Tag Archives: fear

All In An Instant

There is patience and there is crippling fear.

Patience is an aware look at the situation, using better forms of judgement and aptitude to gauge prospects plainly laid out in front , and using all of this information to base judgements and action upon.

And then there is crippling fear that roots one so hard to their current situation that one fails to acknowledge discomfort, stress, and effects on health and mood before it’s too late and something breaks.

Both of these situations take just one single moment, one single instant to rectify, both within ourselves through our own actions or mindset, or through external forces that may just be the factors in the situation itself. A simple unexpected event.

But we can’t plan for the unexpected. We can plan, we can strategize, but the unexpected is.. unexpected.

It’s the difference between saying: “Yes, I understand that things are busy right now, getting out of control, but I’m creating plans and routines and methodologies to help with this, that I’m very eager to practice! Patience and persistence will solve this problem shortly.”

Or I can say: “I am so busy. I can’t do this. Why do these people keep demanding of me. I’ll never get this done. But I can’t stop, or somebody might get mad. Everybody is counting on me. There is no alternative. Must just keep doing as quick as demands come in.”

I prefer doing anticipatory work, rather than reactionary work. I prefer looking for schemes that will allow me to scale easily, rather than lurching like an old rusty transmission.

Smart & hard, not just hard. But this is my efficiency, not yours.

Productive or Insulting Criticism

As Seth Godin explains clearly in his book Linchpin: “But it’s clear that no matter what sort of creative work you’re doing, no matter how acclaimed or successful you are, the Lizard will seek you out and probably find you. What happens after that is up to you.”

The Lizard he is referring to, is the Lizard brain that tells you to avoid anything that’s scary, unknown, or that will invite criticism. The Lizard brain tells us we’re not perfect.

Nobody is perfect. Nobody has ever been perfect. Walt Disney was told a mouse would never work, Jerry Scienfield was booed off the first stage he walked onto, Steven Spielberg was rejected from University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times… the list goes on.

When we do ship our product, we subject ourselves to boundless criticism. We are bound to hear it, get it, and if we’re smart, we should take note of it, evaluate it, and make the necessary changes to make our product a better product.

Productive criticism helps us identify specific areas to work on, it gives us focus points to research and develop further.

Any other criticism shifts from cultivating the genius inside of us to stifling the genius inside of us.

Interpret it as you wish.

Two Maps (Or Multiples Thereof)

There are two situations that can hold us up in life, that I’d like to talk about.

The first is hearing from people about how we should be doing this or that, which we evaluate this or that, and then decide from that evaluation how to proceed, continuing on a path driving forward and breaking into new territory.

The other is coming up against a wall and saying: “Oh, I can’t climb that wall. I’m afraid there’s evil beasts on the other side, or that there might be danger at the top, or that I might fall, or that I’m not even allowed.”

One of these situations is hindered by fear. The other one, though fear may be acknowledge, it is forged by knowledge and introspection.

We live life without a map. Many people will tell us there’s a map, and show us a map, and become satisfied when we follow their map, but if we look back in 50 year intervals over the past 300 years, we’ll see that map ever changing. These map makers, one can deduce, are just making it up for their benefit it would seem..

Pick a map that intrigues you.