Overwhelm. It’s all too normal these days and for no good reason. Let’s put this little paradox of non-action in perspective.

 

150 years ago, homesteaders on the Great Plains with no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no weather forecasting, no simple means of communications, no crops, not even a house, undertook the seemingly insurmountable project of establishing farms and doing what needed to be done to survive. And they did.

 

You, living now in the future with all of human knowledge floating through the air, capable of being summoned instantaneously at the stroke of a finger or voice command, with prepared food and even chartered transport at your beck and call don’t feel enabled– you feel paralyzed. Your needs are met. You are vaccinated. You are not hungry. You do not fear the locusts. But you can’t get on with it because you “don’t know where to start.”

 

You have the luxury of paralysis. We all do.

 

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. What is necessary for you to do? You have ideas about what you should do, so you moralize and judge and fret. If it were a matter of survival, you’d figure it out; in the absence of such pressure, nothing happens.

 

Here’s an idea for a first step: start writing. Open a Google doc or an actual notebook and let your thoughts flow. No pressure. No moralizing. Not for anyone to see. Just you. Stop after 10 minutes and repeat daily or more often.

 

OK, go.