I remember simpler times.
I remember a time when I woke up every morning and didn’t immediately know what time it was. Sometimes, I looked at the clock on my nightstand. Sometimes, I didn’t. I just…woke up. That was my task for the first few minutes of the day. Wake up. Realize that it’s another day. Another day that would be good or bad, long or short, slow or fast, but another day that would be, above all, full of life. Not devices and tools and to-dos. Life.
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You ate all the candy and told your parents you didn’t. Oh, that damned first lie. But eventually, you forgave yourself. One more time.
You said you’d be home by ten, but you weren’t. They were worried sick. Your stomach twisted as you lay in bed. But eventually, you forgave yourself. One more time.
Your boyfriend said he was seeing someone else. How could he do that to you? What did you do wrong? Nothing. So eventually, you forgave yourself. One more time.
The girl you liked was never into you. You just refused to hear the message. When it finally sank in, you broke down and cried. All this time, wasted. But, finally, you know. So you forgave yourself. One more time.
You felt lonely and isolated. Why didn’t anyone understand? One day, you realize you never told them. That you pushed them away. But time heals all wounds, even if not all bridges can be rebuilt. You found a new start, a new chapter, a new life. And forgave yourself. One more time.
You knew you weren’t fit to work. But you showed up anyway. You wanted to look professional and strong. Of course, the project went sideways. You blew past the deadline. The final number was wrong. Your boss ripped your head off. Worse, she was right. But you could do better next time. Take the day when you’re sick. So you forgave yourself. One more time.
The voice in your head said “no.” That you couldn’t do it. Who should believe you? Why would anyone care? It brought up some nasty things, and you surrendered. To the couch. To Netflix. To ice cream. But you’d still be here tomorrow. You’d have a chance to try again. But to take it, you had to forgive yourself. One more time.
You were supposed to be so much farther by now. More money. A family. The job you really wanted. You don’t have any of these things, and, yet, life is still beautiful. There’s so much more to it than this. Maybe, it’s a sign to forgive yourself. One more time.
You don’t have to do it all alone, you know? Whatever it is, someone out there feels the same. But if you don’t raise your hand, they won’t see you. Can’t help you. Can’t tell you they’re going through the same thing. Don’t stay quiet. It’s okay. You can forgive yourself. One more time.
Whatever happens today, or tomorrow, or 36 days from now, promise me one thing. Promise me, you’ll forgive yourself. One more time.
I don’t know you, but I know this: You have internet access and enough time to spend some of it reading.
This is obvious to you and me, but this non-observation tells me two further, much more interesting things about you:
In this fight, this lifelong battle to fulfill your potential and build a life that makes you happy while also giving you a sense of meaning, you’re not dealing with physical obstacles. You’re trying to defeat abstract enemies.
There’s no one blocking the road to riches. Anyone can get on there. There’s just the market, and, yes, it’s a tough place. But people pay for things every day. Good products, good services, good people win.
There’s no obscure cult guarding the secret to happiness. It’s all in your head. And your hands. Happiness is a consequence of the decisions you make and the people you choose to engage with. Your actions, your emotions, your choices are what you have to work on.
Even if you are facing challenges with physical constraints, like excelling at sports, overcoming a disability, or moving to a place with more economic opportunity, these real-world barriers aren’t what’ll stop you from living the life you want. It’s the hypothetical, made up, self-conjured concepts in your head that will ruin you.
Concepts like laziness, boredom, self-doubt, procrastination, and everything Steven Pressfield would subsume under the term ‘Resistance.’
I’m here to tell you: All these concepts are one and the same and there’s only one way to deal with them.
You’re not lazy. You’re not bored. You’re not unmotivated. What you are — what all of us are — is afraid. And the only thing we can do that really helps — the only line of motivation we’ll ever need, the only piece of self-help advice that actually works — is a three-word sentence Nike turned into the most successful marketing slogan of all time after slightly tweaking a serial killer’s last words in 1988: Just do it.
“I’m not motivated” is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What does that even mean? Not motivated to do what? Work? In that case, aren’t you motivated to avoid it? You’re always motivated! Every action human beings ever take is driven by some kind of incentive.
It may not always be an obvious one, like money, but it’s always there. It could be a social incentive, some form of status among your peers, or an ethical incentive, the relief of feeling like you did the right thing, but behind every action lies a driving force, whether it’s happiness, or peace, or satisfying your conscience.
So if you work the counter at a sneaker store and hate every second of it, you’re not unmotivated to change. Heck, I bet you wish you could change much more so than the annoying corporate hack who’s on his third side hustle and pseudo-spiritual journey to inner peace already. But there’s something holding you back. For some reason, it feels like you can’t change no matter what you do. So you don’t even try. But that’s entirely different from not being motivated and it’s only a sign that it’s time to dig into this feeling.
I talked to a girl on Tinder. She was a scrum master and physiologist. She was in business school, but, really, she wanted to study fashion and launch her own creative company. As soon as we touched upon her dream, the conversation tapered off.
Messages took days to come. She was “busy.” On vacation. Didn’t feel like small talk, but wasn’t interested in real talk either. Or getting coffee, for that matter. When I asked her why she even used the app, she spoke the most common lie in the world: “I’m bored.”
She wasn’t bored. Just like you aren’t bored. No one is ever bored anymore. Why should we be? There’s no reason to. We’re 100% connected, 100% of the time. You couldn’t even be bored if you chose to. And that’s the problem: We don’t even try to choose to be bored.
We just pretend we are so we can keep filling our days with meaningless little distractions, like empty conversations on Tinder. Not because we love our entertainment so much, but because we know what lies beneath the stillness: existential dread. Go through the door of boredom, and that’s what you’ll find. The great scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal once said:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Zat Rana has a wonderful interpretation of what he means:
At its core, it’s not necessarily that we are addicted to a TV set because there is something uniquely satisfying about it, just like we are not addicted to most stimulants because the benefits outweigh the downsides. Rather, what we are really addicted to is a state of not-being-bored.
Almost anything else that controls our life in an unhealthy way finds its root in our realization that we dread the nothingness of nothing. We can’t imagine just being rather than doing. And therefore, we look for entertainment, we seek company, and if those fail, we chase even higher highs.
We ignore the fact that never facing this nothingness is the same as never facing ourselves. And never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely and anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.
So no. You’re not bored. You’re terrified of being alone with yourself in your own head.
Laziness is the scapegoat of everyone who’s trying to capitalize on your claim of “being bored.” “You’re not bored — you’re boring!” is what they’ll tell you. You need a hobby or a calling or a $250 fitness program with a personalized meal plan.
Of course, this too is nonsense. Laziness, like boredom, doesn’t exist. Psychology professor Devon Price explains:
If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed.
People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder.
Once again, it’s not a lack of motivation, an inexplicable unwillingness to act that obstructs your path to success and happiness. It’s the invisible boundaries in your head that you’re tripping over — sometimes without ever moving at all.
Laziness, boredom, procrastination, these are all excuses. Not as in “we suck because we succumb to these,” but as in, “we accept these as real problems when they’re just the symptoms.” Because that’s what they are. Surface-level phenomena that all lead back to the same root cause: fear.
