If you know the journey of writing a book is filled with days where you won’t feel like writing, days where you won’t feel like writing aren’t a distraction – they’re a sign you’re on the right path.
After all, if you know setbacks are what makes your journey your journey, how could your journey be disturbed by setbacks?
Most people don’t really want the freedom to do anything they want, in other words, a life without constraints.
They want the freedom to set their own constraints.
To decide, “I want to spend my time writing,” instead of saying, “I am supposed to become a lawyer because that’s what we do in this family.”
To decide, “I don’t drink alcohol,” instead of saying, “My social circle forces me to have a glass when I’m out.”
To decide, “I want to live in that house, drive that car, and go on that exotic holiday, and I’m going to make it happen,” instead of saying, “I’m constrained by my talent, potential, current job, or where I grew up.”
To decide, “I have time to learn a new language because it’s important to me,” instead of saying, “I’m too busy, I can’t (or don’t deserve to) do anything nice for myself.”
Good or bad, beneficial or misguided, constraints are always there.
Because life constantly forces you to make decisions, and every decision leads to a new constraint.
Since it’s challenging to be aware of your decisions and their long-term constraining effects, which constraints do you consider important enough to set consciously (and spend considerable time and effort doing so)?
Where do you allow others to dictate the constraints you live within?
Who do you allow to dictate the constraints you live within?
Pick your freedom battles.
Learning a foreign language is both a frustrating and liberating experience.
We can focus on the frustration of not understanding the words the way we understand our mother tongue. Or we can realize that without the words, we are free to fall back on other ways of capturing and understanding meaning.
A crying baby can be soothed by words it does not yet understand, because she senses what’s behind the sounds, lets the meaningless melody cradle her to sleep…
Similarly, we don’t always have to know what’s behind the words, as long as we make an effort to understand the meaning behind the sounds.
Hearing a foreign language brings us back to that wordless world the way we experienced it as a newborn, before we tried so hard to put everything within and around us into language.
It makes us remember, there’s more to life than our words will ever allow us to express. And somehow, that’s a soothing thought.
Today, you can do things differently from yesterday.
And if you do, then today, you start changing.
And when you change, everything changes.
It’s as simple as that.
If only it were easy to start doing things differently…
No one really knows what they’re doing, no matter how loud they shout.
So don’t have to know what you’re doing yet before you start out.
Isn’t that a reassuring thought?
Daily blog post number 70.
Sometimes I’m frustrated I get less “work” done than before I started publishing daily posts.
Until I remind myself: who do I want to be?
A writer. Who writes. And publishes his writing. Every single day.
Then I realize: it’s not just who I want to be anymore, but who I choose to be. Every single day.
This is my path.
Learning a skill isn’t so much about getting better – that’s just a side effect.
It’s about discovering new ways of doing the same thing – just because you can, and just because you’re curious.
Doing the same thing, this time precisely – then doing it again, not precisely at all.
Doing the same thing, this time deliberately, carefully thinking about every step – then doing it again, not thinking about any steps at all.
When you stay curious, you learn to discover nuances you couldn’t perceive before.
When you stay curious, you learn to be deliberate until you can be intuitive.
When you stay curious, you learn to become less blind to what’s already here.
And when you stay curious, you realize there’s not much more to a fulfilling life than sculpting away, day by day – and anything can be a fulfilling skill.
