The Practice

You can produce more than you know if you are intent on doing it for someone else.

It’s not easy or comfortable to switch from a lifetime of compliance and convenience to work with a new rhythm, a new set of principles, and a new way of being in the world. That discomfort is a good sign. It means that you’re beginning to see the pattern.

The practice of choosing creativity persists. It’s a commitment to a process, not simply the next outcome on the list. We do this work for a reason, but if we triangulate the work we do and focus only on the immediate outcome, our practice will fall apart.

Turning on lights, opening doors, and helping us not only connect to our better nature, but to one another.

Good processes, repeated over time, lead to good outcomes more often than lazy processes

We don’t write because we feel like it. We feel like it because we write.

But you are already enough. You already have enough leverage. You already see enough. You already want to make things better. Start where you are. Start now. Find the pattern and care enough to do something about it.

The “what’s-it-for” recursion lets you choose to go to work, efficiently working toward a goal, whenever you decide it’s important enough to ask the question. And it permits us to be open to useful feedback.

When Elizabeth King said, “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions,” she was talking about the fish. You might seek a shortcut, a hustle, a way to somehow cajole that fish onto the hook. But if it distracts you from the process, your art will suffer. Better to set aside judging yourself until after you’ve committed to the practice and d