T2A Year in Review

As we conclude the 2021 calendar year, we would like to thank our readers for sticking with us over the past seven months. Whether it was skimming our articles each week, sharing them with friends on social media, or posting comments on the blog, your presence and feedback bolstered our confidence and fueled us to keep writing. 

Our family members and loved ones also deserve public recognition for their patience and support. What started as a “good idea fairy” back in March with a flurry of phone calls, Zoom calls, text messages and e-mails eventually yielded Thought to Action as we know it today. Between late night, early morning, and weekend phone calls and writing sessions, our loved ones sacrificed time with us as we pursued this project. They co-authored with us, edited our work, and listened as we brainstormed both good and bad ideas. Any success we’ve had is directly tied to their support for us.

In the first blog post that Alex Boroff and I wrote, we opened with Benjamin Franklin’s maxim: “do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” When we published that post, I was in the middle of my final semester of graduate school. As Jake Conrad wrote in his reflection on graduate school in the COVID-19 era, we had an abundance of free time. So much time that we often felt bored. I took up reading and writing as a hobby because I wanted to be more intentional about how I spent my time. I quickly fell in love with both activities—they satiated an intellectual hunger that “grad school by Zoom” couldn’t quite fulfill. And now that I’m back to a full time job, I truly miss the luxury of time I previously enjoyed to consume, craft, and construct the written word.

We certainly read and write quite a bit in our day-to-day activities, both in the office and outside of it. But there is something markedly different about leisurely reading and writing. It’s the time to contemplate, digest, and internalize what you’ve read. It’s the time to discuss and debate it with others. And it’s the time we take to dog ear pages, underline phrases and sentences, and jot notes in the margins so that we can one day return to reap their wisdom again. But as the minutes and hours of each day fill with myriad tasks and deadlines, the time to read — much less write— is often in very short supply. 

But as a group we have learned and relearned that making the time to write is a priority of the highest order. When we do, it always  bears fruit. While it demands work and effort, writing is a unique gesture that offers thoughts and insights for the benefit of others. Brian Fiallo testified to this point, sharing how he found freedom in self reliance. Similarly, Tara Middlebrooks experienced a break-through in how she organizes her time and prioritizes tasks. She found a way to live and lead intentionally. And Jennifer Walters reflected on a near-death, near-failure combat experience and realized that perspective makes all the difference when assessing our mistakes. For all of us, Thought to Action has been a helpful forcing function in our busy lives to still carve out time for introspection and creativity. Our team provides a level of accountability that a solo pursuit of reading and writing would likely not obtain at this point in our military careers.

For all of us, Thought to Action has been a helpful forcing function in our busy lives to still carve out time for introspection and creativity.

With that, we are all looking forward to time away from work and Thought to Action deadlines, spent with our loved ones, over the next several weeks. We will be back in January, refreshed and ready to bring you new content. We wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and joyous holiday season!