One of the worst phases of any project, I’m discovering, is the start. Not the very, very start, when you’re defining what you’re doing and what you want it to look like at the end – but the bit right afterward, when you actually look at the finish line form where you are – and suddenly realise that you have no idea not just how you’re going to get there, but of what you need in order to get there.
Actually, scratch that last bit – you actually have some idea of what you need, but you don’t know how you’re going to get it.
Coming up with the About page for the Society of Doing Things took some drafting, but I did it and got some good feedback from it. the problem came after I posted the About page and started looking at the things I was doing. I started wondering: When was I actually going to start Doing the Things that Are Worth Blogging About?
The worry got much worse when I followed a link to Ryan Holiday’s article, SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER? THAT’S MISTAKE #1 – and I started feeling REALLY under-confident about this whole Society of Doing Things business. Who am I to be encouraging people when I’m not doing anything remotely interesting?
Maybe I just need to redefine “interesting”. Maybe all something needs needs to be interesting in the Chinese curse sense; curious and scary so that getting involved in it jolts you out of your comfort zone.
I can be curious about Infinity through sitting at home, cobbling an army list together and painting miniatures, but I need to do the scary bit: getting together with Mick at The Wicked Goblin, whacking some terrain down on a table and bringing each other some good times.
I can be curious about getting my scooter licence by reading the road rules and going on practice rides whenever Celia is available, but I need to stand up for my own needs, ask more folks for help, book a test time and give Vickie her own mobility back through access to the car.
I can be curious about what I’m doing through the Journal of Small Wins, or I can make sure I update it with just how I pushed my comfort zones each day and what I achieved by doing them, even if I didn’t succeed at the intended goal; like “did a full length of wheelbarrow at bootcamp” instead of just listing “bootcamped” in there.
I can also keep writing about semi-random things on this web log, or I can open a vein, carve off chunks of my life and offer them up in the hope that they’ll catch the eye of someone who’ll say either “I’ve been there, brother” or “that’s just what I needed to read right then”.
But above all, it also means recognising that meaningful change comes slowly, that the worthwhile things don’t just materialise with a snap of the fingers. That it’s fine to be who I am right now, to be keen on the things I’m keen on, and to be without the answers I think I need as long as I’m going about finding them.