My dad once told me this story: A colleague was driving to an appointment with a customer. As he was overtaking a truck, the truck moved into his lane. Seeing his car get crushed from the passenger side and compressing towards him, his animal instincts kicked in. Unleashing an ancient roar at the top of his lungs, he ripped out the gear lever of his automatic gearbox with one hand.
This is an automatic gearbox:
Clearly, we’re not talking about breaking off a knob on your radio. It’s a heavy piece of machinery, and the lever is properly fixated on it with multiple layers of further constraints built around it. That’s the power of fear. It can make you do unimaginable things.
Luckily, my dad’s co-worker survived the incident unscathed, but now imagine turning this same power not onto your physical environment, but against your own mind. That’s what you’re doing. That’s what you, and I, and everyone you know who’s struggling to realize their dreams is doing.
We’re taking this unbelievable source of raw power and, in lack of real-life threats to hurl it against, we turn it on ourselves. Of course, we don’t do it in outright, uncontrollable fits of rage — at least not most of us and not most of the time. We do it by self-medicating. By concocting and treating symptoms, like laziness, boredom, and other seemingly minor, but actually soul-crushing patterns.
John Gorman calls it “building around fear:”
Fear doesn’t manifest itself like you think, because often times we don’t give it the chance to. Fear isn’t always the sweaty palms that stop us cold in a job interview — fear is generally what prevents us from applying in the first place. It’s so subtly limiting that we often build around it without even noticing it’s there.
That’s why our long list of symptoms is so widely condoned and accepted. Society is playing a big, global, silently agreed upon game of “let’s hide the truth and move on with our day.” We want the cover-ups. And so in our day-to-day, it all looks the same; it all looks harmless.
The thing with fear is on a surface level it’s indistinguishable from laziness. 90% of the time it’s the former, and 90% of people will assume it’s the latter.
So instead of seeing everyone rip their gear levers out of their cars, we see them staring at their phones on the subway. We see them eating 4,000 calories in a single meal, playing 12 hours of video games in a day, or consuming weed, alcohol, and potentially worse drugs in the span of a few minutes. We see their outraged comments on social media, their finely curated highlight reels, their long or short list of small or intense vices, and we think, “Hey, these must be valid issues I have! After all, they have them too.”
No. The one true problem we all share is fear. We just choose to medicate it differently.
Just like there is no reason to be bored anymore, there is no need to have any other problem in your life than fear. I mean, geez, that list is long. The number of things you can be afraid of is endless.
You’re afraid of dying early despite having no factual indication whatsoever that warrants believing you actually will. You read about plane crashes and armed robberies and natural disasters and newly discovered parasites and it all feels like it’s out to get you when, in fact, they’re all 0.01% incidents spun perfectly by the media to drill into your not-very-thick-skinned amygdala.
You’re afraid of being alone because well, existential dread, but also because it looks weird and gets weird looks, and if your parents haven’t asked why you’re still single yet, your friends most certainly have. You’re afraid of not meeting social expectations even though we all keep telling each other there are no more social expectations, afraid of talking the way you want to talk with your boss, your customer, and especially the dude you keep staring at at the café because for all you know, he’s your boss’s boss.
You’re afraid of writing chapter one of your book because who thinks that’ll ever work out, but you’re also afraid of wasting ten more hours watching Game of Thrones, especially now that you’ve already seen the whole thing twice. You’re afraid of never being rich, but not nearly as much as you’re afraid of losing whatever little you have, because how are you supposed to live without your IKEA living room table, your $500 iPad, or your custom-design wall decal of a world map highlighting all the places you’ve visited already?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could keep going all day. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking stupid, fear of losing something or someone, fear of fear, fear of wasting time or not having enough, fear of not being good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, or inadequate in any sense whatsoever — your mind is littered with fear.
There are real fears, fake fears, the kind of fears you can neatly convert into boredom or laziness and dismiss at the surface, and the kind that makes you freeze right down to your bones in front of your computer screen despite absolutely nothing happening at all.
Now, here’s the thing: In order to deal with all these fears, you could spend thousands of dollars to further support the billion-dollar self-help industry which lives off reaffirming all your irrational jitters and nods along fiercely whenever you talk yourself into yet another cover-up. You could buy a new book from a new guru each week, collect a stunning array of probably-placebo supplements on your shelf, and attend a new seminar with a new pyramid scheme that is totally going to work every six months. Or, you can wake the hell up.
Wake the hell up and realize: it’s all the same thing. It’s all. The same. Thing. Fear. There is nothing else and there never was. Never will be. It’s the same, godawful, rotten, dark creature that’s always plagued us, and it will continue to invent new tricks till kingdom come. But, at the end of the day, it’s all fear.
You have to find a way to live in spite of fear.
That dog is going to keep chasing you until you die. And some days, it will get to you. But it can never — never — stop you completely. You have to keep moving. Always. Forever. The day you run into the bright light at the end of the tunnel, I want you to look back and give the finger to that dog trailing behind. Smiling. “Screw you, I won this! I made it. And I did it my way.”
Now, I’m not qualified to talk about fear any more than the guy at the corner store. I hold no degree in psychology, no certificate from some brain research institute, heck, I have zero formal training as a writer. But, like you, I have lived with fear my whole life. And, somehow, I’ve still arrived here. I have a job I love, lots of time, few complex structures in my life, and would describe myself as a happy, positive, optimistic person. I don’t know much and have my own issues to resolve, but I sure feel okay taking life one day at a time. And I think that’s what it’s about. Beat the dog. Again. And again. And again.
My theme for this year is ‘Focus.’ Across all areas of my life, I’m trying my best to drill down to what really matters. Projects. People. Parts of those projects and how I talk to those people. How I manage my time, my energy, my life.
The one thing that has helped me show up consistently in spite of fear, particularly with writing, but in other places too — and I have thought long and hard about this — is some version of Nike’s glib, cliché, annoyingly obvious slogan: Just Do It.
Because besides being glib, cliché, and annoyingly obvious, it’s also universally, inescapably true. “Just Do It” isn’t an elegant solution and certainly not a perfect one. It’s not dismissive or snobby but empowering and humble. It’s motivation. Inspiration. Action. Energy. And truth. And that’s why it’s the most brilliant piece of marketing of all time.
People don’t realize how deep this slogan is. I don’t think the creators did when they came up with it. They didn’t mean it to be. But it is. However, you can’t see that when you get hung up on its immediacy. “If it were that easy, don’t you think everybody would ‘just do it?’” No, no, no. You’ve got that all wrong. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about something a guy named Marcus Aurelius told himself 2,000 years ago:
“You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible — and no one can keep you from this.”
If all we did was focus on the task right in front of us, we’d accomplish 99% of our goals and then some.
Sure, we’d still have to pause and reflect on occasion, and not all goals would turn out to be worth chasing in the first place, but we’d just…get there. Don’t you get it? This is everything. All you need. The whole strategy. But it’s more than that still. It’s also a tactic. Because another consequence of a relentless bias towards action is that there’s no room for self-doubt. You don’t have time for big picture concerns when you’re doing. And I don’t mean running around all day like a rat in a maze. I mean steadily engaging and re-focusing on the task at hand. Even if it’s relaxing. Whatever the next small step is. Because the next small step is always doable.
