Well, I took the call: I am no longer writing for the Give Me Sport basketball section.

More accurately, I received an email stating that my contract was terminated due to organizational restructuring. As in, there will no longer be a basketball section, or I so I’ve been told. Or at least not one that I will be a part of.

First off, I just want to say I was really grateful for this opportunity. I worked with some really incredible editors, Olivier Neven and Jonah Kubicek. They kept me honest and also understood my strengths and shortcomings. Without a doubt, they helped me become a better writer.

In some ways, it sucks; this was a job that would pay me for writing about basketball. I started it during the height of the NBA playoffs with the ostensible aim to write about the Portland Trail Blazers. The only issue: the Trail Blazers had already finished their season looking for a first overall NBA draft pick, not the first overall NBA trophy.

Moreover, I really had no interest in international basketball; I watched some, I enjoyed some, but I was not exactly keen on watching a tournament wherein the United States was, once again, the runaway favorite. Basketball, for all the joy and spectacle of skill, style and swagger that it produces, is also a sport of crushingly brutal statistics. It’s played just long enough with plenty of advantages for the offensive player that, on average, the better team will win.

So, by the end of summer league, I had to write five articles per week about the NBA season right as it entered its dog days. Not being one to enjoy speculation, I decided to let creativity bear out: if there is nothing to think about, then there is nothing to write about. Then Portland sports scene received some wonderful news: the WNBA would be making its return to the Rose City.

Finally, something to write about. And I did. I gave ten names for a potential WNBA franchise in Portland. My favorite is the Rose City Riveters.

Even better, I followed it up by signing up to write an article about five duos from the 90s NBA who could make it work in today’s game.

But that was it; that was all I had in the canister. I tried to write an article about five trades the Lakers could make to help their team right now. However, as I kept working trade machines, I realized how much I don’t give a shit about harebrained trades for a franchise I loathe as much as I respect.

None of this merits offseason fodder; not my skills as a writer, not the NBA’s absolute lack of ability to market the sport as a sport, and not the Give Me Sport editorial board. That’s just not the content I think any publication I write for should want to put out.

---

---

That’s not the responsibility I want.

Responsibility. Now, there’s a word your high school professor, football coach or some other figure tried to wax poetic about. Let me refrain from repeating the platitudes and speak to the fact that I have been, at my core, very irresponsible for the past seven years of my post-undergraduate life. Since graduation, I have been searching for the responsibilities I want, and shirking the responsibilities I need.

This boundary goes hand-in-hand with people-pleasing. Signing up for whatever obligation could be hoisted at the drop of the hat because saying no just plain feels bad. From the disappointment on the requester’s face to the curt and dour end of the syllable. The act of negation, denial, rebuke or what-have-you feels harmful to the mantra of opportunity, of keeping doors open.

So, before going any further, let’s take a tally. At the start of Monday my list of responsibilities included:

• Writing for Give Me Sport
• Writing for Outlier.ai
• Writing for Atwood Magazine
• Managing my blog
• Managing my fraternity’s alumni network

But that’s just the writing and social media management part of it. Until now, I failed to realize that I have other responsibilities:

• Caring for my cat
• Paying the bills
• Eating healthy
• Exercising/practicing my flow arts
• Maintaining family
• Maintaining friendships

I’m sure we can split hairs on the importance of some of these responsibilities. But these twelve are ipso facto nutso. It’s even more nutso when considering that managing my blog and my fraternity’s alumni network means writing for two blogs, performing social media management, marketing and other subtasks that can add up far too much.

And that’s on top of a new job at Nordstrom’s warehouse, working eight hours a day most days and leaving me plastered. Keeping all these doors open was just as harmful to turning opportunities into reality. The lesson here is that I am not responsible for keeping all doors open at all times. Moreover, by keeping these doors open, we let in a lot of stress that can distract from the actual project.

The actual project? Writing for myself. I’m not going to say my audience doesn’t matter, anybody reading this matters. You actually took the time to read…checks notes… roughly 880 words of me rambling. A mighty thanks is in order for that. But I do this just as much to make sure I’m not going crazy.

There are other versions of this project; I’m keen to write on some short story ideas I have been developing with my friend Cheshire. I’m keen to release all of those short stories in the backlog. I’m keen to get back on the horse with my poetry and photography.

So that’s the project becoming ever more clear as of this week, but the lesson has been clear for a while now: scratch off unneeded projects and tasks from the list. It’s a lesson I learned ages ago from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (holy shit, I think I just plugged a product) but have failed to implement since reading in 2019 or 2020.

In the book McKeown hits a plethora of points explaining the utility and facility of the philosophy of essentialism; to quote the book’s pitch, “essentialism isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done.” But perhaps the most illustrative rendering of this idea is a picture from the book’s first few pages, a ball of energy going in one direction, rather than twelve.

---

---

It was a beautiful read when I first picked it up on recommendation from my therapist at the time. And yet, the ideas fell by the wayside of my day-to-day because I didn’t know what I wanted beyond being a writer and kept stumbling into new responsibilities without shedding old ones.

What did I want to write? Who for? Did I want to write about music for Atwood Magazine? Or the Portland Trail Blazers for local news? Did I want to write for my college fraternity’s alumni association? What did I want to do with my blog? Would I ever be a short story writer?

These questions have racked the project. I just could not close doors. I cared too much about finding answers for all of them. I prevented myself from sleeping well because how can one sleep when they have multiple irons in the damn fire at all times? I cheated on cooking healthy meals for myself because that’s time wasted in comparison to some album review. And I still spend too much time on social media.

No more. I’m cutting things off the list. Whether I make the choice or the choice is made for me, I don’t give a toss; the choice has been made. Give Me Sport had to go. It was a blessing to be let go. And while it sucks I won’t be able to pursue my dream of writing about my hometown team for pay, I can breathe a sigh of relief: I don’t have to write about the thing I enjoy for pay.

I can write about the things I enjoy because I enjoy them. If I write for another publication, it will not be done so as a regular contributor. I’m a guest writer. A sudden beam of sun through the rain clouds. A hummingbird come to visit the garden with a zip. A surprise wrestler running into the ring and jumping off the top rope with equal parts elbow and aplomb. (OH YEAH!)

So let’s start scratching some responsibilities of the list. First things first: Give Me Sport and Outlier.ai are gone. Instead, I’m committing to writing something at least once a day. Blog post, short story, poetry, what have you.

Second, let’s collapse, myself, my cat, my family and my friends all into one parent category. The order of operations still exists; I have to make sure I sleep at least seven hours a night, eat healthy, take care of my cat, Chucky B, and stay connected to family and friends.

We’ll maintain flow arts as its own thing because that deserves its own level of importance. Paying bills and enjoying my time on this world exist as two coin sides of the same coin, but for the sake of my mental, I need to consider paying bills a form of self-care.

Now, let’s look at the list of responsibilities one last time:

• Write every day
• Managing my blog
• Managing my fraternity’s alumni network
• Caring for myself, my cat, family, friends
• Exercising/practicing my flow arts
• Enjoying my time on this world

Oh yeah, that feels nice. Now it’s time to get started.

---