Everyone is wounded in some way; it’s easy to see why you unconsciously hide yourself away from the world. Secluded and on your own, you become busy doing the things you know how to do instead of the things you don’t know how to do that need to get done. Without fuss or resistance you quietly quarantined yourself away from the outside world, getting ready to get ready, perfecting products and services that answer questions no one will ever ask.
If by some miracle you do manage to complete a project, no one will ever find out about this great work of yours because it will never see the light of day. You have all these great ideas but never pull the trigger to release it to the world. Your precious work will sit on your hard drive forever while you start another project, which will also end up just sitting on your hard drive, and so it goes.
All that time spent learning and writing important, meaningful stuff that will benefit people that need to hear what you have to say, but instead you file it away in folders within folders with headings that are quickly forgotten. In time you’ll have multiple folders on your computer that make it impossible to find anything. Just the same as the many notebooks of varying sizes and clear plastic folders with different segments that get a steady supply of written content you’re always learning that will never to be seen or looked at by anyone – including you.
Now for something you really don’t want to hear. When your time comes to depart from this world, what will happen to all that work? I can tell you from experience that all that work and on-going work, all that knowledge, all that effort, all that life energy that went into creating your important masterly work will pass into the hands of another person that has to take care of your estate.
That person may be related or not, whichever it is doesn’t matter because they don’t know or understand the passion you had for your subject, let alone the amount of time, life and energy you put into your life’s work. To any other person but you, all they’ll see is a computer and a load of old notebooks stacked up in the corner along with all your other ‘junk.’
They will never take the time to go through all the important work you left behind, they won’t even glance at a single piece that you agonized over for your entire adult life. Even though what they’re looking at is potentially life changing and can benefit them beyond measure, they’ll never see it.
Where do you think all that insight and experience you could have given to the world will end up? How many times have you walked past a rubbish tip and seen boxes of books and paper in folders? I’ve seen them and put boxes there. Many times you’ll be looking at a persons precious ideas that never found their way out into the world, they were kept locked up in notebooks.
Don’t try to sidestep what I have just said and think it doesn’t apply to you. It is important to understand the real cost of what procrastination, polishing and endlessly perfecting your work will ultimately cost you in the long run.
You will never know the full impact your work could have on another person’s life, the impact will be far reaching beyond the information you can teach.
When you find the courage to put yourself out into the world… [You finish the sentence]
Steve
