again, I’m forcing myself to take a deep breath.

Children act like … children. We can only control our reactions. I’m going to keep trying to be a better father this month.

I mean, how can I possibly get mad at these kids, right?

3. OK, Gen Z

Axios posted the results of a survey from financial services company Empower, asking people what salary is necessary for someone to be “financially successful.”

Here are the average responses, broken down by generation:

• Boomers (1946-1964): $99.9K

• Gen X (1965-1980): $212.3K

• Millennials (1981-1996): $180.9K

• Gen Z (1997-2012): $587.8K

Hmm, can you spot the outlier?

Meanwhile, in a separate story, Axios notes: “More than a third of people ages 18 to 24 had reported no wage or salary income in 2022, versus less than a quarter in 1990.”

At least Gen Z’s got goals.

4. What I wrote

I typically avoid writing about national topics because other writers offer more value than I can in that space. But this was a rare week in which I had some thoughts on national issues. I published three columns:

• The media didn’t normalize Trump. Reality did.

• Meridian-Kessler killed bike lanes — and Indianapolis’ hope of change

• President Biden is culpable for Hunter’s problems

5. What I read

I’ll give you a thematic tie-in over a recent recommendation.

Back when I was agonizing over whether to leave my columnist job, I read Annie Duke’s excellent book, “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away.”

The well-argued premise is that our cultural worship of grit leads us to stick with things — jobs, relationships, whatever — longer than we should. Often, by the time we leave, we’re way too late.

Duke’s book is a great resource for thinking about quitting, and when to do it.

Well, this newsletter was quite navel-gazing. If you’re into that sort of thing, forward it to a friend who might also like it and tell them to sign up!