Let’s talk a little more about what living “Just Do It” means.
A strategy is a long-term approach to getting what you want. A set of behaviors you’re committed to, a line of principles you’re unwilling to compromise.
Amazon’s strategy is to be the most convenient place on the internet to order stuff from. That’s “the way they do business.” Almost everything they do serves that strategy. The whole point of a strategy is that it can’t possibly work out tomorrow. It’s only efficient if you stick to it, and, because it’s a fundamental guideline in how you make decisions, it’s hard to change. If Amazon changes their strategy, all their hard work goes out the window. If they started being hell-bent on quality, they’d have to shrink their product range to the point of inconvenience. So they don’t. The strategy is set and maintaining it all these years has served them well.
Using “Just Do It” as the strategy, the operating system of your life, means committing to figuring it out on your own.
No more gimmicks. No more wholesale adoption of get-rich-quick schemes, diets with pointless rules (“never eat celery!”), and fake silver bullets you know can’t possibly keep the promises they make. You chase your goals based on what you believe in. If you think art should be free, then make art for free and get sponsors or donors. If you don’t believe in remote work, rent an office and hire locally. If you see the people in your country just not getting what you’re trying to do, move.
“Just Do It” is the best advice because it’s the only advice that works.
When I started writing, I gave lots of specific tips in my articles. “Here’s how to set goals, have a morning routine, be productive.” But specifics are full of hindsight bias. I’m only giving you the final 10% that worked and that worked for me in particular. The last iteration of all the cycles I’ve gone through. The messy 90% of the journey that led me there? I left those out completely. I might have tried 15 different things over the course of two years to finally nail my morning routine — but now I’ve turned that last, functioning process into a pattern and am telling you how to do just that step by step.
Am I even talking to the right person? Who is it for? Because if I’m talking to “me-from-two-years-ago,” then I’m talking to the wrong crowd. And if I do catch you at the point where you’ve covered the 90% of your own journey, well, then what do you need me for? My specific advice is only going to work for a tiny fraction of people who happen to be in the right place at the right time and for whom it will click immediately. Everyone else who still needs to go through the random 90% in their journey will be left out in the cold. Still feeling alone, still stuck with their fears. Except now, they’re disappointed too.
“Just Do It” may not be perfect, but at least it clears the air from the start: Yes, you are alone, but you also have everything you could ever need to figure things out. You will make many mistakes, and you’ll have to take responsibility for each and every one of the countless choices you’ll make on your own dime. But since no one on this planet can give you the perfect answers to the questions created by your unique, once-in-a-lifetime circumstances, choosing proudly and continuing to move forward is not just the best thing you can do, it’s also the right thing you should do.
That’s why I now keep saying things like “just start” and “get off your butt” and “go do things.” Because specifics won’t help. Fear or no fear, for each next challenge and next chapter, you’ll have to get through that messy, random part. You have to make your mistakes. Forget the advice. The empty promises of “proven plans you can follow.” There is no such thing. Summon your confidence. Be proud of who you are. Have faith in yourself. Pick your own battles and how you’ll try to win them. Commit to “Just Do It” as your strategy of getting everything you want out of life.
A tactic is a short- to medium-term course of action that serves as an attempt at living up to your strategy. “Given our strategy, this is the next thing we’re going to try.”
Going back to Amazon, Prime is a tactic. Launching a program that offers faster delivery, exclusive products, and extra discounts at a fixed price per year gave them the answer to the question: “Will people pay us to make ordering online even easier for them in a predictable, calculable way?” Based on the revenue they made from the new service, they concluded the answer was “yes.” Had it been “no,” then Amazon would’ve shelved Prime and that would’ve been the end of it. Compared to the commitment required by a strategy, a tactic is just a wet wipe. If it’s not enough, you toss it and pull out the next one. No hard feelings.
“Just Do It” as a tactic is refusing to let everyday hurdles get to you while relentlessly focusing on the next, smallest action you can control.
Your boss didn’t like the presentation? Fine, you do it over and show her again. You’ve run out of clients and your freelance business never really got off the ground? Fine, you shut it down and start from scratch. The girl behind your dream profile ghosted you for no apparent reason and made you feel miserable? Fine, you delete the app and try another way of meeting people.
All professional athletes ever do is to focus on the next play. How do we convert this move? How do we recover these inches? How can I get the ball out of the bunker? All year you worry about minutes, inches, seconds — and by the end of it, you’ve won the championship without ever thinking about it. Michael Jordan’s so-called “next play speed” was less than a second. He’d score, run back to defend, steal the inbound pass, lose the ball, then run down the opponent.
A “Just Do It” approach to managing your day-to-day brings down your next play speed, and you’ll be happier because of it.
The faster you can re-center after you complete something or get rattled, the better. Having a high next play speed also leads to improved happiness because it simply leaves you with little time to even worry about the picture. There’s no wiggle room to dance around your fears, but also not enough space to let them get to you. What’s the next play? What’s the next play? What’s the next play? That’s all you’re ever asking.
Again, this isn’t to say you should never rest or that you’ll never have moments where the dog creeps back around the corner and stares at you with unblinking eyes. It’s to say that, with this focus, it’ll happen far less often and you’ll feel more confident in handling it when it does. Once you’ve chosen a strategy, a set of long-term plays you want to make, forget the big picture. Keep your head down. What’s the next play? Figure it out. And then just do it.
I don’t know you, but I know this: You’re fighting the modern human struggle. You have been equipped with everything you need to accomplish everything you’ve ever dreamed of and a whole lot more. You’re not scraping around the bottom of human existence. You know you have it in you, and the only thing that can make it all come crashing down are the ghosts inside your mind.
Those ghosts are here to stay in all their nefarious, despicable, irrational forms, but you and I both know you can’t let them stop you. You won’t let them stop you. You’re going to use your gifts and use them to the best of your ability to fulfill your potential.
You’re not unmotivated. You’re not lazy. You’re not bored. In a world where you walk around without blinders on, these things don’t exist. You are afraid. Like me. Like your neighbor. Like all of us. We are all afraid. And yet, we are still here. So every day, choose to be here. To hold a flashlight in the face of your demons and say, “I’ve played your games before. I know who you are, and you all look the same to me.”
Nike’s simple, mainstream, maybe even trite but genius mantra is the perfect reminder of how simple and straightforward, yet how demanding and strenuous this lifelong battle is. “Just Do It” is the song we grew up on, the ad that made us smile and clench a fist in fierce resolution. It may be a corporate marketing ploy, but it’s also the spirit of human potential, of the original American Dream.
Using this motto as both your strategy for living your best life and the tactic to see it through will accelerate and clarify your personal growth in ways no self-improvement gimmick ever could. It’s a contract, a promise to yourself to live life on your own terms and not be swayed by the events in it or the tricks your mind plays on itself. It’s not a miracle drug and it won’t lead to a guaranteed happy ending, but I think it’s our best shot at looking back on the brief time we spend on this earth with pride instead of regret.
