Knowhere | And yet, we will do it for the plot.

Edition 60

I am an anxious overthinker.
I will rationalize my way out of nearly anything that is even remotely scary, could be embarrassing or have some awkward consequence.
And yet, throughout my life I have done some incredibly bizarre things that I have had no right to do.

In my career, I didn’t start out as the stereotypical programmer that had a passion for coding, computers, or even gaming for that matter. Yet, I’ve ended up working my way through the ranks as a Software Engineer and landing a role leading a team of people way smarter than me.
In my hobbies, I have no education in photography, and barely snap more than a few photos from my phone whenever I see something pretty. Yet, I’ve ended up with an amateur photography profile that has seen nearly 15 000 downloads and over 1.6 million views.
Each time I sit down to write Knowhere or post something content-creatory, I cringe at myself and follow it up with that ever so faint voice that says, ‘Who do you think you are? They’re going to ridicule you. What’s the point of all of this anyway?’
Yet, I end up pressing ‘publish’ anyway.

Every single time that I think about doing something meaningful, my mind first makes a long list of reasons why I shouldn’t.
And yet, for some reason, I’ve gotten into the habit of just doing it anyway.
Doing it for the plot.

In part that’s because I’ve stopped retroactively analyzing whether something was ‘successful’. My focus has shifted to just doing the thing.

So, I try to just do it, despite the reasons why I shouldn’t; and I’ll do it again regardless of whether it appeared to have been a successful venture or not.
My photography example is useful here.
I know I like snapping photos and I get excited about sharing the ones I like with the world. I never quite had a way to do that until I started publishing to Unsplash. I was, and still am, incredibly underqualified to even have a profile there. Yet, I do.
Over the years, I’ve built up a routine of checking my galleries every week, and publishing anything I find cool.
Over time, that’s resulted in the stats I mentioned above.
Was it a ‘successful’ venture? I dunno 🤷‍♂️. I never really had a success criteria for it.
Does the routine keep me honest about my hobby? Absolutely.

Now there’s plenty of things that my anxiety inhibits still.
I don’t do it for the plot far more often than I do.
But I’ve been trying to apply this notion to everyday life and everyday decisions, rather than larger-scale high-impact decisions, for a few weeks now.
Its simultaneously far easier and far more scary to do it for the plot for everyday actions and decisions. Easier, since the actions are relatively lower risk and have fewer consequences. Scarier, since you have to face your fears regularly and immediately, for things that are less likely to give you the adrenaline spike you need to muster the courage.

But hey, there’s always going to be a million reasons to not do things you want to do.
Just do it and see what happens. What’s the worst that can happen?
The worst probably won’t happen, but even if it does, remember that you’ve made it through every single one of your worsts thus far.

Thanks for reading
Delano