Better Late Than Never?

It only took me three weeks to break my commitment to myself to post a blog every Sunday. Something I find so fascinating is how if it were my actual paid job to write a blog post every Sunday, and the consequence of failing to do so was to be fired, I absolutely would have posted yesterday. And yet, when it’s up to just me, it only took three weeks before I let my deadline slide. What is that? Why is something so easy to do when there’s external pressure, and so easy to mess up in absence of that pressure?

In his brilliant book “Turning Pro,” Steven Pressfield talks about what separates amateurs from professionals, and it really boils down to one thing: professionals are professionals because they show up and do their work regardless of the presence or absence of external consequence. Amateurs show up and do their work only when they are subjected to external pressures. Write a blog post, or you’re fired. Record this podcast because you’ll get a check if you do so. If you take away the external reward from an amateur, they won’t do the work.

Professionals are exactly the same as amateurs in all respects but one: whereas amateurs only create in an environment of external pressure, professionals create in whatever environment they happen to find themselves in. If they are getting paid to write a blog post, they write the damn blog post. If they aren’t getting paid to write a blog post... guess what? That damn blog post is getting written. Being a professional has nothing to do with whether or not you are getting paid for your work. That’s a cosmetic feature of professionals. No, what truly distinguishes a professional from an amateur is their inner determination to show up and do the work, to fall in love with the process of doing that work, and to be fed by the activity of working itself, not by the hypothetical objects of desire that the work may produce as a side-effect.

So I’m still on my journey from amateur to pro, obviously. If posting a blog every Sunday was my job, I’d be fired by now. But what’s the next best thing? For me, it’s showing up the next day, doing the work that I neglected to do yesterday, and moving forward. No time for demoralization, no time to make this a slide into complete amateurishness. None of that. Just get back on the path and keep at it.

When you find your path, your task is simple: stay on the path. And if for whatever reason you fall off the path, your task is simple: do whatever it takes to get back on it. This post is my effort to get back on my path, to reaffirm my inner dedication to bringing forth the work that I was born to bring forth long before anyone ever rewards me for it (or not). That’s not the point of creative endeavor. To create is to be in the flow of reality, to be connected to an incomprehensible vastness far greater than any individuated expression, to feel the presence of mystery moving through us. We create to create, for creation is its own reward. When we lose sight of this, we lose sight of everything.