31–40 of 54 posts
I'll paraphrase it because I can't remember how it went. Choose some interest/activity aside from your career and commit to pursue it for the rest of your life. Such a sustained effort will one day prove to be of immense value. If you don't make your choice right now, you never will. I didn't, and I didn't, and at the age of 70 how I wish I had.
Don't believe your thoughts. Stop calling them "my thoughts" -- observe how they emerge and investigate if you're the one causing them.
To use thy chisel is to blunt its edge 'gainst the stone. To not use thy chisel is to waste its edge.
I know it is some drivel invented to stuff out the in-game story, but it stuck. I tend not to use some nice thing as I might break/waste it, so I use this text as an occasional prod that it's fine.
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
Don't believe your thoughts. Stop calling them "my thoughts" -- observe how they emerge and investigate if you're the one causing them.
My mom told me once that I am not responsible for the happiness of others. Prior to that, it was a tremendous burden for me when loved ones were unhappy and I felt like there was nothing I could do.
The other one is "No matter where you go, there you are". My early career was marked by short stints at different companies because I was looking for the perfect work environment. Eventually, I realized that the only constant amongst those places was me. I now fight the urge to escape whenever things aren't going how I want them to because, ultimately, I will still be me wherever I go and it is better to deal with my issues than change the world around me.