![]() What is the one thing you most want to do in your life, that you haven’t yet even started? Look at your to do list. Or think about something you really want to do, that you haven’t dared to even put on your list. Starting an intentional community, or your own business. Asking someone for a date. Going someplace you’ve always dreamed of visiting. Learning something that would let you love what you do for a living. Walking away from something that has caused you too much unhappiness. Reconnecting with someone you really miss. Healing your body (exercise, diet), or your spirit (meditation), or a broken relationship. Why haven’t you started? If it’s a huge and imposing task or leap, break it down into manageable pieces. Make the first step small, pleasurable, and easy. Some early research., a phone call, a conversation.
If you’re afraid of failure, imagine what might happen if you overcame that fear, and lived this dream you have, and contrast it to the worst thing that could happen if you actually failed. Make a list of the things you could do to mitigate both the likelihood of failure, and the severity of consequences of failure — like learning more, getting someone to help you, or thinking it through carefully, alone or with someone else. Now compare the best case versus the (mitigated) worst case again. What would the first step be?
If you’re being held back by obstacles, list them, analyze them, and deconstruct them. List the steps needed to overcome them. What’s the biggest obstacle, and what’s the first step to getting past it?
Now, look at the first step, and just start: Today, Right now. No excuses. If you’re holding back, break that first step into even smaller and simpler pieces, and do the first one. If you don’t start, it could soon be too late. You (or someone who’s integral to this project) might fall ill or die, or a crisis (personal or societal) could arise tomorrow that would put an end forever to an opportunity that exists today. Don’t think too much. You can rationalize not starting very easily (and you’ve probably had lots of practice)! Just take that first tiny step. I bet once you take it, the next step will be much easier. No putting it off until tomorrow. You might as well put it off a century. First step. Right now. Stop reading this. Tell yourself what the first step is, imagine yourself doing it, successfully, tell yourself you’re going to do it. Stand up. Just start. (the intriguing artwork is by rodrigo from this site) |
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About the Author (2016)
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--- My Best 100 Posts --
Preparing for Civilization's End:
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Save the World Reading List
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
Giving Up on Environmentalism
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture:
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self:
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites
Dave, I think you’re cool. Thanks, brother.
Right back atya, Kate.