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Pay the price
Yesterday I published three posts, and another around 1 AM—technically today, but I’ll count it as yesterday. They were the first things I’d published in fifteen days. What changed?
The answer, I think, was facing my fears.
My mind tries to keep me safe by guiding me away from paths that lead to discomfort and keeping me on comfortable paths. Reading is comfortable. Writing is comfortable. Deciding to publish a post is the beginning of a road to discomfort.
The discomfort begins when I decide to start the process of publishing. The post’s not done, of course. It’s never done. I can always do more. So I’m basically giving up.
Then I have to run Grammarly to spell, and grammar check it. No joy in that.
Copy/pasting it into blogger isn’t hard, and not exactly uncomfortable, but there’s no pleasure in it, either.
Then I have to decide whether to tell my friends and family that I’ve published a post. If I tell them, I’m bragging. And they might not like it. Or they might not read it.
The only way to get a post—like this one—done is to accept discomfort as the price for producing something. Some Future Me might appreciate what I’ve created, but I’m the one that has to endure the discomfort.
Fortunately, I’ve made peace with Past and Future Me and no longer resent doing things for his sake.
Accept the unsatisfactoriness of life. I’ve learned that lesson—or ones a lot like it—before. Then I’ve forgotten them. Then I’ve had to rediscover the same lesson again.
What can I do to make this the last time that I have to rediscover it?
On my left arm, I’ve got a tattoo that says, “I’m not dead yet.” Maybe I need one for my right arm? If I did that, what would it say? LIfe is unsatisfactory? Memento more?
Adam Robinson, a guy I discovered recently, quotes Rudyard Kippling on an episode of Tim Ferris podcast. “If you did not get what you want, it’s a sign either that you did not seriously want it or you tried to bargain over the price.”
So maybe what I want on my right arm is “Pay the price.”
Maybe I’ll end up like Leonard Shelby, the guy in Memento) who has lost his ability to make new memories and has the things that he wants to remember tattooed.
What else would I tattoo?