Two reactions to the same problem:

A friend tonight said, “I couldn’t be an entrepreneur. I need safety. I need the certainty of a steady paycheck, without having to worry if my business is going to fail.”

I said, “I couldn’t have a job. I need safety. I need the certainty of my own company, where I’m in total control of my income, without having to worry if a boss will fire me.”

Consider a third option: working towards a place where you’re not worried about anything that happens. Whether your business fails or your boss fires you, you are still you. And because of that you will be fine. Just like you always are.

What’s not okay to is pretend that either of the first two aren’t rooted in the same fear and worry. That pointing out the semantic differences between them doesn’t belie a sad acceptance of being afraid.

A better way is to live your life in a manner that is indifferent to the things that happen to you and acknowledges only the importance of what you do.

I have this email from Tucker in 2006 right when his book came out. What I remember to be so striking about it was how sure he was of its success. It made sense to me then because I was starstruck by the whole thing and it makes sense now in light of what has happened, but objectively, by the facts of the time, it is unbelievable. What’s impressive about Tucker’s is that his ego hasn’t changed since I first met him. His confidence wasn’t bolstered by selling over a million books. He’d already absorbed that, factored it in and reflected on it…before it happened.

If you’re someone prone to self doubt or discouragement or despondency, you probably wish he could bottle that elixir and sell it. I know I certainly wouldn’t have felt, as he did, that it was only natural that a book that dipped off the bestseller lists almost immediately after release could eventually pop back into frame and burn them up for more than 100 weeks in a row. I don’t even feel that way about smaller things that are much more certain, where credit it probably due and the stakes are not so high.

But on the other hand, I wonder if he can truly appreciate how insane that all is. That he’s driving around the country in a bus with his name and likeness on the side. That he’s now on the edge of cracking into a part of the cultural consciousness. Or if he’s already somehow taken this into account and moved onto to something else that hasn’t even happened yet.

I wonder if that trade off is worth it. Or maybe there is a middle way that avoids the pitfalls of my anxiety and his assuredness: living in the moment. To be content with what happens, as it happens. To have no ‘way’ the future needs to be to confirm your perception because you don’t have one. For each moment to be a refresh, wiping clear what came before and what you thought might come next.

Another way to get your narrative fix: Riding in the back of a cab or a towncar on the way into Manhattan. You come over the Williamsburg or the Brooklyn Bridge and you see the whole island laid on your right. If you lay back in the seat just perfect and stare out the window, the city, it seems, awaits your arrival.

A few hours earlier you were somewhere else – in another state, on a plane, over the middle of the ocean – but now you’re here and the timing, well, it couldn’t have been any better. You could broke or paid on business and the feeling is the same. That the epicenter of the world is open to you, that you matter there.

What’s important to remember is this sensation is meaningless. Or rather, it projects no new meaning onto you as a person. You should enjoy it. It is, no doubt, a rare and special feeling. Yet it is one of these agnostic narrative events into which you personally figure at such a minuscule percentage that it is essentially exactly the same for everyone else.

So take it for what it is but don’t take it to heart.