Write something everyday

Two people live inside my head, one in premise and one in practice. One is afraid of heights while the other wants to skydive.

I walk under ladders on purpose, saying that I don’t believe in superstition, but then I throw salt over my shoulder.

Suppose I wish to cross a room, maybe it’s this room — maybe it’s bigger, maybe it’s smaller, doesn’t really matter.

How to start? Step one, I must cover half the distance — from here to there let’s say. And then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then, half the remaining distance. And half the remaining distance, etc., etc. 

With all of this, before I can cover the distance from here to there, I must cover half of half the distance, and before I can do that I must cover half of half of half of the distance, and so on and so forth. 

Which makes me wonder if I can move any distance at all, because doing so involves an infinite number of smaller and smaller intermediate distances until I might get to the other side of the room. How long would that take? How many times would I have to move?

So long as you keep your eye on your Must and optimize your time and energy to sustain it as best you can, you can continue to adjust and experiment with how you make money. Maybe you’ll get paid to do what you love. Or maybe you’ll take a job where the hours are clearly defined, the work isn’t too exhausting, and you have energy to pursue your Must on nights and weekends. But what you don’t want is to take a job that was intended to pay the bills and suddenly, you don’t have time to explore your passion, you’re too tired to step into that which you were put on this earth to do. And if, for some awful reason, you forget that money is a game, a make-believe concept that some people invented, you could be led back into the complex layered world of Should. And here, the loss isn’t a financial one. You are the cost. Is it worth it?

“When George Martin first met the Beatles and became their producer, he liked their sound and their energy, but he didn't think they could write songs. So he licensed a song, handed it to them and had them record it. John and Paul hated doing this, so they asked if they could write one. That became their first hit. Faced with opposition and competition, they became better songwriters.

Sir George didn't think much of Pete Best, their drummer, and he said so. He wanted to hire session musicians as drummers. Faced with a loss of cohesion and control, John, Paul and George took action, fired Pete, found and hired Ringo.

George didn't think there was a chance this Ringo guy was any good, so he had a session musician sit in for the first recording. Ringo brought his A game on the next track and that was the end of session musicians sitting in.

Often, our best work happens when we're in a situation we wouldn't have chosen for ourselves. The hard part is choosing to be in that sort of situation in the first place, the uncomfortable one where we have no choice but to do better work.

Find a galvanizer if you can. If you care.”