INITIAL CONDITIONS

December 4th, 2020

It’s virtually a miracle if a person can do anything before a cup of coffee.  Some have a whole routine before the conditions are right to tackle the day.  And others never even get started because the conditions required never arrive, and worse, such people simply aren’t clear on what those conditions are, what they should be or could be.

The initial conditions for a person to do something hinges on a feeling.  And for those who never even make an attempt, it just never feels right.  The big secret known by all go-getters is that the feeling is a phantom - it just doesn’t exist.  The movers and shakers are equipped with a counter-intuitive function: they do things despite not feeling like it.  When the intuitive idea of what to do is to take it easy, relax and plan a little more before making a move, the doer has realized the necessity for having a healthy suspicion of such feelings.  

Pause for a moment to notice just how insidious this self-subterfuge of thought:  we feel lazy, but a thought gives birth to another feeling: a sense of suspicion.  The thinking mind can pit a new emotion against another.  This is how a person gets going with no motivation, with a feeling that perhaps the perfect conditions and a sense of drive actually aren’t necessary.

The raw ingredients are often just time, and the space to do what needs to be done.  Waiting for feelings to align with that wondrous gift is to waste that gift.  Feelings are fickle, especially when we hope for those feelings to be aligned with our laborious aims.

In terms of feelings, they’re always a bit of a mess and far from ideal in the beginning, but after - after the work has been done, and something has been accomplished - that’s when the feelings finally fall in line and suddenly things are good, things finally feel, just right.