Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.
Written by Rory O'Driscoll
Hey,
Welcome back — Day Fifteen
Damn. Day Fifteen!
Halfway.
Two weeks down. Congratulations to those writing along at home and a warm welcome to week three!
We’ve got a few new subscribers in the mix over the last couple days. So to (re)-introduce myself, and this challenge: I’m Rory O’Driscoll. I’m from Minneapolis, I play soccer, I have a love for the Hot Ones show and challenge (I’ll get to that), and I’m not a writer by trade.
The challenge is a thirty-day writing challenge. The goal is to sit down and write (intentionally — not for work) for at least five minutes per day for thirty days. Look within. Commit to yourself. Enjoy it. And remember that it’s never too late to join in!
This challenge all started with a nudge — that felt more like a shove — from my very good friend, and the founder of Rally, Eli Goldman. Eli’s been running Rally for what will be one year later this spring. Out of the blue, in the middle of December, I shot him an email. “Hey! Welcome to the Rally Newsletter,” it headlined. It was a mockup of what a Rally Newsletter could look like. (Now that I’m thinkin’ of it, I may share that one day.)
We got on the phone the next day.
“Dude, I loved it,” he said enthusiastically. “What do you want to do with this?”
I hadn’t a clue. I hadn’t thought of a plan forward at all with it. I had written it for fun — no agenda, just vibes.
“Ummm, I don’t know. I guess I could try writing the newsletter once a week,” I replied, pretending I had thought things through.
“Sweet, yeah. When do you want to put it out there?” Eli asked with increased curiosity.
“Uh, how’s the new year?” I said, this time with even more uncertainty.
“I love it, yeah. Let’s talk more about this soon. Let me think about a few things.”
We chatted quite a bit about it in the week that followed. I was practicing writing, practicing drafts, planning ideas, etc. I felt ready and confident to write a few newsletters.
On Christmas Eve, I got a text from the Rally man himself. In the midst of him wishing me a “Merry Xmas Eve” and me returning a “Happy early Hannukkah” to him, he added a few more texts:
Now, the back-handedness wasn’t appreciated. But maybe that was a psychological ploy to get me in the game.
Christmas came and went and during the early afternoon of Boxing Day, we got on a call.
“So I like the newsletter idea a lot,” Eli began, “But a lot of people have been asking about doing another thirty-day challenge. And I know this is crazy, but hear me out…”
My stomach sank. I could feel where this was going. “Oh no,” I thought. Screams that would rival Michael Scott finding out Toby Flenderson is back in The Office ensued — only internally: “No, no, god, no, no, no.”
“What if you did a thirty-day writing or journaling challenge and posted your entry every day on Substack?” It was framed as a question, but it didn’t feel like one. “I bet so many people would want to join in,” he added.
My head began to shake unconsciously. I hadn’t even fully processed the proposal yet, it was just a head-twitching visceral reaction.
Nope. No chance. Hell no.
Every possible excuse and reason not to do this came to my mind.
Excuse #1: “I’m pretty stressed out right now, I don’t know if I can do that every day.”
Excuse #2: “Who would listen to me?”
Excuse #3: “Eli, Rally is your thing. I can’t do this.”
And more…
We spoke for a while, and by the end of the conversation, Eli seemed to think I was sold — I wasn’t, far from it.
But I did think about it. So many reasons not to do this challenge came to mind. I knew it would be hard. I didn’t know if I was capable of it. I felt a lot of fear of failure and fear of visibility.
Ultimately, that’s why I chose to do it.
I didn’t want to do it, but I felt like that was exactly why I should. I’ve always told myself that I’m someone who tries new things — who embraces discomfort. But I’d just been faced with it head-on and every part of me wanted to sprint far and fast in the opposite direction. There I was, settled in my guard of comfort, terrified of stepping outside and tasting the bitterness of the uncomfortable.
I had a chance to challenge myself in a way I’d never been challenged. A chance to walk into the fire. So I did.
And though this challenge hasn’t been easy — especially right now when I feel right in the thick of it — it’s been an unexpected joy. Every day’s a new challenge, each new comment is the gift of vulnerability reciprocated back to me. Every interaction is a fresh, new reward I haven’t known before. And every day forward — even the bad ones — are little wins.
And now, here we are. Fifteen days down, halfway through.
Finding my frequency, and stacking the little wins.
Appreciate you being here,
Rory O.
Rally On.
Ror can you possibly include the following topic in one of the coming days?
I feel like throughout the past year, my personal senses to feel have reduced in a weird way. The highs got less high, the lows got less low, the love reduced, but also the stress and feelings of negativity reduced.
I remember my time at UNH, everything I experienced or felt was multiplied by 10, which was super fun, but also in a negative sense hard sometimes. But the ability to sensibly feel a lot of things was great. It now almost feels like I reduced my senses to feeling by 50%. Maybe out of a defensive mechanism to not get hurt but at the cost of feeling pure joy. It has been on my mind lately, kind off compared with the concept of ‘getting old’, leaving that pure youth phase. I wanted to see if you had similar phases in which this was the case.
I once listened to a podcast in which someone complained about this concept. The guy did not want as much highs and lows but rather a flat experience, the ashwaganda hype stuff. The host told the guy: life is like a heartbeat. It goes up and down, up and down, sometimes high sometimes lower. If life (and your heartbeat) would be flat, there would be no meaning to life: it would be over.
That got me thinking and I am trying to experience a more active heartbeat now, even if that means I will experience intenser lows. Would love to hear your voice on this. Thanks Ror
hahahaha! Laughed my way through this one. And finished it thinking "this was the best one yet, right?"... 15th time thinking that.. keep inspiring brotha