Just Start

"Begin. To begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished."

Marcus Aurelius

There's something deceptively simple about this.

Most of the resistance we feel isn't about the work itself. It's about starting the work. The cursor blinking in an empty file. The walk from the locker room to the squat rack. Episode one of One Piece.

Aurelius isn't saying the work is easy. He's saying the hardest part is the decision to begin. And then, when you stall halfway through? Begin again.

As a wise Jedi master once said: "Do or do not. There is no try." Yoda wasn't wrong, but I think Aurelius gives us the missing piece. You do by beginning. And when you stop, you begin again.

When I'm pushing through a heavy set of 10, I don't count to 10. I count to 5, then start over. 1-5, then 1-5 again. Mentally, I'm not doing 10 reps. I'm beginning twice. Same weight, different story. When I finally reached Wano after 900 episodes, I didn't think about the journey behind me or the episodes ahead. I just hit play on the next one and suffered the consequences of sleep deprivation the next day.

I built this site as a place to think out loud. Posts, thoughts, quotes, book notes, what I am working on. No schedule, no pressure. Just a place to begin.

So here we are. First post. Half the work done.

Now to finish.