The Art of Gettin’ Shit Done.
I’ve been wanting to post on Medium for years now, and for years I have not:
(1) Taken the time to physically do it.
And, well, I guess there is no (2).
Isn’t that strange? How true that is?
The only difference between the people who do things, and the people who don’t, is the simple act of doing.
And I know it sounds like a flying cheesedick from Pluto, but I kinda think that’s the same lesson Mr. Miyagi taught us (yes, I am fresh off my Cobra Kai binge, but there are lessons in everything — even things trying to give us lessons). Besides just creating muscle memory, painting the fence and waxing the car is the ACT OF DOING. Action realized. Taking care of your shit. Knocking it out, one by one. It teaches us there is no substitute for the simple act of doing. And furthermore, that we can do things. We can do things that are hard, and we can do things that will take a long time. All it takes is a choice to commit the time, focus, and energy necessary to get it done.
And yes, I am going to insert one of my favorite Sartre quotes now. I know he was an ugly old white guy, but he did have some good things to say. He didn’t want us to live inside any system, let alone a racist capitalist empire. Dismantle and reimagine all laws. Make different choices and create a new world. Chris Rock said a similar thing in his monologue on SNL a couple months ago.
“There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exist only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre
The point is that action begets action. You must strike to hit. Buy-in to win. To quote The Cult of Done Manifesto, “Done is the engine of more.”
And it’s not just that there isn’t a substitute for taking action, there is nothing else. Because even your inactions are actions, just lazy ones. Time is going by whether you like it or not, and your life is defined by what you do with it.
So on this New Year Day in 2021, may we all start making conscious choices to take action and get our shit done.
And now I’ve written my first Medium post.
Cheers and onwards,
-k
