Turn fire to water
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) We are better at doing things than we are at thinking about them.
And yet too often we get this backwards.
We convince ourselves that an idea is only worth pursuing if it has fully withstood the rigours of thought.
Yes, sometimes this is why a truly bad idea never sees the light of day.
It’s also why some ideas need time to simmer before they are done.
But far more often, this is how we hold ourselves back from doing our best work.
It’s not hard, |NAME|, to convince yourself that the barriers between thinking and doing are real enough and big enough to make you back away.
To not try.
To choose the safety of what merely seems knowable now versus the uncertainty of what may or may not be true tomorrow.
It’s easy to give in to fear.
Fear keeps you in a job you find unfulfilling.
Fear keeps that flashing cursor unmoved on a blank screen.
Fear locks you into the belief that you have more to lose than to gain.
Fear makes to-do lists and keeps them unfinished.
Fear keeps you from being honest with someone. Especially yourself.
Fear tricks you into believing that life is driven entirely by circumstances rather than powered by choices.
Fear is fire.
And as I’ve said before in this newsletter, you can either let that fire consume you or you can learn to control it.
As author Nicole Krauss reminds us: “bravery (http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/09/nicole-krauss-van-gogh-letter/) is always more intelligent than fear.”
When we are brave, we act from a place that defies circumstance.
We give in to a belief greater than the assumptions we have about ourselves.
More than just learning to control the fire, something deeper happens. It stops being fire.
There’s an old interview with Bruce Lee in which he said something that stuck with me: “be the water.”
Not fire, with its consuming power, ravenous appetite and scorching aftermath.
Be the water, flowing quietly around obstacles, running steady over jagged rock and smoothing them to a polish.
Be the water and choose to move unencumbered by mass acceptance or expectations of others.
Be the water and adapt.
This is how we make a life that’s antifragile (http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=89226eb68936fc712577977b8&id=0e4c0fe203) —one that doesn’t just withstand but rather thrives on exposure to mistakes and volatility.
All you truly own in your life are your choices. You have an obligation to seize them. Very best, Patrick
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