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theblondepenguin t1_j9jns3a wrote

My husband gets paralyzed by the idea that there is better out there. He won’t read a book because he isn’t sure that it is the most important knowledge. He won’t write because someone else could say it better.

I told him the other day that the most important knowledge is the one you absorb; by waiting for the best you are shutting yourself off from a wealth of information.

And who cares if someone can say it better, that doesn’t detract from what you have said maybe your iteration will help someone understand the “better” ones more completely maybe not, there being someone else who said it doesn’t detract from your voice

I haven’t convinced him so I will 100% be using this to enhance my conversation, because they said it better and that doesn’t detract from my voice it enhances it.

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itadakimasu_ t1_j9kf7hi wrote

This is true for everything. I can't clean my house because omg there's a lot of house to clean and everything needs doing and how can I do it all so I get paralysed and don't do anything. But if I aim to clean the bathroom then yeah the house is still a mess but at least the bathroom is clean, and maybe tomorrow I'll vacuum or something.

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Cross33 t1_j9l4jzv wrote

You're right, but i also see where it comes for. Our whole education and society is very harsh towards mistakes. They aren't treated as learning opportunities they are treated as fuck ups and failures. So i can see how that would develop a fear of doing things imperfectly.

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xylotism t1_j9lez4r wrote

I'm a lot like him, I think. At a certain point I realized that 99% of anyone's potential (including my own) is already gone by the time you're an adult.

A lot of people are multi-talented but how many of us can really be a fighter pilot and a film director and a musician and a chef and know 5 different languages at the same time? And how many less can be the best at any given one of those? Each one is going to take at least some portion of your life to learn let alone master. Can you fit in 50 masteries? 20? Or even just 1? There's always more time to see France, but oh, you have to make sure to fit in India and the Bahamas and Japan and Iceland!

There's too much to do, and every minute you're not doing it is costing you potential. I think once you have that mindset of "time is finite but so is potential" you start to reach out to try and do as much as you still can with the time you still have left. It becomes less about perfection and more about just doing it. So maybe you can't learn 5 languages in a year but if you start now and just do the thing you could maybe learn one. And maybe even learn to cook too before you're done.

For me personally as long as I make some impact on the world before my time is up, I'll consider that enough.

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StateChemist t1_j9ldzu6 wrote

I want to write a book, yet I deeply struggle with ‘I’ve never written anything like this before, is it going to be crap, why would anyone want to read my crap’

I sorta get that it’s just my irrational insecurities yet knowing that isn’t enough to ignore those voices either.

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Zippy926 OP t1_j9na0vy wrote

Every story has already been written and yet people still continue to write and read, so write without fear and without judgment and someday someone will thank you for it, because for every book there is a reader who will love it no matter how good or bad the book is

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fenrslfr t1_j9lf3qm wrote

I am glad he wasn't paralyzed there was better out there about one thing. You.

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Redstonefreedom t1_j9mv2de wrote

I had a bout of this sensation the other day. I found a much better way to do something that’s important for my craft, but instead of getting excited, I got demotivated. Since, it’s “yet another thing to do”. My friend rightly noted this was some time for some mental hygiene, if an exciting opportunity just felt like a chore.

At the end of the day, we have to dispel any idea that we will be able to “do it all” or “do it perfectly”. I describe this as “the infinity of our universe”.

When I get demotivated as such, I just take a step back and say to myself “this universe has infinite potential, and it is equally valid to see it as opportunity as to see it as burden” and prune out the parts of my attitude where it is feeling as a burden.

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