Ok, “Cure” might be a little bit of a bold claim. I’m not a writer, I mean, I am, I’m clearly writing this right now. But it’s not what I do. I don’t do it professionally. I don’t even know if I do it “right”.
But I enjoy it. I enjoy the clickety clack of the keyboard as I toil away. I like seeing what comes out of my mouth when I don’t have the social filters of worrying what somebody is going to think or how they are going to respond in the moment. I enjoy the opportunity to connect with people I’ve never met, purely because they enjoy something that I’ve created. Whether it’s good or not is a different discussion.
But I often find myself unsure of what to write. Or possibly, more often, I know what I want to write but don’t feel that I have the authority to write it because, “Who am I to say…” Excuses excuses excuses.
I’m a smart guy, I know about a lot of things, but I’m an expert of very few things, (to be fair, I’m only 28 years old so deep expertise isn’t exactly the stage of life that I’m in). And I fear the things that I am an expert on are inherently uninteresting to most — at least judging by my wife’s response to conversations of such topics I’ve been lead to believe they are uninteresting to most; they certainly are to her.
So I find myself second guessing the things that I have to say. Do I really have the authority to say that? Are people really going to hear this advice or find what I have to say interesting? Are people really interested in hearing what some nobody on the internet has up his sleeve about how to run your business or have a more productive day? Well, the current state of the internet, even excluding politics, would scream a huge, resounding, yes! And the reality is that it’s the internet! If they don’t care they can click away as easily as they stumbled onto me and wasted virtually no time at all. In fact, even if what I said was outright wrong, the chances of somebody gleaning even just a tiny useful nugget are pretty high when contrasted against the useless rabbit holes that most people are pursuing on the internet — I’m looking at you Buzzfeed, you get me every time! But here I am, still not knowing what to write… or second guessing what I know I want to write; the truth is still slightly unclear to me.
But I’ve found that, at least for myself, when I’m unsure of what to do, or unsure of myself for that matter, the best thing to do is something. Anything!
The absolute worst thing I can do when I’m unsure, externally or internally, is to just let it stop me. Something is better than nothing and done is better than perfect. If I want to write something incredible tomorrow the quickest way to not get there is to not write anything today. Because something incredible is not just going to spring out me doing nothing and waiting for inspiration to strike.
In fact, in these few short paragraphs I’m already starting to feel a little more inspired than I was with the first keystroke. Can you tell?
So this is me. Doing something. I don’t care the outcome when looked at in isolation of today, or of this story alone. I care that I’ve moved one step closer to creating something amazing tomorrow because I chose to create something mediocre today when the alternative was to create nothing at all.
Much love. Peace.
