Stay here
Don’t run
What do you hear?
Where do you try to steer clear of the fear?
Stay here
Don’t run
Feel the fear
Don’t run
Confront the fear
Don’t run
Stay here
Confront the fear
Until it becomes clear
That everything you hold dear
Is so, so near
If you’d just peer
Behind the fear
Today, you’ll force yourself to chase fulfilment, not instant pleasure.
Because when you start getting the taste what’s on the other side of your avoidance…
Soon enough you won’t need brute force anymore.
It’s fine to give up on something you started.
It’s a pity to not even start because you’re scared you’ll give up.
Don’t let the fear of giving up stop you from getting started.
And don’t let the fear of failing stop you from getting started either.
Performance gap: the frustrating gap between how you know something should be done in an ideal world and how you currently do it.
One implication of the performance gap: you don’t have to master this skill today.
Another implication, maybe even more important: your idea of how something “should be done” is probably wrong anyway.
Because as you practice and gain mastery, you’ll also gain progressive insight: a more nuanced intellectual understanding of the skill you’re practicing.
What I thought was a “good” yoga session six months ago, I now see as a session full of misalignment and cramped muscles.
What I thought of as a solid piece of writing six months ago, I now see as an argument full of holes and points of improvement.
Sometimes, progressive insight is just about more nuances.
Sometimes, progressive insight shows that your initial intellectual understanding completely missed the mark.
There’s only one way to find out: practice: Sculpt away, day by day.
The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the “vital few”).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
I’m okay with publishing 80% rubbish if that’s what it takes to stumble upon something good.
But if only 20% of what I publish is any good, and I publish one post a week, then on average, I’ll only publish something insightful once every five weeks.
If I publish once a day, then on average, I’ll publish something insightful more than once a week.
This is why I’m okay with publishing a daily blog post.
It’ also why I write pages and pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling every day, most of it rubbish, whining, scattered thoughts, if that’s what it takes to get to that one insight or breakthrough. Sculpting away, day by day.
Write more rubbish, and you’ll write more good stuff too.
Volume matters.
One more word.
One more practice run.
One more yoga session.
One more moment of doing what’s important to you.
One more moment that brings you closer to who you choose to be.
Just one more.
The ankle and foot complex contains 26 bones, 33 joints and over 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Considering both feet, that makes a total of 52 bones, making up about a quarter of all bones found in the mature adult body.
https://3d4medical.com/blog/facts-about-feet
There are more nerve endings per square centimetre in the foot than any other part of the body.
https://www.simardfootclinic.com/feet-facts
A wealth of sensory information – suppressed by the padding in our shoes, orthotics – until we don’t sense anything anymore.
It’s like wearing safety ear muffs all day.
What was walking on this earth like, before we learned not to listen?
Muffled feet.
