Back Roads — Built, Not Born | Post 2
This post is part of the Back Roads — Built, Not Born series.
Start with The Routine That Held Me Together.
I started writing this post about New Year’s resolutions… In January.
Then I stopped. Then I stopped doing a lot of things — this blog included. I set out in January to build on an already strong foundation, and somewhere along the way I demanded so much of myself that I just… shut down. The ambitious January version of me, full of intentions and momentum, was running on fumes by March.
Classic. Typical. A cycle I know well.
It took burning out to realize what I was actually doing. With a little help from some Tony Robbins material, it clicked: I was trying to earn things I already have. Unconditional love. Support. Security. A son who thinks I hung the moon. I have everything I need — right here, right now — and I was burying myself in so much noise I couldn’t see it.
That’s not a motivation problem.
That’s a perception problem.
I had convinced myself with these stories and beliefs. That I wasn’t enough. I needed to do more. I needed to BE more.
So I stopped trying to accomplish everything. I put the list down. And I went a little deeper into a few things that were already right in front of me.
He’s Watching
My son is at the age where he follows me everywhere.
He says the words I say. He watches me do things around the house and tries to help. He’s my little buddy, shadowing me through the most mundane chores — carrying things that are too heavy for him, handing me tools he doesn’t know the names of, just wanting to be part of whatever I’m doing.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, it hit me.
I’m not the only one in this equation.
Every time I step into a gray area. Every time I say something I don’t mean, think poorly of someone, try to bail on a commitment — I picture him watching. I think about the man he’s going to become, and I think about the role I’m playing in that. Not the big dramatic moments. The quiet ones. The Tuesday morning ones. The ones nobody sees but him.
Ryan Holiday put it better than I could in Daily Dad:
“Our kids are whom we should want to impress. They’re the ones we should never want to let down. They’re not only the ones we’re fighting for but also the ones whose standards — whose natural admiration and love — we should always be fighting to live up to.”
When he asks me, “Daddy, what doing?” — I want to have a worthwhile answer.
That’s the deeper why.
The External Fix That Isn’t
Here’s the trap I keep falling into: the belief that making external changes — buying something new, rearranging my surroundings, starting a new system — is going to somehow make things better.
It doesn’t. It never does. Not on its own.
I’m still, in some ways, the kid looking at adults thinking they had it all figured out. Still waiting for that feeling to arrive. Still building the version of myself I always assumed I’d just become at some point.
The difference now is I know it doesn’t just arrive. You build it. Deliberately. In the small choices, the daily habits, the moments nobody’s grading.
Going Within
The page is dog-eared. Highlighted. Underlined. Meditations 4:3:
“People try to get away from it all — to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within.”
He goes on:
“Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.”
This is why I meditate. Not because it’s trendy. Not because some podcast told me to. Though the Tim Ferriss Show and Tools of Titans bring up meditation quite a lot — but anyway — for 10 or 20 minutes a day, I can simply exist in the moment. Everything else fades. Nothing is broken. Nothing needs fixing. I know peace.
Marcus also gives you a checklist for when you’re spiraling — people’s behavior, the things the world assigns you, your body, your reputation. He walks through each one and essentially says: none of this has any hold on your soul unless you give it permission.
Unless YOU give it permission.
“Things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within our own perceptions.”
I love that line. When something is happening, or when someone is intending to bother me, a little ping goes off — my internal monologue says, “There it is, outside of you.” A gut-feeling flag I try to trust before reacting. My inner peace, my purpose, my love for my son — none of it can be touched from the outside unless I let it.
The Only Opinion That Matters
The second passage that stuck with me was shorter. Meditations 4:18:
“The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. Is it fair? Is it the right thing to do?”
What other people think about how I’m living my life is none of my business.
If I’m showing up for my son. If I’m doing the work. If I’m living with some measure of integrity and intention — that’s the standard. Not the opinions. Not the applause. Not the eye rolls.
Life on life’s terms. Things will happen regardless of my reaction to them. The only question is whether I let them pull me off course.
The Real Resolution
So yes — I want to get in better shape. Spend money more wisely. Build better habits. All of it still matters.
But the underlying why is clearer now than it’s ever been.
I’m not trying to earn what I already have. I’m trying to be worthy of it — every day, in the small moments, in the choices nobody’s watching. Except him.
I want to earn those big hugs. I want to deserve those wide, amazed eyes. I want to be the kind of man my son looks at and thinks, that’s what it looks like.
The smaller goals are just the road.
He’s the reason I’m building it.
This post is part of the Back Roads — Built, Not Born series. Start with The Routine That Held Me Together.
Next in the series: The 90-Second Rule — What science says about emotions, and how I use it.
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