May Potpourri - Alignment, Perfectionism, Validation, and More

Thoughts on Visiting the Vatican, Perfectionism, Seeking Alignment, the Need for Validation, The VA, and our upcoming 6-month Substackversary.

This month started off with a lot of afterburner and not much rudder. I may have burnt out the gears holding a straight course for the month of April. :)

Since I couldn’t wrangle a solid single-topic missive this week, today I offer another round of potpourri. This is a series of short thoughts or draft essays. Some may be more accurately called "working theories."

Whatever you call them, they are a little peek behind the scenes at what's on my mind and what you can expect to see here in the coming weeks.

I hope you enjoy this little detour / preview.

Let’s go. 8^)

ICMY - Visiting the Vatican

In case you missed it, I published a bonus post this week.

If you’d like to join me on my 2022 tour of the Vatican, come along for the ride!

Visiting The Vatican - A Photo Tour

6-Month Substackversary

Can you believe it's been six months since we started here?¹

Part of the reason I've been extra scatterbrained recently is because I've been conducting a review of my previous work to prepare for the 6-month recap.

If your feed looks anything like mine, you've seen a few anniversary posts. They typically celebrate growth and lessons learned. I don't plan to deviate much from that standard. :)

I'll try to keep it real and provide my honest opinion. Growth has been awesome from my perspective, but not the explosive stuff that usually leads to viral anniversary posts. ;p

You can expect:

• Live Stream #2. Date/Time TBA. There's a new-ish Substack feature to announce and schedule them now, so look for that to pop up.

• Inside stats and thoughts on growth and readership.

• Highlights from the last couple of months

• Thoughts and progress on my book

And for my fellow 'stackers, I'll share what I've learned about growing here on Substack. (YMMV)

Stats from jofty’s Corner, 28 April 2025.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism means finding fault easily.

It took me months of introspection to realize I needed to address this. In part, it was difficult to recognize because I was hesitant to name it. Once I found this definition, I had 'permission' to name it, understand it, and begin to tackle it.

I was also hesitant to call myself a perfectionist because I don’t expect perfection. I am, however, rather skilled at noticing a lack of it, i.e.: finding fault easily.

I think this topic will deserve a proper missive and I look forward to digging in and sharing what I learn.

Please add your thoughts with a comment below if you have questions to ask or experience to share.

Seeking Alignment

Seeking Alignment is something I mentioned a couple times in the Burnout series. I would like to go deeper on this one.

Looking back, I notice a theme with much of my writing:

• guardrails

• authenticity

• empathy

... they all provide alignment…

• for my desired path

• my self-awareness

• my constant focus on a key weakness.

There is much to learn about alignment. It applies at home and at work, within ourselves and with those around us.

Alignment may even tie into our central nervous system, which looks like a deep rabbit hole I may briefly peer into.

Bottom line: Expect more about what it means to seek alignment, at least as far as I've been thinking lately. :)

Need for Validation

I think we're all born with certain needs for validation.

We can all picture little kids shouting "Look at me! Look at me!"

Most of us outgrow the shouting and jumping part, but I would argue those needs grow more complicated and contained, not smaller.

I struggled to outgrow that, and my career reinforced a validation-expected mindset. When I restricted my social circle to just my work, the expectation of constant validation deepened even further.

It's time for me to get a solid handle on this tendency of mine, so I've been giving this some thought lately.

For now, I can say I've seen progress, and writing here certainly helps! I can see many reasons why people don't stick with writing publicly, especially if they're seeking immediate validation.

TBH, I expected more traffic and faster growth... more validation from writing here. I am extremely glad that wasn't a motivating factor when I started.

Frankly, writing here may be the perfect mechanism to address my need to seek validation. By the time I write well enough (and relate well enough) to build a 'large' audience, I should be ready to handle the ‘validation’ with some skill or grace. :)

I know this, writing here, is where I belong. It still somehow feels 'right.'

'Vanity Metrics' as 'Validation' will come in due time.

The VA ( The Department of Veterans Affairs )

I recently sent a “strongly worded letter" (formal Patient Advocate complaint) to my local VA clinic. I tried not to let too much of the experience bleed into my Invisible Wounds missive, but if you sensed a little extra tension about the VA, that recent experience was probably why. I'll do better. :)

I now have a few working theories as to why I'm typically (at least) 15-20 years younger than almost every other patient. Without a dive into data, I will admit it could simply be a function of demographics, but the ratio is visibly quite extreme.

Here are my top theories to explore:

• Most people my age (late 40s) have better options.

• If the VA is their only option, they may choose to not seek needed care.

• Invisible wounds. Perhaps more wounds in my generation are the 'invisible' kind. They go under-reported, under-diagnosed, and under-treated.

I have a lot more to say, but I need to go slow on this one. I'm supposed to write from healed scars, not open wounds, right? :)

I'm beginning to understand why so many vets have a complicated relationship with the VA. I may need more words.

Invitation for Feedback

With the anniversary post around the corner, I extend a special invitation to provide your feedback. Your input helps shape our discussion, and I appreciate your thoughts.

One easy way to help is to hit "like" on an old post. If something I wrote stuck with you or helped in some way, a “like” on that post is a welcome ‘thank you.’

You can also provide feedback and leave a comment on this post. Any thoughts or questions you have about anything on jofty's Corner are welcome.

If you wish to reach out with a private thought, feel free to send me a DM.

Thank You

I need to thank you, dear reader, for hanging out with me through this process.

It never occurred to me that writing here would force me to tackle perhaps the biggest, most challenging issue of my life: relating to (or with) people.

As I get better at that, you should enjoy my writing more. 8^)

Thank you again for joining me. I appreciate your time, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care,

- jofty 8^)

1. My first post was on November 23rd, 2024. Wow, I've come a long way since then. If you've been here since the beginning, my hat is off to you for sticking around. :)