The Other List

You know what you need to do today. But do you know who you need to be?

Somewhere out on the ice, eight hours into a day that looked exactly like the seven before it, I started thinking about lists.

Not the to-do kind. I had one of those. Ski. Eat. Set camp. Sleep. Repeat.

The other kind.

We spend our whole lives planning what we’ll do and almost no time deciding what we’ll be. What kind of person shows up when it’s hard. What we actually feel versus what we perform. Who we are when nobody is watching and there’s nothing to prove and the only thing left is the honest version of yourself.

The to-do list is easy. It just needs doing.

The to-be list takes a different kind of courage. It asks you to decide first. Before the day starts. Before you’re already three tasks deep and running on habit and whatever mood you woke up in.

I’m still working on mine. But for the first time in a long time I know exactly why it matters more than the other one.

What’s on yours.

G.