For the First Time in 8 Months, I Am Home

Every time I sit down to write to you, my mind puzzles at the thought of an opening sentence.

"Will this retain their attention? Will this adequately tease what is to come? And don't forget the title – that's crucial to email open rates!"

Today is no different.

But today, I am different.

The past 8 months have been, by far, the most insane of my life:

Driving to the Arctic was a goal of mine, but the adventure there was effectively 3 months of detours I did not consent to.

Then, toss in the absolute absurdity of the young woman whom I had been attempting (?) to court for half a year actually join me for the return roadtrip home.

And, because any decent cake has 3 layers, add on top of that falling in love with her – Grace – and flying to New Zealand 3 months later to ask her parents, at a brewery with, to be honest, quite mediocre burgers, if I could marry their daughter.

(They said yes, AND she said yes! Otherwise the tone of this email would be one of depression and despair rather than the delusional optimism that is to come.)

All that to say, I have never spent such a long time so extremely overwhelmed.

Maybe that, you can relate to.

At first, I was overwhelmed by work.

To be completely honest, I make, on average, $200/mo directly from social media partnerships.

I have friends in the industry who make more money than me.

And show the receipts to prove it.

But I am lucky if I am approached by a brand that aligns with my purpose a few times a year.

And I'm even luckier if those same brands don't try to censor what I share.

And if they're alright with the actual mission:

Encouraging others to find peace, and maybe even their Creator, by stepping out into Creation.

I've basically struck gold. About an ounce at today's rates. But gold nonetheless.

And my solution was simple: just work harder.

But all of that work – easily 10-12 hours per day for weeks on end – resulted in a quick descent into burnout that pales in comparison to anything I've experienced.

And I never ended up making more money.

I started creating because I had to. Because I was drowning and it was the only thing keeping me above water. And somewhere in the growth, I forgot that.

People who support me — especially those who put actual commitment behind this mission and join the Out There Club — never consented to viral video concepts and recycled stories.

They signed up for the drowning guy who was honest about it.

And I have been quietly betraying them for months, without saying so.

Then, as fear around finances grew, I became consumed by performance.

"If I could not work my way out of this fear, perhaps," I thought, "I could simply perform my way out."

I became totally controlled by vanity metrics:

views, new followers per day, likes, and pleasant comments.

View counts. I obsessed over them. I scrolled to my past content – 30 million, 7 million, 9 million, 790,000. And then I stared at what I had been creating:

1,000. 30,000. Maybe 100,000.

And, at the same time, Instagram completely changed how they registered views, lowering them for everybody.

So it didn't actually matter what I was creating –

I set my sights on performance.

And at the very least, I was successful in obsessing over that.

Soon though, both hard work and performance failed to assuage my fears.

So I ventured into the realm I once called home: creativity.

Desperate to find a fix, and with any creative ability I once had now pummeled through the "hard work" and "performance" funnels, I attempted to "remain creative."

I spent my days coming up with viral video concepts.

And when that didn't work, I looked at what once performed well and rewrote it.

And when that didn't work, I simply reposted what once performed well.

In a vain attempt to find a glimmer of the creativity I once was enamored by,

I retold the same stories that once gained attention... over, and over, and over again.

I am sitting on a bench, in a park, in South Carolina.

The path in front of me is made of crushed oyster shells. The sky is blue, slightly faded, primarily because of the breeze, which gently progresses to the North, and occasionally decides to make herself more well known; as a result I can see clouds of pollen pass by my eyes. It is warm in the sun, but under the shade of this old oak, it is cool enough for me. There is, to my right, a fountain surrounded by a young woman attempting to keep her children from an unplanned submersion event (swimming). And to my left, there once sat a man with two large dogs; one black, one brown. A woman cleared the bush line across the way, and with a brief clap, they – dogs, not man – dashed off towards her.

It is Springtime in Charleston.

And for the first time in 8 months, I am home.

It was two weeks ago when I departed from Wellington.

The day before I left, Grace's sister – an actual missionary, in the real world – tossed a book my way and told me to give it a read.

"It's about solitude," she said.

And, as she is soon to be my sister-in-law, she kinda knew that's my whole shindig.

The book is The Way of The Heart, by Henri Nouwen.

In less than one hundred pages, Mr. Nouwen, a Dutch priest born in 1936, makes the case that most of the solutions to our struggles are found in Solitude.

In Solitude, you can hide behind nothing:

There is no friend to distract you, no ego to embolden you, no facade to shield you, no app to consume you, and no other person to blame for your shortcomings.

