First steps are the hardest. You don’t really know what you’re doing, and the future being the uncertain thing that it is, you can’t know how things are going to turn out.
So, what to do? The easy answer is not to do anything. Sit back and let the days slip away. Because they will.
I know. I’ve done that. More often than I want to admit.
But today is different, if only in a small way.
I’ve wanted to start a blog for years, but I’ve never felt the time was right. I didn’t know enough, didn’t have enough to say, didn’t have enough time or energy or freedom. Years went by. I wanted to be ready, but readiness never came. I’m convinced now that readiness never really does.
Life is not a straight line. It’s not a smooth road. It’s a crooked labyrinth pocked with cracks and seams where stumbling missteps are very much the normal means of forward progress. There’s no map to pinpoint where you are, no GPS to whisper which turns to take and when. We don’t wander because we want to. We wander because that’s what living is.
Or at least that’s what I think. Right now. At this moment. I’m not completely sure. I could wait until I am sure, but I’ve tried that. That moment never comes.
I want my life to mean something. To me. To the people I love and care about. And, in my most ambitious moments, to people out in the world. I assume you want that, too. Most people do. I think.
My hypothesis is that if we embrace uncertainty and ambiguity and just try things, even if those things turn out to be the wrong things, we maximize our chances of doing something that means something, even if we’re not sure what exactly that something will be or how everything is going to turn out.
That’s the theory I’m going with. For now. I figure I’ll figure it out as I go. It’s a crooked path, but that’s life. As you make your own path, I would be honored if you would walk a ways with me.