And if that’s not a cause worth fighting for, a promise worth keeping, then I don’t know what else to tell you. Except “Just Do It.”
If you don’t know, Yoda is one of the strongest characters in one of the strongest stories of all time: Star Wars.
Yoda is a tiny, green creature of an unknown species, over 800 years old, and Grand Master of the Jedi Order. The best of the good guys, if you will. He has an incredible ability to wield the Force — the invisible power all Jedi rely on — and is a brilliant fighter with a lightsaber, their weapon of choice. He’s also the head teacher of all young Jedi and the first person everyone turns to when they need advice.
Despite his strength, Yoda’s true power lies in his wisdom. He speaks a little backwards and often in riddles, but every word he chooses is placed exactly where it’s meant to be. He says little, but what he says hits hard.
Yoda is not just a Jedi Master, he’s also a master of the perspective shift.
Most of the time, what he tells us completely flips the angle from which we were trying to approach a problem. Often, he shows us we’ve been focusing on the wrong problem altogether. This is incredibly valuable.
Perspective shifts elevate our thinking. They allow us to overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers, move a lot faster, and see the world more clearly. They also help us lift others by sharing what we’ve learned with them.
Since he’s a quiet character, there aren’t that many Yoda quotes to draw from, but I’ve assembled his best ones to show you how he architects perspective shifts. He frequently talks about teacher-student relationships, fighting, and what it means to be a good person. To give you enough context and get the most out of these quotes, I’ve structured them into one coherent narrative.
May they teach you to change your own mind and that of others.
When Luke Skywalker is first sent to Yoda’s planet to learn from him, he bumps right into the Master, not knowing who he is. He tells him he’s looking for someone, to which Yoda only says:
“Looking? Found someone you have, eh?”
Picasso supposedly said, “I don’t seek. I find.” In a 1923 book called The Arts, he gave an explanation of what he meant:
“I can hardly understand the importance given to the word research in connection with modern painting. In my opinion, to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing. Nobody is interested in following a man who, with his eyes fixed on the ground, spends his life looking for the purse that fortune should put in his path. The one who finds something, no matter what it might be, even if his intention were not to search for it, at least arouses our curiosity, if not our admiration.”
In the same vein, Yoda trusts the Force to guide our path in life. You can call it God, the universe, karma, or whatever you like — the point is to have faith. Keep your eyes open, stay present, and look, rather than obsessing over an idea in your head.
The next thing Luke says is that he’s “looking for a great warrior.” Once again, Yoda flips the notion on its head immediately:
“Ohh. Great warrior. Wars not make one great.”
There’s a saying that is often credited to US president Herbert Hoover in various forms:
“Wars are always started by men too old to fight in them.”
It depends on the country, but many have a culture of decorating their war heroes. It serves us well to honor these men and women, but it makes it easy to forget that the most honorable thing would have been to never send them into battle in the first place.
As Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Yoda also holds a position similar to a general. Most of his power in that position is spent trying to maintain peace and avoid fighting, because he knows wars only create losers on both sides:
“No longer certain, that one ever does win a war, I am. For in fighting the battles, the bloodshed, already lost we have.”
In that same spirit, being a Jedi is much like learning Kung Fu, Yoda explains:
“A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
I can’t think of a more humbling thing than to learn how to fight in hopes of never having to use it. Rigorous physical training has many benefits, like discipline, fitness, and patience. But in order to attain them, you don’t ever have to raise your fist against another human being. The training is enough.
Of course, sometimes, war is inevitable. In case of the Jedi, they are usually hopelessly outnumbered by the vast armies of the Galactic Empire. But again, Yoda knows there’s more to life than physical strength:
“Smaller in number are we, but larger in mind.”
There are countless examples from history of small groups outwitting large enemies. The 300 Spartans. The Trojan Horse. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. A great strategy can make up for a big lack in firepower.
This lesson also applies at an individual level, and it’s one of the first Yoda teaches Luke when he becomes his apprentice. He tells Luke to use the Force to telekinetically lift his spaceship from a swamp. When Luke fails, claiming it’s too big, Yoda retorts:
“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”
At first, Luke dismisses Yoda and walks away. But when he sees Yoda single-handedly lift the ship on his own and hover it to safety, he can barely trust his own eyes. He tells Yoda he can’t believe what he just did, to which Yoda says:
“That is why you fail.”
This is Yoda reiterating the very first thing he told Luke: it’s about believing before you can see. Not the other way around. This ties into what might be Yoda’s most famous quote of all:
“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda combines immense faith with a strong sense of realism, of grounding. Those two might seem like opposites, but they’re not.
If you surrender to life and are fully in sync with what the universe wants to tell you, you’ll rarely attempt anything that’s not already meant to become a reality. This is why Yoda spends so much time thinking and meditating. He needs to listen; tune in to the Force. Once he emerges, the path of action is so clear to him, it might as well be done already. This is Yoda’s job much more so than charging headfirst into every battle:
“Secret, shall I tell you? Grand Master of Jedi Order am I. Won this job in a raffle I did, think you? ‘How did you know, how did you know, Master Yoda?’ Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is.”
This job of knowing is what unites all of Yoda’s roles. Be it as a politician, general, or teacher. It would take Luke many years to finally understand this. In a conversation decades later, after Luke has become a Jedi Master himself, Yoda still needs to remind him that passing on his knowledge is his job. One of the best ways to do so is through failure:
“Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, hmm… but weakness, folly, failure, also. Yes, failure, most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.”
There’s a quote by Tom Bodett about the difference between life and school:
“In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”
Great teachers know this, which is why they don’t lecture as much as they pose challenges to their students, then let them figure out the answers on their own. If they fail, they fail, but either way, they’ll truly learn something rather than just parrot the master’s words or follow instructions.
For example, when Yoda sends Luke into a dark cave to confront his fears, Luke asks him what he can expect in there. Yoda says:
“Only what you take with you.”
Luke is utterly confused and feels abandoned at first, but after he faces his demons, he realizes the only way for him to succeed was to rely on his own mind. Yoda couldn’t help him, just point the way. This theme ripples through every great teacher-student relationship until its very end:
“Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”
Failure is not just the way great teachers teach — it’s the master’s own, ultimate goal. If their disciple surpasses them, it means they’ve raised them well. Besides the rigorous training, the number one way Master Yoda aims to accomplish this is through ethics. What he’s most concerned with, even more so than their skill level, is that his students become good people.
That’s why many of his lessons revolve around the subject of not succumbing to the dark side of the Force — the evil path some Jedi choose and thus become corrupted. These lessons always have a Buddhist flair to them:
“Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.”
In order to practice his combination of faith and presence and dedicate most of his time to thinking, Yoda lives a very minimalist life. He can’t afford to be distracted or pulled around by every impulse and desire rising in his heart. Therefore, letting go is the most important skill each Jedi must master:
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
Yoda knows fear is the true enemy of all Jedi. Fear is what pulls our minds to the past or the future. It is what creates attachment, and attachment leads to the emotions that, in turn, cause us to make dark choices.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
The way we deal with our fears and return to the present is to face them and hold out as they try to penetrate our minds. We don’t fight them as much as we resist giving in to them. This is exactly what Yoda had Luke do in that cave:
“Named must your fear be, before banish it you can.”
