Work small, work smart
“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing worthwhile is easy, have you noticed? Things require time and effort. That’s nothing new. If I’d ask you, how much time will it take you to:
- learn to play guitar?
- speak Chinese?
- set up a business from zero?
Would you know? I ‘m sure you have at least an idea. It’s funny cause we would all love to do so many more things but we don’t, someday we say.
Learning and doing new stuff isn’t as hard as we think it is.
In fact, it is pretty straightforward. If you want to learn Chinese, for example, you could just go to ask Google for a free class of Chinese and start. Here I’ll do it for you:
I say things are pretty straightforward because there isn’t anything magical or mystical about learning something new or starting a new venture. Things just need time, anyone with full mental faculties can learn anything if they really set their minds to it.
The hard part is the battle you have to undergo with yourself. That’s the hard part. Procrastination is easy, you can tell (lie) to yourself that you can totally do something if you set yourself to do it, you’ll just do it later. And you certainly can, but, when you actually sit down to learn or to plan something, you suddenly become conscious of all the things that you don’t know.
Procrastination lets you think you are smart. True work shows you how utterly dumb you really are and put things in perspective.
The problem with never starting is that you will never know what you are truly capable of doing, you will never hear a song or meet your lovely Chinese wife/husband. Things are hard, but they are hard because you need to rise up to their level, make yourself harder. Hard things show you what you need to learn, they literally show you the way.
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ― Marcus Aurelius
But it will take forever! You might say.
Yes, things take time, obviously. But, the way I see it, time can work for you or against you. If you learn a new language daily, for a year, you will have a year on your side. If you postpone learning the language for a year, you will be a year behind.
Half an hour a day might seem minuscule in comparison to all that it’s needed to do something. But just like the river carved the Grand Canyon into existence, so does tiny consistency. Let the river flow.
