I think about this story, told on The West Wing 20 years ago, a lot:
This guy's walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are steep, so he can't get out.
A doctor walks by. The guy shouts out, "hey you, can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.
Then a priest comes along. The guy shouts out, "father, I'm down in this hole! Can you help me out?" The priest writes down a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.
Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, it's me! Can you help me out?" The friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "are you stupid? Now we're both down here!
The friend says, "yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."
To be an entrepreneur is to live in that hole. So many days feel as if we are down here alone, toiling away at our mission to create meaning and wealth.
And at the same time, we are optimistic. We tell ourselves stories. The hole isn't a hole; it's a path to the future! And sometimes it is. But when we allow ourselves to lose sight of the sun, we fall into the trap of confusing our expectations with our desires.
True hope comes from knowledge. Rather than reaching for what we hope is there, knowing drives our success. All good advice starts with: "know thyself."
We all know ourselves sometimes, and sometimes we lose touch. That is normal - we are focusing on those we care about or the mission we are undertaking. But, unfortunately, focusing on others means not focusing on ourselves. That will inevitably lead to drift.
The danger is when we also lose sight of the sun. When we know neither ourselves nor our path, despair can set in. So we try to grasp hope and find desire in pretense.
We are so thirsty for this hope that we grab on to the world as we wish it were and wander further away from understanding ourselves. Desire, garbed as hope, feeds despair.
We can do better. And the beginning is this paragraph's first word.
Hope comes from each other - the friend from Leo McGarry's story. Our friends can see the way out because they see us when we cannot see ourselves. We don't need them for this job constantly - merely to occasionally point the way back when we have lost sight.
So what should we do differently from today? Call out. Join a small community. A slack channel with three digits in the upper-right can be easier to make an ask of than one with four or five.
Let your friends know you could use help. Accept that from each other. Even as we are each in our hole, we collectively see the way out. Each friend gives you more of the picture. So you may profit as much from the insight from providing a bit of help as the person receiving it. So ask for help and give it - we will all be richer for it. And it is the right thing to do: when another has pain, one can, with so little work, point them back to themselves.
If you find yourself lost and down the hole, I invite you to call out. Another will hear you. If it is I, I will jump down that hole too.
I've been there before, and I know the way out.
Photo by Gary Meulemans on Unsplash