No, in solitude you will find, Nouwen says,

"the furnace of transformation."

What a terrifying thought, to be entirely and completely exposed.

And what a time consuming exercise, to be set ablaze in a furnace.

Yet the core lesson I have learned in my life – one riddled with fears – is that oftentimes, the most terrifying place to go...

is where we should go.

For instance, I overcame my fear of people by forcing myself to walk into the grocery store alone at 17.

Then I overcame my fear of solitude by hitting the road solo at 18.

And afterwards, I overcame my insecurities by putting my entire life in front of the world to be judged.

(I'm positive there's a better way to overcome that fear)

So, as Robert Frost so elegantly said in a poem my mother made us remember when we were homeschooled, I was inclined to choose the lesser-trodden path:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

With my business, creativity, and drive all floundering, I stopped everything.

I stopped forcing myself to write. I stopped posting on my socials. I worked to stop myself from picking up my phone. I stopped distracting myself with the news. I stopped sitting inside. I stopped attempting to be productive.

And for the first time in many months, I went for a walk. On the beach. Reading Psalms.

I returned home, only to prepare for another departure.

My parents were a bit confused – "don't you have ... stuff to do?" they would ask as I walked out the door having just announced that I was going to pick up the two kayaks I purchased on Marketplace ($220 for 2 sea kayaks was a steal, too).

Not really knowing how to answer, I slithered away to the comfort of my truck.

But soon, my fiancée too was (rightfully) concerned – concerned that her future husband just decided to stop everything for a week:

"so... when should I begin to worry that you aren't working?"

Well, what an unfortunate question to not have an answer to.

But I am 4 days into this new practice.

And I've cried numerous times.

Most recently, yesterday.

And I consider that a victory,

Because it means I am starting to close in on the truth.

Only once I desired to truly be intentionally quiet, could I start to actually live my life that way.

Then, only once I escaped the noise of the world I had created, could I start to hear the voice of the one who Creates.

And by "escape" I don't mean 6 weeks in Aruba.

I mean first, intentional silence and solitude. I mean sitting somewhere pretty, alone, and letting the thoughts I have worked so very hard to distance myself from, surface. I mean reading one verse from the Bible and stewing on it while going for a walk. I mean eating in silence instead of with a YouTube video playing.

But I also mean being present. Meeting with friends instead of texting; going kayaking alone instead of scrolling; leaving my phone in the car when going to church; enjoying a walk and seeking the sounds of the birds instead of a podcast, and so on and so forth.

As a result of the above, here is the truth I've been faced with:

I have an ego. And it has been destroying me.

Small roadtrips, writing, and sharing photos allowed me to feel – and to some extent, genuinely be – seen & heard while sitting in the shadows.

That is the heart behind this entire thing.

My mission originates from the desire to share what I have experienced – the pain of suffering but also the beauty in it; the struggle in loneliness but also the freedom found in it; the terror in being judged and the hate in judging, all intertwined and solved with the recognition that we are all quite hopeless and need a Savior.

But sitting above the heart, inside my skull, was a different perspective:

It took 3 years for me to grow to 1,000 followers.

It then took 1.5 years for me to grow to 80k on social media and email.

And in that explosive growth, I started to crave a bit more than sharing the surreal peace in the midst of chaos that I have experienced with others.

And silence is the only cure.

If I am ever allowing myself to be deceived – either by taking credit for the things I write, the stories I share, or the support I receive, OR by blaming others for my failures, judging others because of my own insecurities, or constantly worrying about my future – I am participating not only in some grand delusion...

but also in self harm.

The solution, then, is not to talk myself out of the ditch that I have steered myself into.

Instead, it is to sit quietly, call for a tow truck, and wait.

More clearly: every anxiety or worry or struggle that I have ever had –

(Including the one I have now faced for 8 months.)

was only solved, after failing to rescue myself, by sitting in silence and welcoming the presence of God.

That, I recently forgot.

The day before I flew out of Wellington, I left behind that which matters most to me:

Yes, my fiancée.

But also a younger Bryce that was actually comfortable, for years, existing in a place of entitlement. That was a Bryce that spent the last 2 years of his life attempting to make things work on his own. That was a Bryce that thought he called the shots; that insisted on being in control; that demanded things go his way.

Unfortunately, that Bryce – much like this Bryce – only learns to trust God after repeatedly slamming his head against a wall.

What's to come

In the near future, the stories and adventures of my life will no longer be ridden with "I's," but instead "We's." And for that, I am most excited.

See you Out There,

Bryce C