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When we find people we can respect while respectfully disagreeing with them, we grow. We grow because rather than taking offence at their views or thinking negatively about them as people, they help us challenge our own beliefs simply because they’re different.

Difference is important. Difference creates challenge. Challenge is what powers the world.

“To fly we have to have resistance.”

Maya Lin

Without difference, without resistance, without challenge, nothing changes. Not individuals, not organisations, not countries. Only through opposition does anything shift.

Once we open up and take in opposing views one of two things happens: we change our mind, or we understand our own views better.

I subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog because I respect him and love his writing. But I also disagree with him often. When one of his posts lands in my inbox and I disagree with it, it makes me stop and ask myself not just why I disagree with it but what I actually believe (and why). 

When we find people who challenge us our thoughts, views and beliefs clarify in a way that helps us grow and move forward.

I hope you disagree.

Dmitri Shostakovich composed extraordinarily quickly. Once he heard the piece in his head, he would pour the notes onto the page. He could manage 20-30 pages of score a day and rarely made corrections.

I can’t write that fast. I can’t write music at all, but let’s leave that to one side. Words vs. music may be an indirect comparison, but even with the benefit of technology I can’t come close to that speed (or endurance).

Shostakovich, however, constantly worried that he worked too fast. He wrote a letter to a friend saying, “Undoubtedly this is bad… composing is a serious business.”, an idea that is so clearly ridiculous that it left me hoping his friend wrote back to tell him as much.

We must never get caught up in the idea there there is one right way to do something – a proper way or, even worse, the “done” way.

My wife and I make tea totally differently, but they usually taste the same. 

Lee Child’s writing process is totally different to Haruki Murakami, but they have both written bestsellers.

Clint Eastwood, when he directs a movie, shoots as few takes as possible, while David Fincher is renowned for shooting 20, 50, even 100 takes of a single shot before moving on. They’ve both made masterpieces. 

The way we succeed is not by doing things the way someone else does them, but by finding the way that suits us and owning it.

After all, for all his worrying, Shostakovich was a pretty solid composer all things considered.

When we have decided which boulder we’re going to put our shoulder to, the next question is whether or not we’re able to shift it on our own. 

The size of the boulder is directly proportional to the size of our ambition. The bigger our goal, the bigger the rock.

Our ability to move the rock is inversely proportional to the size of the boulder. The bigger the rock, the hard it is to shift.

That means if our ambitions are lofty, we cannot hope to move the boulder without other people putting their shoulders to it alongside us. We can’t be proud, we can’t be shy, we can’t be ashamed to say that we need help to achieve our goals.

If the rock looming over us is the one we really want to push, other people’s shoulders are the most important part of our efforts. 

When we finally overcome our nervousness about getting started we feel great. The first push of the boulder is always the hardest, momentum will help from here.

The reality, though, is that the hill is often not as steep as we thought it was and the momentum may be halted by tree branches, smaller rocks or even people rather than rumbling its way to the bottom untouched.

When that boulder stops no one can ever say for certain whether it’s gone as far as it can. It may be leaning up against an insurmountable obstacle or an unrelenting opposition, or it might be a finger-push away from barrelling down to its destination. But that’s not the point.

The point is that we have the chance to start again. We have a choice.

We can start pushing the same boulder and see if it’ll budge, we can start pushing a smaller rock on the same hill to see if we can get that one going instead, or we can choose an entirely different hill on which to find an entirely different boulder we think we can shift.

Of course, we also have the option to do nothing, to tell ourselves we can’t do it, that we’re done with pushing boulders.

We must never, ever take that option.

Regardless which boulder we decide to put our shoulder to, we must keep pushing. We must try to see how far we can go with this one, and the next one, and the one after that.

It doesn’t matter how many rocks on how many hills we try to shift, we must not stop starting.

Starting is hard. Things get in the way, we doubt ourselves, we worry that if we start we may not finish, we may not succeed, we may not make it to wherever we’re going.

People will often share the old Lao-Tzu quote, the “a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step”, but they often miss an equally great truism from the same chapter:1

“Rest is easy to hold.”

Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

And so we hold our rest because if we start we may fail.

“But wait,” people say, “Failure is a good thing.” They tell us that Edison said “I know 10,000 things that will not work” 2 and while it’s lovely to know other people have done it before us, it doesn’t make failure easier to take.

Eventually, when we finally take that fabled first step, we remember: the reason people start is because starting feels good. It’s scary, fun, intimidating, energising, exhilarating, uncertain and, most of all, it’s a beginning. We can say, “I have started.” Our journey has begun, however long it may take and wherever the road may lead.