Of course, this isn’t a one-time event. We must face many fears in our lifetimes and no one is immune to them. Not even Yoda. He, too, admits being afraid:
“Yes, afraid. Hmm, surprised are you? A challenge lifelong it is, not to bend fear into anger.”
In his famous inauguration speech, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt said:
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
This principle is a maxim of Yoda’s teachings, as he personally witnessed the terrible consequences of allowing fear to fill a Jedi’s heart.
Once upon a time, a young boy named Anakin was brought before the Jedi Council. He had great potential, but Yoda sensed much fear in him, and so he didn’t want the boy to be trained in the Jedi arts. Yet one of the other Council members said he would train the boy anyway, and Yoda let it pass. Over time, the boy’s fear of losing those he loved only grew. In Yoda’s words:
“When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.”
Eventually, Anakin’s fear had such a strong grip on him that the only path he saw was that of the dark side of the Force. In the same way Anakin was pulled over one day at a time, so do our fear-induced choices cause a vicious cycle. We take a shortcut to get out of one jam which only leads us into a bigger one, which, of course, requires an even more extreme, even less ethical shortcut. Sooner or later, the person we once strived to be feels like our own worst enemy. Anakin literally became this enemy, and it is with great sorrow and anguish that Yoda reveals to Anakin’s former teacher:
“The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.”
Of course, we’re not the only ones facing this danger. Others are affected by it too. And sometimes, we still chase after them. Still hoping, wishing we could get them back. But the person we once felt connected to is long gone.
This brings us back to the war the Jedi were about to lose. They didn’t see that one of the politicians among their own ranks had gone through a similar transformation, and when they relied on his help, they found out he double-crossed them. After retreating and meditating, Yoda once again emerges with a perspective shift that has the power to turn a hopeless situation around:
“Yet, open to us a path remains. That unknown to the Sith is. Through this path, victory we may yet find. Not victory in the Clone Wars, but victory for all time.”
By simply changing the timeline from “how can we win this war?” to “how can we achieve lasting peace for everyone?” Yoda has elevated everyone’s thinking. A more generally applicable version of this idea is this:
“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are, a different game you should play.”
Focusing on a different aspect of the bigger picture is another very common move in both war and politics. A group on the defense might try to go around the enemy and attack their flank, and an old adage in strategic thinking is:
“When everybody’s playing checkers, play chess.”
But this extends to many more aspects of our lives than the conflict-driven ones. When you fail to get promoted time and again, maybe it’s time to look for a new job. When discussing a problem with your spouse doesn’t work, maybe it’s time to talk about how you talk to each other. And if writing two posts per week won’t cut it, you could try publishing daily or not at all for a while.
The point is — and this is the biggest lesson we can learn from Yoda’s way of thinking — there’s always something different you can do. Something else you haven’t tried. Learning how to shift your perspective is one thing, but, like Yoda’s reliance on the Force, it first requires having faith in new perspectives in the first place. That’s why I can’t think of a better line to end on, a quote that more encapsulates Yoda’s spirit than this:
“Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.”
The Matrix revolutionized the film industry in many ways. One of them was the introduction of bullet time. It’s a visual effect that allows the viewer to transcend time and space.
Instead of seeing a scene from just one angle in one moment and another the next, you can now witness the same moment from multiple perspectives.
As a result, you can watch the hero not just dodge bullets, but dodge them in style and slow-motion.
At the time, this was a huge innovation. Now, the movie is 20 years old, and others have taken the concept a lot further, like Wonder Woman, Resident Evil, and X-Men. Today, the effect is standard practice in hundreds of movies, which makes it, well, just another visual effect.
At the same time, it’s still not your average action flick gimmick.
When you’re watching a movie, the moment bullet time triggers, you’re taken three levels deeper into the experience. Instantly. Time slows down. You look around. You get to see all aspects of a scene, not just the one the director deemed most relevant.
Suddenly, you’re more invested into everything that happens. Because you’re a bigger part of it. That’s why bullet time was such a brilliant invention and one of the reasons why the movie has become a piece of film history.
So how did they pull it off? How do you shoot a bullet time scene?
As the making of explains, the film crew built a special-purpose camera rig with over 120 cameras. They arranged them in a circle and built a system to trigger them at certain frame rates and in a certain sequence.
Each camera was height-adjustable, allowing the viewer’s perspective to follow a path of any shape. An s-curve. A stoop from above. A downward spiral. All in slow motion. Now that’s some commitment to the viewer.
Despite its action-packed disguise, however, The Matrix is a philosophical movie. At the end of the day, it explores fundamental issues of technology, culture, society, and religion. It’s not easy to digest. It takes a while to sink in. And every element of the film somehow connects to these themes.
Bullet time is no exception. There are two lessons from this cinematographic innovation that transcend great filmmaking and instead instruct us on — I think — how to live a great life.
Bullet time is the movie-equivalent of stopping your walk, looking around, and embracing the moment. Where are you right now? What is it like?
In order to experience something, you have to be there. Not just physically, but mentally too. You have to allow your senses to take in the scene. Not only parts of it. Everything.
Like the creation of a bullet time scene, that takes time. As John Gaeta, the Visual Effects Supervisor of the film, said: “It takes some pretty heavy thinking to get it together.” For some final results, they had to shoot the same scene dozens of times and then blend together individual cuts, as well as interpolate and digitally extend what you ultimately see on the screen.
Taking time to ‘be there’ in your life, to really experience what’s going on around you, is also a matter of effort and intent, but it yields the same result the effect does in the movie: you’re more invested in everything that happens.
The only way to be all-in on life is to savor every moment.
You can’t do that when you’re rushing through. You have to slow down. Thankfully, the film technique also provides instructions on how to do that.
In physics, there is something called the quantum zeno effect. It says that if you continuously measure and observe a system of quantum particles, that system freezes in its state.
As the ancient philosopher Zeno, to whom the effect owes its name, poses in a paradox: If a flying arrow appears to be at rest in any particular instant of its flight, doesn’t that actually makes it motionless? It’s a fascinating question.
The real-life equivalent is staring at a stranger on the far side of the street until they stop and turn around — they felt you looking at them. Maybe you feel it’s hard to get work done or perform a certain task when someone’s watching you. That too is the quantum zeno effect. It’s not necessarily that a system can’t change while you’re watching it — it’s just harder for it to do so.
A corollary of all this is that the more time we spend seeing, noticing, examining the world and its events, the more alive we’ll feel.
The more we observe what goes on around us, the slower time passes.
With bullet time, it took 120 cameras taking thousands of pictures to film a scene that ultimately happened in seconds. Only by greatly increasing the number and perspectives of the things they captured could the producers make the scene feel slower to the viewer.
In our lives, intentional observation leads to a similar outcome: we get more out of our time.
The Matrix sends countless messages and will be the subject of analyses for decades to come. But its most universal one, transmitted both through its plot and the way the film itself came together, is that everything has something beneath its surface.
