I’ve started reading again. It’s a habit that comes and goes. Every time I think maybe this is the time that it’ll stick, and I’ll become one of those inspirational, successful people that wakes up at 5am with a stack of books on their bedside table. That’s not the point though.
I’m reading a book called “Feck Perfuction” by James Victore in which he shares his “dangerous ideas on the business of life”.
The point… is that it’s a 154-page collection of 77 pieces of advice. That’s one page for the advice and one page for a graphic to go along with it.
As I’ve been trying to make something of this blog (what is that ‘something’… I have no idea), I’ve come to realize more and more that he was on to something. It’s more than the incredibly relatable ideas that he shares in the book, it’s the fact that he takes no more than a page to share them.
I hope it doesn’t come across as vain, but I truly believe that I also have some ideas here and there that are worthy of being published, in a book or in a blog post. BUT, every time I try to develop one of those ideas into something more thought out, something proven or at least provable, I end up chasing my own tail.
Trying to force my personal thoughts and ideas into a well-organized, thousand-word post is perhaps not my forte. The more I try to secure some elusive “truth”, the more I shrink away from myself. The more I doubt. In many cases, I set the idea aside and never see it through. Or, I force myself to continue on, and I end up deflated, feeling unsuccessful in sharing the purity of the idea in the “right” form.
One of the ideas that Victore shares in his book, number 23, is “Just Start”. “Most people start by stopping,” he says. “An utterly genius idea pops into your head–start a business, write a story, quit your crappy job–and you let it die a death of inertia. You fail to start. This makes complete sense; as Newton’s first law tells us, and object at rest–like your ass–tends to stay at rest.”
(If you can’t tell by this short excerpt, the book is fantastic and I whole-heartedly recommend it. To anyone that finds themselves reading this.)
I am a thinker. I think and ponder and get lost in my head. With all of the thinking that I’ve done over my quarter century (does it make me sounds older and wiser than saying that I’m only 25..?), I haven’t managed to figure out what I want to do. I’ve spent so much time thinking about what I want to do, trying to find the perfect job or hobby or whatever, that I’m afraid I will never start. I am a thinker that wants to be a doer.
The only way to be a doer, is to do things. Maybe I don’t need to spend so much time thinking, maybe I just need to start. So here I am–doing. Writing. Sharing. Aaaaaand, *publish*.