This is not the first post. (irony)

This first post is a long time in coming. Why?

In beginning to compose the very first post (Hint: This was not it.) I stumbled upon an unexpected result. No matter what direction I took, I couldn’t finish writing it—not a single version, not a single take. I knew I had already long ago embarked on a novel and unreasonably difficult journey, but I had also long ago decided there was no other option. Mistakenly, I thought I had finally accumulated just enough knowledge and just enough of the right words to begin talking about this big topic, Work Capacity (capitalisation intentional), in a way that opened minds, opened doors, and opened connection.

And the problem is, I can’t do that.

For quite a number of people, my voice will be irrelevant, redundant, grating—especially if all they see is a college-educated, near middle-aged white woman who had had what many would consider the fortuitous opportunity to work for Microsoft and did.

The easy way out is to say I am not writing for those people. But that wouldn’t accomplish much of anything because the whole point of this project is to make others curious about this topic in a way that is appealing or inviting.

So, when I say I can’t do that, what I really mean is I can’t do this without building trust, or at least without making it interesting.

If I have an agenda, I’ve already told you what it is: I believe there is a Promised Land. I see glimpses of it in every embrace. When a mother reaches for her child, and the child settles in against her. When a man extends a hand to help another man off the ground in a baseball game. When a woman who loves a woman does so without fear. When I realise the bathroom in the museum is all genders. And—my personal favourite for its simplicity—every time a stranger smiles at me.

If you’ve read almost any nonfiction book in at least the last five years you’re likely to have read an inscription or a statement early on that places you not just in the who, what, when, where, and why of the book, but also in the 21st Century mind of the author. Though common to thank the experts and texts consulted, these statements have become much more. Sometimes they are bold, sometimes thorough, sometimes exceptionally literary, but they try to do what I am trying to do now.

No matter how well or how poorly done, I acknowledge them as some attempt to say—I am human, dear reader. I can know little of your needs, your aspirations, the pains you have lived through, nor your chance at a safe and fulfilling future, and I acknowledge I have such surety in this moment to have published the book you are now reading. I am humbled by my opportunity in the context of how little I know—how much I have been given—and I offer what I have to you. I hope some small part of it is useful. I pray you will see some small part of the goodness I intended to write and that you will pick up the conversation where I have left it.

It’s a perilous thing, trying to do good. So, let me make clear I have no intent on doing so.

And as I’ve already alluded to you a little, talking about a finished book is also not the point of this blog. Rather, this blog is a place where I can kick the tires and stretch what I’m thinking. It’s also a place where I hope you will kick the tires because what I am aiming to do requires not me, not you—but us. Together maybe we can get somewhere.

Taking a truthful look at Work Capacity means we can’t look at things the way we think they should be for ourselves or for others. We must simply see what is already right there, setting aside both the good and the bad of our own worldviews, and listen to others so we can start fixing it.