With bullet time, John Gaeta knew it would change how movies are made:
“It’s all baby steps towards something much larger that won’t be commonplace really for a few years, but there are people around the world scratching their heads about a new way to photograph things. It’ll be as revolutionary as when cameras came off sticks and went to a crane, when they came off cranes and went to steadicams. We’re talking about cameras that are now broken from the subject matter, that are virtual. So that’s the next phase.”
I don’t know what exactly lies beneath the surface of your life, but I know there’s an ocean of emotion, experience, and insight, waiting to be explored.
In order to do so, to find something, to reveal the truth, we must go deeper. Descending to these depths takes time and can only be accomplished through intent and careful observation. But if we take responsibility for those tasks, we can expect to live true to ourselves, to really enjoy our time, and to be fully engaged in life.
So go ahead. Hit the button. Trigger bullet time.
If you let us know what you find, you might even cause a revolution.
Imagine there’s an old stove in your house. It’s square and has four burners.
You know, the kind where you still have to light the gas with a match and pull your hand away really fast so you don’t get burned. Each of those burners represents an important area of your life:
So far, so good. There’s only one problem. According to the original New Yorker article first mentioning the concept:
“In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.”
Ouch. That hurts. But it makes perfect sense. It stings because it’s true.
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It’s a sunny day. You’re driving. The view is clear and the road stretches for miles ahead. You hit cruise control, lean back, and enjoy the ride.
Suddenly, a few clouds pull up. The first raindrops begin to fall. “No biggie,” you think. You can still see and maneuver.
After a while, however, the storm really hits. The sky is all but grey, you can feel the wind inside the car, and your wipers don’t seem to do anything. Your windshield is so full of water, it might as well be frosted glass.
Now, you’re barely holding on, trying to steer, but really, you can’t see anything. You’re just hoping for the best.
That’s what life is like when you’re unaware of your biases. You can’t think straight or make good decisions, because you don’t see the world as it actually is. Without realizing it, you’re pushed around by invisible forces.
The way to start combatting these forces is to learn about them. Here are ten of the most important ones.
You’ve probably heard of confirmation bias, which has us looking for information that confirms our views, instead of challenging them. The backfire effect is its big brother: If you see a correction after remembering something false, you’ll trust the false fact even more. For example, if the sexual harassment allegations against a celebrity are found to be untrue, you might now trust them even less, as you’re not sure what to believe anymore.
If we don’t have enough information to guess the probability of something, we’ll avoid that option altogether. We’d rather buy lottery tickets than stocks, because one is simple, the other needs learning. This effect means we might not even try to go for our goals, only because we can better estimate the odds of more realistic options, like getting promoted vs succeeding as a freelancer.
Tom has a successful blog. Tom writes like this. I want a successful blog. I’ll write like Tom. This rarely works. Tom just happened to survive long enough to succeed, regardless of his writing style. Maybe, many others wrote like him too, but didn’t make it. Therefore, copying Tom is no guarantee of success.
Zero-risk bias makes us exert too much energy and money towards the wrong ends rather than focusing on important, more impactful factors. It occurs because we’d rather eliminate however little risk is left than reduce the overall amount by a big chunk. Instead of buying a second insurance policy for a different threat, we’ll get the full package for our car and pay a premium.
We completely ignore how likely it is we might fall down the stairs, but if any plane were to crash, it must be ours. Similarly, we’d rather gamble to win a billion than a million, even if the odds are much lower. That’s because we respond to the magnitude of events, not their probabilities. Probability neglect explains most of our misplaced fear and optimism.
When you choose between two restaurants, you might go with the more crowded one. But if everyone before you did the same, the first guests inevitably chose at random between two empty ones. Often, we do things just because other people do them. This not just twists our ability to accurately assess information, especially on the web, but also ruins our happiness.
Because we live in our own heads 24/7, we think everyone else devotes nearly as much attention to our lives as we do. Of course, no one does, because they also suffer from this imaginary spotlight. People won’t notice your pimple or messy hair as they’re busy worrying you’ll notice their pimple or messy hair.
If I give you a mug today and tell you it’s worth $5, you won’t sell me back that same mug for $5 tomorrow. According to Daniel Kahneman, you’ll want as much as $10. Just because it’s yours now. But us owning things does not make them more valuable. Thinking it does is a problem because it also means we’re more afraid of losing whatever we have than not getting what we really want.
Do you leave the theater when the movie is bad? Because throwing your good time after dollars spent badly won’t help. We often stick to an irrational path of action solely to be consistent with our previous choices. But once the ship is sinking, it’s time to abandon ship, regardless of what caused the dilemma. The sunk cost fallacy keep us wasting time, money, and energy on things that are long past the point where they ever had a chance of working out.
You may know that Parkison said “work expands to fill the time available for it,” but, related to that, there’s also his law of triviality. It says that we spend disproportionate amounts of time on trivial issues to avoid the cognitive discomfort of solving complex, important problems. When you start a blog, all you need to do is write. But designing the logo feels really important, right?
Wikipedia lists almost 200 cognitive biases. It’s impossible to fight them all, all the time. But it helps to develop awareness.
The first part of this awareness comes from being able to recognize a bias when it plays a trick on your or someone else’s mind. That’s why we need to know what they are and look out for them.
The second part is learning to notice them in real-time. This ability only forms with consistent practice. The best way to do this — and therefore our single-greatest weapon against deceitful perceptions — is to take a deep breath before all important decisions.
Whenever you’re about to take a big next steps, breathe. Pause. Give yourself a few seconds to reflect. What’s going on here? Am I biased? Why do I want to do this the way I want to do it?
Every cognitive bias is a small raindrop on your windshield. A few of them won’t hurt, but if they fill every inch, you might as well drive in the dark. If you have a general understanding of what they are and how they function, a short pause is often enough to find the awareness you need to think clearly.
So slow down. Drive safely. And turn on the wipers before it’s too late.
Derek Sivers built a business empire by accident.
In 1997, he was looking for a place to sell his music album online. When he couldn’t find one, he set up his own little website with a buy button. Soon, friends wanted him to put up their CDs too.
Then, friends of friends came along, buyers started asking for new arrivals, and, ten years later, CD Baby had 85 employees, two million customers, and distributed 200,000 musicians’ work online.
Never having set out to be an entrepreneur, Derek felt done with it in 2008. He sold the company for $22 million in cash, most of which he gave to charity, and went back to his solo artist life.
Whether he was happy with this “little detour” or not, it worked out in the end. But that’s why, in a free class about the whole experience, Derek encourages us to start our own journey with a question:
Why are you doing what you’re doing?
And even though he outlines several options, it’s not an easy one to answer. Because the devil is — as always — in the details.
In his book Running Down A Dream, another business owner turned independent artist, Tim Grahl, remembers the time he heard Sivers talk about our three strongest motivators: fortune, fame, and freedom.
None of them are right or wrong. You can get more than one. However, only one will drive you. I knew I wanted freedom. Not freedom to travel. I still don’t go many places. Not freedom to work whenever I wanted. I still work set hours [each] day. I simply wanted the freedom to make those decisions myself. I wanted to live a life where nobody could make a claim on my time without my approval.
