I was sitting in Hawaii by the ocean, reading my Kindle and looking up at the water from time to time. I noticed this person making his way out on a body board. Every time I looked up, he was another distance out until he was quite a ways out.
Not long after that, I saw another person going out, and he got out the same distance and caught a wave and came back in, then went back out.
The first guy was still waiting. In fact, he waited the entire time and finally – at least thirty minutes later, he finally paddled back in.
Meanwhile, the second guy had come back in on a number of fairly decent waves.
I think when we wait for everything to be perfect before we execute our plan, that we wind up cutting out all the fun and interest of having some experiences that are perhaps less than optimal. BUT, we do have those experiences. Lots of them. And to me, that’s life. We take the really good times with the bad ones and we let them balance out.
Mario Andretti says “Waiting doesn’t make you better, it just makes you older.” He also says, “If you think you have everything under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
I think those two statements are amazing.
As an author, it’s very hard to pull the trigger on that first. Or second .. or I suspect forty-second book. It’s always a hesitation as you begin to push that “Publish My Book Now” button on Amazon.
Amazon makes it very easy to revise your cover and your manuscript later. You can always go back and make changes and upload the new cover or the new manuscript.
BUT.
You have to have published it first.
Otherwise, you’ll just sit thinking you have everything under control, but the reality is, you’re still sitting in the grocery store parking lot.
And you’re older. 🙂
Not to fret. We as your helpful readers are only too willing to point out any minuscule oopses……….you’re welcome (snicker)
Yeah. Thanks, Jim. Thanks a lot. 😉
If you don’t catch the wave, you don’t move forward. You might go up and down in the swell and think you’re moving but that’s not progress.
Even if you’re moving forward, you’re not necessarily making progress! It’s probably like anything else, where sometimes the only way you can see what’s actually happening is to look from the outside. It’s why (I think) that it’s very hard for an author to write a blurb for their book, but often easy for someone on the outside to ‘fix’ their blurb.
That’s very true, you become far too close to your own work. And, if you’re not careful, you can develop a protective resistance around it. This blinds you to what is obvious to an outside, unbiased, viewer.
And, of course, you have to watch yourself to make sure you take it as constructive criticism if someone says something negative.