This Too Shall Pass
This too shall pass. It's a quote I've been quoting for what feels like a lifetime, ever since I learned it. I was pretty sure it was Jesus who coined it. It wasn't. It goes back to medieval Persian poets, and that's as much as we'll talk about religion.
But what do I mean?
I'm tempted to make this about design, and I will for just a moment. I write about spec-based design processes, and I develop them at work. The spec is the thing that, after all is said and done, after you generate the artifact and after you delete it, is the only thing left behind. It's the durable artifact. The output is the thing that will pass. What remains is the standard, the token, the decision, the heuristic, the way of working. That's the design spec: durable, regenerable, interoperable. A few years ago that was a pipe dream. Now it's possible.
But let's make this not about design. Let's talk about life.
This too shall pass. The thing you're in right now, the problem you're facing, the friction point. The day you got something wrong. These will all pass. What remains is the learning.
What you can do with the feeling you have now is channel the thing that will pass, the stress, into something durable. Learning, a growth opportunity, something that will outlast the feeling of now.
And back to design. I'm sick of designing in industry-standard file types that pass: CorelDRAW, Sketch, Photoshop, Figma, in no specific order. I've started designing in code because, for all I know, it's the most durable artifact. The spec, the decision written down in plain text, agnostic of expected outcome, format or file type. Those will pass.
And my own separation of design and life, that too will pass. I look at my work as more than design writing. I don't want to push design, design, design. It's bigger than that. It's life written down that rhymes with design. At the end of the day, I will pass. Without making this depressing, the point is: what is the durable thing that lasts me? My thoughts? Not specific to design, but to life. Something that will outlive me, that will reach further than my own bubble. This site is a record, not a portfolio. It's meant to outlast any particular job, role, or moment.
In this moment, I'm feeling pulled in directions, and I'm feeling the stress of needing to document a thought. That too will pass. So I'm channelling that stress, the good stress, eustress, into action: something that will last beyond this moment, which will, in fact, pass.
So, the next time I'm in a moment that feels like forever, and the next time you are: remembering that it will pass, but accepting the gift of the stress of the moment, to channel it into something lasting.
That will pass. This will last.