That’s already a huge step up from how most people live their lives, which is by mere imitation. Who of us hasn’t seen someone doing things that impress them, and instantly started piecing together a poor copy of that person’s life? Often, the copy is not poor because our idol’s life isn’t worth living, it’s poor because we don’t question any of its parts. If we don’t at least adapt it to our own wants and needs, that’s an almost guaranteed descent into misery.
That makes freedom a viable alternative. It’s also the theme Derek chose when he sold his company:
“I really liked the idea of setting up my life in a way that, at any point, I could just disappear. Or I could just be antisocial and go read books for a month, or whatever it may be. So I had to set up my career in a certain way to delegate almost everything, make myself unnecessary to the day-to-day running of my company, so that I was free to go do other things.”
As he explains this, he shows a little slide that says:
Refuse responsibility. Delegate everything.
I think that’s where we should start splitting hairs. Because I don’t believe true freedom is the absence of responsibility. I think it’s something different.
And I’m not alone. Just ask my friend Shaunta.
I first watched Derek’s class in 2015. Now, next to money, stardom, and independence, he also mentions prestige (try getting a table at Masa) and legacy (there are 2509 Carnegie libraries) as purposes we can choose.
Still, like Tim, I felt freedom spoke the most to me, and so I chose to adopt Derek’s definition of it wholesale. I spent all of 2016 building a passive income business and I’m glad that, today, I control my time, who I work with, and what projects I tackle. But I also have more responsibility than ever. Now, thousands of people expect me to deliver. Readers, partners, customers.
That very much contradicts “not having to do anything,” but I still feel free. Maybe, there’s more nuance to it than “delegate everything.” Reflecting on these same ideas, Shaunta Grimes can’t imagine the zero-task lifestyle either:
Sometimes I think about the possibility of a totally passive income and what it would be like to spend the day on the beach, doing whatever the hell I want to do. But the absolute truth is that I wouldn’t last very long. I’d attract responsibilities like a magnet. It’s just how I am. And, I also find myself rebelling against the idea that freedom only means fewer responsibilities. I guess I’d say I’m partially driven by freedom — but my own interpretation of it. But the truth is, I often willfully make decisions that restrict my freedom.
I think this is true for most, if not all of us. We get bored when we idle for too long. We need a purpose. We want to solve problems. And so, the further I go in my own journey as a solo creative, the more I realize:
Freedom is not about shedding your responsibilities, it’s about choosing them.
When I first struck out on my own, I wasn’t worried so much about the pressure to deliver, to get clients, to make money. I was running away from having a boss, being bored at work, and owing my time to one person, one place. Because those were responsibilities I couldn’t stand having.
I felt much more comfortable with setting my own deadlines, coming up with ideas, and asking people for work, despite having to first learn all of those things. This distinction of what you’ll feel comfortable shouldering might have external consequences, but it comes from an inner place.
Responsibility is freedom, as long as you choose a labor of love.
Why do people become soldiers? Because they love serving their country. It’s a responsibility they don’t just feel comfortable with — they enjoy bearing it.
Now, passion is tricky because it’s part talent, part love, and part just sticking with it. But if your recurring duties at work constantly make you feel like you’re bouncing around in a pressure cooker, they’re the wrong kind of duties.
The obligations of being a mom are different from the accountability of a CEO and have little in common with the burdens of a remote freelancer. No, you won’t get insta-rich from nailing this choice, but making it will make your life easier. Because we’re all good at being responsible for different things.
We often underestimate the negative impact a responsibility mismatch can have. A lot of us are running around like chickens, work always feels like work, and oh the stress of it all. But if we don’t learn to love the boring days, the exciting ones can never fill this huge hole in our everyday happiness.
The question, “why are you doing what you’re doing?” has many complex answers. But even if we aggregate them into high-level themes like fame, fortune, and freedom, at the end of the day, they all come down to this: “Because my goal comes with responsibilities I feel good about carrying.”
Think about it. Everything is accountable. And — for better or for worse — you’re the one getting all the credit. At the end of your life, you’ll either regret many things or just a few, but it’s all a reflection of how much responsibility you took in deciding what you did with your time. That’s a burden we can never shed, no matter what goals we dedicate ourselves to.
And so it’s not the absence of responsibility that makes us happy, but choosing the right set at the right time — picking duties we love fulfilling and that we feel confident we can deliver on. Maybe, why we do things isn’t as important as those things feeling light enough for us to not crack under their pressure.
Maybe, the better question is:
What kind of responsibility feels the lightest in your mind?
If we answer it correctly, we’ll always feel free. Regardless of our obligations.
Socrates supposedly said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” If all we do is imitate those we admire, we might one day wake up and wonder what it’d feel like to truly be ourselves.
But nowadays, a lot of us pondering this idea associate it with complete and utter freedom — financial independence and a total lack of responsibilities. This isn’t just unrealistic, it’s delusional. Because the concept of responsibility itself will never vanish from our lives.
Only once we accept that we’ll always carry some degree of duty — that, as humans, we’re meant to — can we start choosing our obligations deliberately. These choices will dictate what we channel our energy into and how we design our lives, but they should ripple from the inside out.
Whatever we stand for should make us feel proud, and we should want to approach it with love and care, because when we do, we won’t mind the pressure our goals often put on us. We’ll enjoy our routines and our pace.
Most of all, we’ll learn to be happy and free, no matter how many hats we wear or whose expectations we need to fulfill.
And there’s nothing accidental about that.
Imagine you’re going to an art gallery. The exhibition is called “Unfinished.”
In the lobby, Schubert’s Symphony №8 of the same name swells in the background. You get your ticket and enter the first room. The strings mount into their first crescendo, and there she is: The Mona Lisa. Well, the Mona.
Because Lisa is still kinda missing. You can see her shape, her arms, and her hair, but only half her face. Only half of that mysterious, enchanting smile. The backdrop isn’t done either. A blurry mix of blue, brown, green, and grey.
In the next room, van Gogh’s Starry Night feels off too. There’s a town and a tree, but where are the stars? Where’s the brightly lit crescent moon? Where are the swirls and the clouds that make you feel dreamy and moved?
A little confused, you continue to make your way through the exhibit. Dalí, Monet, Picasso, they’re all there, but…their paintings aren’t done. Slowly, it dawns on you. This isn’t about up and coming artists. It’s about you.
The sole purpose of the exhibit is to show you: Once upon a time, everything was unfinished. Even the world’s greatest masterpieces. And so are you.
On September 3, 1783, the United States finally signed a peace agreement with Great Britain that recognized American independence.
Contemporary painter Benjamin West aimed to capture the moment on canvas. After he’d sketched the American commissioners, however, the British delegation refused to pose. The painting remains, to this day, unfinished.
Right in the middle of the incomplete action sits none other than Benjamin Franklin. In his biography of the man, Walter Isaacson calls him “the most accomplished American of his age.”
But Franklin himself would never have accepted that kind of praise. After all, ‘accomplished’ pretty much means ‘done,’ and with Ben, that was never quite the case. He treated his life like a perpetual work in progress.
