In the art of possibilities, the Zanders shared Rule #6. It’s about how two leaders where sitting in privacy, discussing affairs of state. One of the leaders, whom I’ll refer to here as leader 1, had a staff who bursts into the meeting with fury, shouting and banging fists on a desk to which leader 1 admonishes him and says ‘remember rule #6.’ The staff apologies and withdraws from the room. Shortly after this, another staff to bursts hysterically, gesticulating wildly to which the leader again states ‘remember rule #6.’ The same scene happened again and leader 1 reminds them again about the rule. After a moment leader 2 finally asks, but what is rule number 6. Leader 1 replies ‘Don’t take yourself so goddamm serious.’ The intent of the rule is to ‘lighten up’ or at least help those around you to do the same. When we do so, our central selves shine, or the part of ourselves that remarkably generative, prolific, even creative.

The mere act of putting this keeplists together, writing one keep at a time, being open to words as they flow, is to live out Rule #6, to move to an endless goal, where anything is possible, one keep at a time. It has also helped me resolve this tension I have always felt since I moved deeply into the realm of academia. Looking back, I was that child that wanted to write for a living, to do so creatively, and with words strung together like poetry, even narratives. A narrative poem. One of the first narrative poem I wrote was in college. I remember this distinctively as my teenage brain was in love or so I thought. The pain of heartbreak, drove me to find comfort in words that I wrote a narrative poem about that experience using Proverbs 20:30 as a guide. It was beautiful. I signed up to read it at an open mic event at Penn State at the time and flaked out in the end. I didn’t have the guts. That decision meant that I dropped the pen and focused on what my people sent me to school to do. I remember telling myself that if I couldn’t read how pain helped me to turn my life around to a crowd of strangers, then maybe I do not have what it takes to excel in this space.

I moved on to spaces that I could quantify, and buried my soul deeply into science and research. It paid off. I have done all I can with my field of public health. If I never get another grant, I will be fine. The story of how I got the biggest grant of my life from now where can be told over and over again, until I retire even. It never gets old. Then a pandemic of a lifetime hits and I realize something was truly missing. Out of know where, we created this blog and started to write. Rule #6 restarted my writing life. My calculating self may have chosen public health research, even made a great career out of it. But my central self without any agenda, may have saved my life, emerging day by day, one keeplist at a time, in the middle of a pandemic of a lifetime. As we round the corner, I ask you all to keep remembering Rule #6 and lighten up in whatever spaces or phases you find yourself. It just may save your life.