“If you build it, they will come,”
– Ray Kinsella
If you craft it, they will buy it. If you write it, they will read it. If you paint it, they will admire it. If you dance, they’ll watch – if you sing, they’ll listen.
In the beginning, you might seriously doubt this… and maybe that’s why you’re still hesitating so much. Sitting on your ass. Doing nothing.
Why don’t your day to day activities align with your values – what you truly want out of life?
Your fear of rejection might stop you from actively seeking the attention of others. You wonder, “what if they don’t like it?” “What if it’s not good enough?” “What if I’m not good enough?”
What if nobody listens, nobody watches, and nobody buys it?
Feelings of doubt are painful, debilitating. Ironically, you might neglect the very action that will dispel of that feeling one day.
Especially in the beginning, when nobody notices that you do anything.
You may ask yourself what all this labor is all for? Why did I choose this over expediency? These negative feelings might make you want to stop.
Build it
But instead, you must have undying faith.
Undying faith in what you know you want in life will make you build it, day in and day out, to its completion. Undying faith will make sure you are in it over a long time, not an easy time.
A musician is an insignificant musician for years before something actually good comes out of him – and he makes his impact.
In that moment, when he makes it, some might chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time…
But if you dig deeper, it turns out he was in the right place at the right time for years. Even when it wasn’t easy.
For you to eventually be in the right place at the right time, you need to make sure you are doing the right things at the right times everyday, for a long time.
Seemingly forever. And it shouldn’t matter if it takes forever. Faith…
That after you actually build it, will they come.
Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.
– Seneca
It’s in that preparation part where you likely experience failure… And attribute it to bad luck.
Alas, you’re blind to your blind spots, sometimes.
Like the author that meets a publisher at a networking event but he sucks at writing, and was never prolific enough to have a sample of his work to give. Bad luck.
Or, really, was it because he was too busy spending time thinking about whether he should be a writer or not. Too busy numbing his doubts and insecurities with video games and random videos on YouTube. Busy not actually writing.
Preparedness is neglected when the computer programmer under sleeps for a couple of months, partying. When he gets the opportunity to “run into” a mutual friend that is funding a new software as a service product, he doesn’t get the job.
If you’re not prepared… only God knows how many times you’ve brushed up against someone who could impact your life in a huge way and, if destiny had it that you were competent, would have given you a break.
In this regard, you have shaped your destiny with your lack of preparedness and your ineffective actions.
How long will you wait before you do what is necessary to break past this level so that chance can benefit you? How many more opportunities are you willing to miss?
How many more people will leave a conversation with you, without really knowing who you are and what you can do for them?
When the world lacks your particular brand of competency, you suffer – and the world eventually suffers for it too.
Preparation
What’s the best way to prepare for that inevitable, faithful, serendipitous meeting of circumstances that will take you to the next level?
First, you can keep in mind that you must immediately prepare for this day. Only because it will be inevitable – then your preparedness will be worth it.
In other words, have faith in the idea that something good will happen because of this – because of your actions and beliefs. Otherwise, you won’t prepare. If this is hard for you, it needs to get taken care of first, before you’ll ever get good at anything.
With faith, you can rely on what you can’t control, but at the same time, you will have the discipline to do everything you can to make the odds heavily sway in your favor.
Simply, time spent anywhere else would be a waste of it. And there’s not that much to waste, really.
Now, is anybody close to being able to spend every minute of their life as efficiently as possible? Probably not. We’re not robots and shit.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t constantly reflect upon any mis-allotments of these minutes. Perhaps there are areas where more of an investment would return a sizable reward? Maybe disproportionally? Fixing my sleep schedule wasn’t very effortful but it impacted a lot of areas of my life.
Maybe, after that, you can go and play 7 hours of the Witcher 3.
Chances are, there won’t be much time left over if you’re truly using your time to prepare, though.
You’re too busy focused on the day that someone will huge take notice of you and come into your life. Someone important, even.