Earlier this week, I read a blog post titled This Is What I Do Before 8 AM. It was written by a funny guy named Jon Westernberg, and it started like this:

I’m an entrepreneur. And a writer. And a creative. I do a lot of different things, a lot of different kinds of work. I know what the cliche says — I should be a hugely focused and productive person, who lives like a superhuman and breathes pure and untainted inspiration.

But here’s the truth. I’m a total mess. A hot mess. I run my life and my business and my writing career and my speaking engagements with a sense of organised chaos. Do you know why?

Because I’m a human.

Suffice to say, I highly recommend reading the whole article.

Even though Jon never uses this word in his post, I think his article is essentially and primarily a call for authenticity. “To thine own self be true” and all that. And I think that’s great. Especially on social media, it’s easy to filter our posts, our comments, our thoughts to present only the best possible version of ourselves. But that’s not real life. That’s not the real me.

Here’s the reality: I talk a good game. But I’m pretty bad at putting that talk into action. I don’t always practice radical candor. I’ve been terrible at flossing for the past two months. I’m behind on my advancement reviews, and very behind on a promised L3 recommendation. As the timestamp of this post itself shows, my discipline at posting on Wednesdays is slipping.

And I don’t know if things will ever get better.

…but I’m beginning to think that’s OK.

As Jon concludes: we’re only human. This shit is hard.

But it’s also the only shit worth doing.

So let’s give it our best shot. And when we fail, as we inevitably will…let’s pick each other up and keep on trucking.