Towards the end of his career, he was elected as the governor of Pennsylvania, a position he held for three years — longer than any other — and well into his 80s. Even in his last year of being alive, he wrote essays about the cruelty of slavery and lead the local society supporting its abolition.
This is a trait he shares with many historic figures we call genius today. Einstein scribbled equations on his deathbed, Schubert completed 50 works in his last year, and Dante barely finished the Divine Comedy before he died.
Some might look at these people and see an addiction to work, delusional grandeur, and exaggerated feelings of self-importance. I see quite the opposite, actually. A laissez-faire approach to life that surrenders to the fact that we’ll never feel like we’re finished. Because there’s always more to do.
At just 20 years old, Franklin wrote down 13 virtues he committed to keep practicing throughout his life. Again, what might seem like strict rules at first turn out to be rough guidelines. In his autobiography, Franklin noted that he focused on just one value each week, leaving the others up to chance, and admitted to failing many times.
But he wholeheartedly believed the mere attempt of following them made him a better, happier, more successful person. What a forgiving approach to self-improvement.
He also penned the following quote, recognizing what a tough job it was:
“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”
When a diamond emerges from the earth, it looks bland at best and is impossible to recognize at worst. Without the long refining process — the cutting, the shaping, the polishing — no one would want to buy one. It may have been created under pressure, but now it needs a softer treatment.
I think our lives are the same. We’re all just diamonds in the rough.
The hardest part of being human is to be born in the first place. That’s where we need the pressure. That’s where we defy the incomprehensible odds.
But now that we’re here, applying more of it won’t help. It’s time to stop beating ourselves up. No matter what we do, we’ll always remain a work in progress. We’ll always be ‘unfinished.’ But we’re still diamonds.
Once we let go of negative self-talk and accept this, we can focus on what we really need: Refinement. Incremental progress. Polish.
Polish is sticking to your values in the chaos of everyday life. It’s letting go of the big picture to take the next stroke of the brush. Polish is rolling up your sleeves and saying: “What good can I do today?” It always feels small in the moment, but in hindsight, you’ll see it’s what makes your life shine.
Most of all, when we accept our roughness, we’ll learn to enjoy life regardless. Because if you never arrive, celebrating the journey is the only way.
I wish we could visit the houses of history’s greatest artists. The Da Vincis and Dantes and Franklins. If we rummaged around in their attics, I bet we’d find tons of partial works. What’s true for all of them is that, somewhere along the line, they figured out how to live with that burden. How to go on despite never being finished. At least some of them enjoyed what they did anyway.
I also wish we could ask them to show their drafts in an exhibition. Because knowing all of this, first they would laugh, and then they would agree.
Last week, my sister came to visit. It was awesome. We saw Mike Shinoda, got ice cream, and tried lots of great food. I love her and I’m glad we hung out.
But for some reason, whenever I go to an event, a friend stops by, or the week is just generally slow, I still feel like I should get as much done as I usually do. Like I should create the same output, regardless of the time I take off.
That’s impossible, of course. But it creates guilt and that guilt is the real problem. Guilt is a useful emotion. As opposed to shame, it makes us want to step up. To rectify what we did wrong.
But when it comes to being productive, there’s nothing to rectify. It’s not like a crooked picture you can just push back into place. Your life is continuous and each moment is a small dot on a long line. Work is such a big part of that line that it’s impossible to see how each dot shapes it day-to-day, week-to-week, often even year-to-year. Unlike other things we feel guilty about, you can’t just go back to the café, pay the bill you forgot, and reset the karma balance to zero. Because there’s always more work.
And so it may feel like focusing for one hour in the evening makes up for a bad day, but who wants to spend their entire life salvaging leftover scraps of time? That’s a surefire recipe for unhappiness. The solution lies on a higher level.
Who’s to say it was a bad day in the first place? Maybe you needed rest. Maybe you were affected by something in your subconscious. Why can’t we suspend that judgment altogether? Jim Carrey has a great metaphor for our moods:
“I have sadness and joy and elation and satisfaction and gratitude beyond belief, but all of it is weather. And it just spins around the planet.”
Shame, guilt, regret, these are also just weather phenomena. External conditions that’ll sometimes swing by your planet.
Of course, it’s hard to constantly practice this non-judgment in advance. To go into each experience without attachment or expectation. We’re human, after all. We fail. We let things get to us. And so we need to learn to pick ourselves back up. To realize when we’re complaining about the weather and stop.
The only way to do this over and over again, to keep moving forward no matter what happens, is to relentlessly forgive yourself. Forever and for everything. You won’t always do it immediately, but try to do it eventually.
Note that forgiving yourself is not about letting yourself off the hook. It’s not an excuse to not learn from your mistakes. It won’t guarantee it either, but without forgiveness, you can’t learn anything. Because regret is in the way. You must say: “Okay, that’s done, how will I move on and what will I change?”
This applies to all kinds of emotional weather you’ll experience, but when it comes to productivity, to using your time well, it’s especially important. Only forgiveness can remove the friction of guilt. The nagging that prevents you from picking up the pen again. From continuing to just do things.
We all have different definitions of success and that’s a good thing. For some, it’s raising their kids to exceed their own accomplishments. For others, it’s fighting for a cause or using art to change how we think. And some just want to live quietly and enjoy the little things.
But no matter what end work serves in your life, you’ll never do enough of it if you constantly kick yourself.
Forgiveness is the only way.
Why don’t we talk about this? When we’re looking for ways to move on, why do we encourage everything from resting to trying hard to having a purpose to proving someone wrong, but not loving yourself when all of these fail?
I don’t know. Maybe, it makes us feel like frauds. To say “alright, let’s move on,” when others had to pay stricter consequences. Maybe, forgiveness isn’t sexy enough. Not a compelling reason to continue. Or, maybe, it’s the hardest of them all to believe in. To actually mean it when you think it. Or say it.
I’d put my money on that last one.
It’s good to practice non-judgment. It helps me a lot every time I succeed. But often, I don’t. And then I’m wrestling with myself for forgiveness. I’d much rather learn to consistently win that second battle. The first one isn’t lost, but I know I’ll never reach perfection. Forgiveness, however, is always available.
It’s as if the healthiest option is right in front of us, but we’re too blind or stubborn to use it. Too scared to allow ourselves to move on. Well, I don’t know you, but here’s permission to forgive yourself. I hope you’ll exercise it. It’s time. Have courage. Move on. Turn the page. And don’t look back.
Maybe, life is not about finding the straightest path to success. Or the simplest. Or even the smoothest. Maybe, it’s about finding one, just one, that allows you to get there at all. But that requires letting go of our old beliefs.
Mike Shinoda is a lead member of Linkin Park. On his current record, he’s processing the loss of his best friend and band mate of 20 years. Imagine how much forgiveness that takes. It’s got sad songs, angry songs, desperate songs, helpless songs. But there’s also one that’s light. Optimistic. Forgiving.
Maybe, in our own quest for being kinder to ourselves, all we have to do is act on its lyrics:
And they’ll tell you I don’t care anymore
And I hope you’ll know that’s a lie
’Cause I’ve found what I have been waiting for
But to get there means crossing a line
So I’m crossing a line