Josh Allred's Blog

There is immense pressure in our culture to “find ourselves.” This is a fruitless pursuit. Identity isn’t something you just find. You are who you are at all times. It’s whether we can find the words to the story we are trying to tell, which is also different from the story others tell about us.

Creating an identity could be found in the future, where you are trying to go. It can also be resolved by looking into the past and reconciling it. The now is the tension, the intersection of who I was and who I could become. This is where we can find fertile ground to tell the story we want to tell.

It might be productive to ask, “Who am I?” However, perhaps a better place to start is by asking what kind of relationship I have with time. What makes the past, the present, and the future so different from each other? And why do we work so hard to separate them instead of embracing them? What arc are you on?

Planets orbiting around the sun create the solar system. It follows the rules of physics to work. Culture follows rules, too. We must understand that, much like gravity, these rules align things.

What is essential to understand is what we are centered around. What pulls us? What keeps us compliant? What happens when we break the rules? Which can be bent? Who benefits? Who gains status? We can all point to the sun and understand we are rotating around it.

However, it is much more challenging to point to the invisible forces of power at the center of culture. If we can’t see the landscape, we can’t possibly learn to navigate it. More importantly, we must ask, what are we trying to build around?

There is a vicious cycle we have cultivated over the centuries:

Work -> Produce -> Consume

In each step of the process, we have developed cultural status.

One who works over someone who does has more status.

Someone who produces more wealth also gains status.

To show this status, they consume.

And around and around we go.

But our problem is that we construe meaning with work/produce/consume.

We cannot possibly define meaning in our lives by what we consume. Consuming is based on our desires—what we want at the moment. For many, we have far exceeded what we could ever want. And yet, we are left dissatisfied.

The answer isn’t to lean in and consume more. A more expensive car, a more popular college, or a bigger house only creates more desire and an empty feeling of, “Is this all there is?”

Less is more. Not the other way around. The sooner we can correct our expectations of life, the sooner we can begin to live it. Once we live it, then we can find meaning.

Success isn’t a number on a screen.

So often, the reason relationships struggle is that we don’t analyze what fills the space.

Finding the space to forgive is tough when your heart is filled with so much anger or resentment or bitterness.

It has been said in so many great pieces of literature: To forgive is genuinely to be divine. We can’t just get rid of anger, though. We must make friends with it, dance with it, and make peace. However, when we do let go, the space can now be filled with something else.

If the path forward was obvious, management would have already took the path. Leadership, on the other hand, doesn’t follow the simple set of instructions. Instead, the chart a path. Pivot as they move forward. Always course correcting. If you know the answer you want, you will find it. However, when going to places that are unclear on the map, leadership has to step in. Even in the AI world, the space to lead is still vast. Most humans don’t know what they want. They know once they are there. But too often, there is the unsettling feeling of finding the next novel feeling. Because deep down, we crave experience. At some point, you can talk about the next great adventure; it’s another thing to go on.

A good coach, mentor, or therapist understands that you cannot change what has happened in the past. Instead, they help the student see something from a different point of view. They change the lighting, move the object in a direction, and see what has happened in a different light. From there, we interpret what happened in a new way. A new perspective doesn’t change what happened, but a new story can help us find the peace, clarity, and closure we seek.

Symbolism refers to objects, characters, and phrases representing something more significant than their literal meaning. Symbols can be used to spark a movement and rally people behind it, and they often have an emotional component.

On the other hand, meaning encompasses the significance, purpose, interpretation, or message something is trying to convey. Symbolism often tries to convey the meaning behind it.

For instance, the simple poem “Roses are Red…” insinuates roses as a symbol of love. A vessel. The poem’s meaning is what we interpret about the gift of a rose.

I am convinced that humans are in constant search for meaning. We create symbols to help us interpret what has happened or what is going to happen. And we make meaning out of every circumstance using symbols as a catalyst.

With 60,000 to 80,000 a day, we are constantly bombarded with thoughts. There is no quiet; therefore, it can feel like no peace.

But just like any microscope, we can find a sliver of space if we zoom in far enough. Magnifying that space to make it larger to allow time between the thoughts of nothing. That’s the moment we are looking for.

The other day, I fell while riding a skateboard. At first, I blamed the rocks and my son riding too close. It really hurt, and I felt sorry for myself. It had been such a wonderful day out. Now, it felt ruined.

But once I was done feeling sorry for myself and was sitting with the pain in my wrist and back, I realized that I was given a gift—a gift to be awake. I had taken the day for granted, and I forgot how fragile life was—that at any moment, it could be taken away.

I wasn’t wasting the day scrolling on my phone. I was out with my kids, spending it the way I wanted, yet I still was going through the motions. I wasn’t aware.

Awake.

1. Everyone wants everything. All at once, people demand convenience and luxury. While simultaneously wanting to be free of the cycle of work-produce-consume. And yet, want someone else to take responsibility, to lead, and decide.
2. Everything is possible. Our hole is not so deep that we can’t climb out. The world is not without problems. But in many measures, it is getting better. The question in the future isn’t if something is possible to make things better (we know what must be done) but rather when do we stop digging further down. This leads me to believe…
3. We don’t know what we actually want.