We can never feel the same regret for the things we start as we do for the things we never begin, so if you’re thinking about starting something, start.

Because you can. I believe in you.

1. Chapter 64, Tao Te Ching, quote taken from the Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo translation [non-affiliate]. [↩]
2. He didn’t, by the way – the quote attributed to him by biographer Walter S. Mallory in a 1910 biography was “Results? Why man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.” Source: Quote Investigator [↩]

We all know the people.

The people who work 18 hours a day, sleep for four and spend the other two in the gym. The people who post screenshots of their 4am alarm clocks, their “getting my pump on” Insta stories or their late-night “I’m still at it” Tweets.

When we see them, we often forget a simple truth: they are not us.

We mustn’t get sucked in to living someone else’s life. Other people’s productivity is their own. Their habits, their lifestyles, their beliefs aren’t who we are. We can aspire to be as successful as someone else, but we should never aspire to be someone else.

My body won’t let me operate on less than seven or eight hours of sleep, so I’m never going to work 18-hour days. My brain won’t let me go through a day without spending time with my wife, chilling out, eating together, watching TV, so I’m never going to spend all my waking hours at work.

That doesn’t mean I can’t be successful. It just means I’ll do it differently to someone else. Which is the point.

The moment we start to build our lives according to the way other people build theirs, we lose touch with who we are and how we achieve what we want to achieve.

You do you, not them.

Share your work, even when it scares you. Pick up the phone, even when it scares you. Tell someone what they mean to you, even when it scares you. Apply for that job, even when it scares you. Be honest with someone, even when it scares you.

Yesterday I sent the first draft of the first three chapters of my first ever novel to my wife and my brother. I’ve never written anything like this before and I’m not ready to share it yet. I’m not ready for other people to read it. I’m scared of what they’re going to say.

Which is why I had to share it.

Fear holds me back more often than I’d like to admit. It holds me back even in those times I refuse to admit to myself that I’m scared. In those times, fear manifests itself as perfectionism, it surfaces in excuses. Those are the times I need to share my art.

Not despite the fact that it scares me, because of the fact it scares me.

Doing things, even when they scare you, is a mantra I’ve had for myself for a long time. It’s also one I rarely listen to. So I’m trying harder.

Sometimes things just pop into my head. Unprompted, unwanted and not always helpful. But sometimes things pop into my head unprompted, unwanted and very, very helpful. Like yesterday when I started thinking about learning vs. teaching.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I wanted to move this site and these posts further towards the original intention of this blog. While mulling it over after I posted it I realised what wasn’t working.

Every time I’ve tried to restart this blog I’ve focused on what I can teach. What lessons from my life I can shape to apply universally. How I can benefit other people (like you, Dear Reader) with my knowledge.

And that’s bullshit.

If I sit here every morning1 and try to think about what I can teach today, I’m going to tie myself up in knots. But – more importantly – I’m going to create inauthentic, disingenuous posts.

The reason my blog resonated with people when I first started writing was because I was focused on learning. I was trying to make sense of my world as it was. Horrible, scary, intimidating but also funny, bright and full of excitement.

That’s precisely what I need now. Not a place where I can come to preach my wonderful wisdom, but a place I can put down what I’m learning every day.

If that’s something you can also learn from, fantastic. Have at it. Take away what you want to take away. But this place is for me. For my lessons. For my knowledge. For my experience. This place is where everything starts to make sense. I hope.

1. or afternoon, or evening, whenever I managed to plonk myself down [↩]

Despite being shattered from a busy week and a late night with the family last night, K and I were both ridiculously happy to spend lunchtime with our little gang of friends again – it kind of felt like old times, meeting up and hanging out together as a group twice in the space of just over a week.

It’s lovely to know that however long it is until we do it next (which hopefully won’t be as long as the gap up to these two weeks), we’ll still pick up exactly where we left off.

And Steve’s baby will probably still stare at me oddly and occasionally smile.

Thanks for having a birthday, Dave.

Tonight we had a final family meal before waving my bro and his wife and daughter off for their work-related emigration to Europe. It’s sad to see them go, but I’m excited at the exciting new challenges that face them, not to mention how much our niece will benefit from growing up in a different culture and country for the first few years of her life.

I’d love the chance to do something similar, but I know I’m probably a bit too much of a wimp for that. Still, having a nice gathering centred around great food (as all Lewington family gatherings always are!) was a great way to say goodbye and wish them well. Bro and Dad are now traipsing across Europe to get their car over there and then flying back later in the week to pick up the rest of the gang and take them out there. In summer, K and I get to drive out and deliver the new car they have on order, so I’m already grinning ear-to-ear just thinking about it. Summer holiday planned already!