Lately, I have been trying to put a pin on something.
I am four months into going back to school, and somewhere in those four months, something has shifted.
I know that much.
I just can't tell you exactly what it is yet.
Almost every class seems to leave me with something that has very little to do with the class itself. An idea about a market becomes a thought about a business. A case about someone else's company makes me wonder why something has always been done a certain way. A conversation stays with me on the train home and turns into a question.
What if...
My notebooks are beginning to collect these thoughts.
Some are only a sentence. Some are barely even that.
They are not business ideas, exactly. They are not plans.
They are little pieces of something I haven't quite figured out.
Before something has a name
What I do know is that I want to create.
I want to build something of my own. Perhaps a business. Perhaps several things over time. I find myself thinking more often about making something that doesn't already exist, or approaching an ordinary problem in a way that isn't quite ordinary.
Every new piece of learning seems to stretch that thought a little further.
But if you asked me what I want to build, I couldn't tell you.
I can't put a pin on it.
Not yet.
There is something uncomfortable about having a thought without being able to name it.
We like knowing what things are. We want to ask:
– What does this mean?
– Where is this going?
– What am I going to do about it?
There is reassurance in being able to finish the sentence.
But I am beginning to wonder whether some thoughts need to remain unfinished for a while.
Perhaps there is a stage between not knowing and knowing. A stage where we know enough to pay attention, but not enough to draw a boundary around what we have found.
Getting closer to what we mean
This is where naming becomes interesting.
Finding the right words can bring something into focus.
I'm tired can become I'm tired of carrying this.
I don't know what I want can become I know what I want more of, but I don't know what shape it takes yet.
Something is changing can become I am discovering that I want to create.
Each sentence gets a little closer.
But there are also times when the words are already there.
We know what we think. We know what we want. We may even know what isn't working.
We simply haven't said it plainly.
Perhaps the honest sentence is inconvenient. Perhaps saying I want this immediately raises the question of what we intend to do about it.
So we reach for softer language.
Maybe.
I'm not sure.
We'll see.
Sometimes uncertainty is real.
Sometimes it gives us somewhere to hide.
Learning to tell the difference is its own kind of clarity.
The names we already carry
And then there are the things we believe we already know about ourselves.
I'm practical.
I'm not creative.
I'm the responsible one.
I'm good at this.
I'm not someone who does that.
Some of these may be true.
Some may once have been true.
And some may simply have been repeated for so long that we stopped checking.
Four months ago, I could have given you a fairly coherent description of who I am, what I am good at, and where I might go next.
I still recognize that person.
But lately I keep meeting parts of myself that don't fit quite as neatly inside that description.
I don't think the old names were wrong.
Perhaps they were incomplete.
And I don't need to immediately replace them with new ones.
I can write:
I want to create.
without following it with:
So what am I going to create?
I can notice:
This part of me is becoming louder.
without deciding whether it is sensible or impractical, permanent or fleeting.
There is a little space between recognition and conclusion.
I am learning not to rush through it.
This October
So this month, I want to pay attention to naming.
Not because everything needs a label, but because the words we choose—and the ones we avoid—can tell us something about how clearly we are seeing what is already there.
We'll begin with Finding the Right Words, staying with a thought long enough to move beyond the first, easiest description.
Then, Speaking Honestly will ask us to notice the difference between genuinely not knowing and knowing something we haven't quite been willing to say.
In Naming Without Judgment, we'll look at the labels and conclusions that can quietly attach themselves to what we notice—especially the ones we have carried about ourselves for a long time.
And finally, Letting Words Settle will give us permission not to turn every realization into a decision.
Because perhaps that is part of naming, too.
Knowing when to search for a more accurate word.
Knowing when to say the difficult one.
Knowing when a name is only a description, not a verdict.
And knowing when to put down the pen and give what we've written a little time.
I have quite a few unfinished thoughts in my notebooks right now.
I don't know what they will become.
But I'm paying attention.