All in.

She was really talking of herself and the way she’s navigating through life. What I realized was that the thing she’d been describing was something that I’ve lost with myself. Going all in or not doing things at all.

The way she described it, she never made an intentional decision to be all in or not at all. That’s just the way she’d always been. My very hobby-psychologist self thinks there might be a correlation with biochemical levels in the brain, so if you’ve got any input on that I’d happily take it on.

The point is that I very much related to what she was saying. In all areas of life, I’d been all in or noting for as long as I can remember. When I played soccer, I did nothing else but to kick that ball. When I started liking metal, I went deeper than any of my friends. When I go in to relationships, it’s like everything else disappears. I know this phenomenon to be quite common and is usually described as an addictive behavior. I don’t think it needs to be.

From where I’m standing, there’s a very powerful force behind that approach. Because when there’s a yes, it’s an all-in yes. The all-in yes is so much more worth and there’s so much more to it that I’d be much more confident working with someone who gave it to me. So to be fair, I think that’s what I should give other people as well.

Somewhere I lost the policy of being an all-in person. I don’t know where, and I don’t know why, but I miss it. I miss being obsessively in to projects and engagements. I miss being the guy who always shows up. I miss being all-in.

I think what happened, and this might be a construct of mine, is that I realized that nobody really cares if you quit. And I think that’s a result of me not being in any contexts that have been rewarding all-inness. All of them have been far to forgiving on me, which has given me the short-term comfortable choice of not showing up. But it’s really been on me to keep things up, and I didn’t realize that this is what I’d been missing until just now. I thought what I was looking for was another context or project to come along for me to go all-in on. What it really takes is the decision of going all in or letting things be.

I want to go all in.