Now that Yet We Sleep, We Dream is on track for launch, I’ve been thinking about how I approach my line of work. No matter where my thoughts travel, the question keeps coming back to my values, how I define a “life well-lived” and a “business well-conducted”. I realise this is something I’ve struggled with for a long time with few answers for how to move forward.

I suspect part of the problem is that I’m dealing with it alone, with just my insecurity and self-doubt crashing around in my head. In the interest of trying something different, I’m going to share a bit of it here. Maybe sending such ponderings out into the universe will bring something useful back.

Values, then. Nothing stokes my cynicism quite like businesses that print and frame their corporate values and hang them in the boardroom. Much of that comes from having come upon businesses who end up flouting their values in sometimes damaging ways and acknowledging no shame. I don't want to be like them.

But it probably also comes from not really knowing what my values are when it comes to my work. I don’t know. What I do have an inkling of, however, is where my internal conflicts come from. I don’t have a proper term for these points of conflict, so I will refer to them as my Five Bastards:

Craftsmanship: Quality of work, treatment of ideas, approach to creativity, making an effort for my craft and ongoing education. Concern over this value often surfaces when I’m in the midst of a difficult draft, when my inner child, inner demons and inner critic all have a tea party and talk about how terrible my writing is.

Time and energy: Balancing the desire to get stuff done with the need for rest and recovery. Deadlines always rub in how much I’ve yet to learn and grow in my field, and part of me clings to the idea that if I can fix my process, I can win whatever battle I’m fighting on this front. But then, could the problem lie in seeing this as a fight, rather than adopting the zen-like acceptance that I’ll never do All The Things with my four thousand weeks of human life?

Financial practicalities: Self-explanatory.

Ethics and integrity: A difficult one, because while I can make immediate and direct choices on this basis, there are impacts further out that I have no control over. For example, I can take my business to a bank that does not invest in projects that violate human rights, but they can still get acquired by a larger bank that does. (This happened recently and I am rather annoyed.)

Sustainability: Impact on people and planet. Challenges are the same if not similar to the conflicts with ethics and integrity.

Every decision I must make about the craft and trade of writing seems to see two or more of these Bastards clashing together in a giant muddy scrum, each demanding to be the driving force behind the outcome. And there’s no easy way to tame their conflict, no perfect “once and for all” solution that’ll mean good decisions get made forever thereafter.

Recently, I read Tom Greenwood’s essay, Where are the A Corps?, the take-home message of which is that we’re not going to get things perfect, but we can still make things better. When you’re in the midst of everything being terrible, the Nirvana fallacy probably offers a dose of much-needed psychological comfort in the short-term. It’s nice to think one can reach a state of existence where one can do no wrong. But really, everything isn’t terrible even if a lot of things might be, and short-termism might be the thing that wears one out on the long journey of building something one can derive meaning from.

Well, writing this post hasn’t helped me figure out what my values are, but I guess knowing where my conflict comes from is a good enough start. Not a perfect start, but better than nothing.

Fine, then. I declare perfectionism bankruptcy. Let’s see what happens from here.