You don’t have to feel like a consistent writer to write every day.
You have to write every day to start feeling like a consistent writer.
You can only overcome your limiting beliefs by repeatedly proving to yourself that they’re not true.
Maybe you feel like you’re going off-track once in a while.
Maybe going off-track is how you build your own track.
Maybe your own track doesn’t always have to go straight.
Maybe you’re the only one using your track.
And maybe that’s fine.
When you’re right, be right with conviction so you truly reap all the benefits.
When you’re wrong, be wrong with conviction so you truly learn your lesson.
Because the more intense the pleasure, the deeper the pain, the more you learn.
If you know where you should go, relax. You’ll get there, fast or slow.
If you don’t know where you should go, relax. You’ll probably still get where you must go.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Keep moving.
Fast or slow.
We all live in a maze of mistranslations and misunderstandings about who we think you are and who others think we are.
Now, by lack of a way to know who we truly are, misunderstandings can be comforting, my friend; there’s no doubt about that.
But when you get so lost in the maze that it causes suffering, it might be time to start mending the misunderstandings.
Could it be that mending is nothing more than making another mistranslation about who we are that makes us happier?
After all, I can perceive myself as a struggling writer or a skilled wordsmith – both perspectives hold their truths.
It’s the power of our misunderstandings that molds our reality.
5 billion years ago, our solar system didn’t exist in its current form – but the laws of our universe already held the promise that one day, an earth like ours would revolve around a sun.
That earth has been revolving around the sun long before any human started observing planetary orbits and realized we’re not the center of the universe.
Animals, plants, mountains and oceans have instinctively dealt with the law of gravity long before an apple fell on Newton’s head.
Energy and mass have been two sides of the same coind long before Einstein proposed a formula for mass-energy equivalence (E = mc²).
Knowledge: invented or discovered?
More importantly: what do we do with all that knowledge – and the power it give us?
100 years ago, nuclear weapons didn’t exist yet – but the atomic building blocks and reactions making it possible have always been hidden inside the earth and the universe.
50 years ago, the internet wasn’t “invented” yet – but the concept of an internet has always been possible.
Today, general artificial intelligence don’t exist yet. Yet it seems that the laws of the universe have always made developing artificial life a possibility – even if it means biological life becomes obsolete.
Do we pursue power
Lukas Van Vyve
persistently pushing the frontier
even if we run the risk
that we destroy everything we hold dear?
I can’t just say, “today, I’m going to be excellent at writing.”
Excellence is an outcome: a result of focused daily actions.
And one of the fastest ways to excellence is the pursuit of failure.
Not just making accidental mistakes but actively seeking them out.
Did I write nonsense today? Did I understand why I was writing nonsense? Have I learned something from writing that nonsense that will help me write something less nonsensical tomorrow?
The pursuit of failure is painful, especially for perfectionists like me.
But once ego, perfectionism, and the fear of failure make way for a commitment to the process, there’s much to learn from daily mistakes.
