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Why it’s important to just start

It’s important to start. Without starting you don’t know what you’re thinking. Without starting you don’t know what you want.

No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. That’s an imprecise statement of von Moltke’s famous quote. Similarly, you don’t know what you really want until you take steps to achieve it.

Jordan Peterson says something similar:

Say what you mean, so you can find out what you mean. Act out what you say, so you can find out what happens. Then pay attention. Note your errors. Articulate them. Strive to correct them. That is how you discover the meaning of your life. That will protect you from the tragedy of your life. How could it be otherwise?

12 Rules for Life, pages 282-283.

“Act out what you say, so you can find out what happens.” Maybe your thinking is so improbably contrary to reality that your plan will be more akin to Mike Tyson’s famous variation on von Moltke:

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Mike Tyson

We are afraid to get punched in the mouth. And that fear of inevitable pain creates geometrically compounded additional suffering.