2024 Review
The picture above is of my favorite pen.
I bought it in Italy over the summer on a whim after hearing from a client how much they enjoyed fountain pens.
I’ve never owned or even used a fountain pen before. They always seemed like a more complicated way to accomplish something that could be done easier.
But this pen converted me.
It helped me see something I wouldn’t have otherwise.
It’s actually a great metaphor for my 2024.
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My relationship to pens has traditionally been quite utilitarian.
Just use whatever is cheapest that gets the job done. I’m still shaking off a lot of the industrial thinking I’ve accumulated over the years.
While the utility of a pen is a precondition, it’s not what’s most important to writing.
What’s most important, is what is written. The words and the meaning. While what’s written is only possible through a pen that has the proper utility - the meaning and words are heavily impacted by the experience of writing. The two are integrated.
Or to put it more simply…
Our experience of writing impacts the meaning we record and create.
In 2024, more than any other year, I came to believe this principle applies to life as well.
Beyond the basic utility we have to fulfill within our roles, what matters far more to one’s happiness and fulfillment is the experience one has in relation to their life, and the meaning that we record in time as a result.
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Looking back on 2024
I started 2024 in 2023, filling out my 3rd Life Atlas, finding for the first time that my being goals mattered far more to me than my doing goals.
Doing goals just didn’t excite me all that much.
I was much more interested in how my life experience would change, and who it was that I was going to become in 2024.
This was in part due to new insight into what I was looking for out of life, but it was also tied to a certain malaise that had emerged.
I don’t know how to put it other than I felt disconnected.
The Monk Manual felt a bit like a drag, and a lot of the work I was doing daily no longer felt aligned.
I won’t get into all the details on how I came to these action items and steps (my coaches/mentors played a huge part), but here are the key discoveries I made, and some changes that were made as a result. All three are deeply interconnected…
Hiding self - I’ve traditionally found refuge in keeping a distance from others, and not showing too much of myself. I don’t want to be misunderstood, and as a result, feel rejected. The experience of this I’d best describe as a feeling of hiding, or shrouding. I keep things private and I tend to want to stay in the background.
I started the Potent Podcast, and tried to increasingly make the content less and less planned and more and more vulnerable. The last released episode is essentially a live therapy session. While I wanted others to benefit, Potent was primarily a personal initiative for growth. I’m going to do more of this sort of work in the future - because being authentic and unguarded feels good. It’s just a much freer experience of life - and freedom is one of my highest values.
Push energy - There have been many years of my life that I experienced the world like I was in Mad Max. A feeling of needing to fight against things and use push energy to ensure things were always in control. Internally it represented itself as a feeling of being in the 4th quarter on an important game and down on points. Materially, of course, there are always problems to face - but this way of operating wasn’t tied to any actual material threat.
I’d been addressing this for about six years but 2024 was a real breakthrough for me. Maybe I will share at a later date how this transformation came about - but now fear drives very little in my life. Somedays it doesn’t show up at all. I feel freer than I have in my entire life, probably even more than as a child. I can’t even begin to describe how different life is. I want this for everyone.
Playing chess with life, and people - Everyone deals with fear differently. Everyone finds ways to buffer themselves from life and people differently. I’ve used my intellect and mind to try to control and shape outcomes. Think of a person playing chess all the time. If you have a mind that can spin a lot of plates at once, you will be rewarded for doing this. But it’s exhausting, and it’s no way to live.
This was a twofold movement. The first was learning to descend from my head to my heart (I can physically sense now which of the two I am operating from). The second was letting go of control and really trusting that if I have the right intention, am thoughtful about where I want to go, and I trust the process - all I need to do is engage in the present moment fully.
Where I’m going in 2025
When you stop trying to control everything (fear) and let go of perfectionism (shame), a whole lot of creative potential opens up. Pragmatically this is in part due to just the incredible liberation of time and energy that comes from reducing all the things needed to try and constantly ensure one’s love, safety, and belonging.
Spiritually it means shifting from a negative fuel to a positive one - and the fuels burn quite differently.
2024 felt like the year where I was emerging from the cocoon. 2025 feels like the year where my wings will spread.
Business
Getting out of the way - I’m pulling myself out of the Monk Manual, with the goal of only really working on coaching the core team, product/content development, and mentoring a small group in the community through a depth container (more on this soon). I’m planning to get down to something like 4-8 hours a week in the Monk Manual. I’m not sure exactly where the freed-up time will be spent - but I intend to take at least a season to just reside in open space, silence, and solitude.
Go to greater depths - As I’ve gone deeper into my journey, the mechanics of time management are less and less interesting to me. Not that they aren’t important - but they are rarely the real issue people are trying to solve. Every external problem someone is facing is just a result of an inner problem making itself known. The true value I can offer is directly tied to the depth of my inquiry into what it means to live as a fulfilled, whole person. In 2025 all my work is going to move into deeper waters, with people of great depth.
Tell the story - We’ve never actually explained what the Monk Manual is really about. It’s not a planner company trying to help people get more done. It’s a mission founded on radically different premises from how most people think about their time, purpose, and work. This year one of the most potent opportunities is making the ideas behind the Monk Manual more explicit because the ideas are what have the potential of shaping individual and collective culture. And everything flows downstream from culture.
Personal
Optimize for connection - I used to think what I wanted most was meaning. But I’ve realized that meaning is just one of many strategies for gratifying a deeper desire which is connection. I want to optimize my entire life this year around connection (with self, others, GOD).
Embrace the imperfect - Life is perfectly imperfect. This is because life is nature, and nature is constantly in flux. We live in a constant state of birth, corruption, and rebirth. We cannot “fix” reality, and if we try to, we will only be frustrated. I’m optimizing this year around learning to love everything - even the reality of suffering.
Whatever I do - total presence - My goal is in every interaction to be fully present. To be equal parts active and receptive. I’d like to be the most present person anyone interacts with on a given day. If I can do this, I believe the positive impact I have on the world will grow 10x.
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What about you?
Where are you heading?
The value of a New Year is primarily its symbolic value as an inflection point.
It’s a natural time to reassess and reorient.
Potentially take some time today or this weekend to consider what single area of your life could benefit from a reorientation.
All the best,
Steven Lawson
PS. I saw this posted recently on social media. I don’t have attribution for the original author - I copied it for my personal files. I thought it was good enough to share here. Maybe it inspires your 2025.
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Porn = Artificial Intimacy
Alcohol = Artificial Joy
Junk Food = Artificial Nourishment
Drugs = Artificial Bliss
Smoking = Artificial Calm
Celebrities = Artificial Role Models
Social Media = Artificial Connection
Don’t sacrifice the real and authentic for cheap dopamine.