Today I’ve been wanting to write something here, but wasn’t sure where to start or what to say, so I’m just starting and seeing where it goes. There’s a lot to be said for this kind of approach, actually. It’s really easy to get sucked into wanting to get everything just so and feeling like we should wait until it’s all ready to go before we act.
It’s the old classic: ready, aim, fire.
Maybe that’s the best way to go about it sometimes, but I don’t think it’s the best in most cases.
Better than that is: ready, fire, aim. Or better yet, just: fire, aim.
Preparation is often just delaying and aiming when nothing’s calibrated is often just wasted time. So it’s often best to just take action, adjust based on the results, and go from there.
The desire to want things to be a particular way before starting can cause difficulty and delays in just about any part of life. Most prominent in my mind are the complications that arise in creative endeavors. Nobody wants to create something lackluster, so stalling before starting is really common.
That’s all that writer’s block is, for example. People think they’re stuck, but really they just don’t want to wade through all the mediocre writing that needs to be put down before they arrive at the good stuff.
And here’s an example from photography: for Friday’s blog post on Somewhere in Japan, I need a photo that illustrates or symbolizes windows being open and/or air flowing through my apartment. Part of me is afraid of making a dull image, so I’ve been putting it off. But really, I just need to a handful of minutes sitting with the subject and then play with compositions. I’ll find something decent, maybe even good, and it won’t take as long or be as difficult as part of my brain is expecting.
If I really think about it, there are examples all over the place in my life. All kinds of things I need to just start doing and not worrying about doing it in the right way or at the right time. You probably do, too. It seems like a pretty universal human tendency, and one that we’d be better off training ourselves out of.
