At times, I have struggled with focusing on what’s in front of me — afraid that while working I’ll miss the bigger picture and regret the path I took. Looking back, my real regrets have been failing to take a path at all. Never fully committing, never pouring enough of myself into an endeavor to accomplish anything meaningful. In other words, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
When running, you have to look up to see where you’re going. Stare at your feet too long and you’ll run into a tree. But striving to better yourself doesn’t work that way. You aren’t running yet. You’re getting on your feet. Learning to take one step, then two. Getting stronger. When you lose focus on what’s in front of you in the name of seeing where you’re going, you multiply the time it takes to start running at all.
Spend too much time fretting over the ultimate impact of your efforts, and you compromise your ability to help people or contribute to a cause. Help first. Contribute first. Then course correct. Have you helped anyone today? Why not? If the honest answer is “I was too busy figuring out my true passion, purpose, etc.,” then you need to spend less time thinking.
Instead, choose an action you know would help someone and learn the skill required to perform it. Use the skill. Accomplish an objective. Then ask, how did that feel? Rack up a few of those experiences and you’ll begin to develop a sense for what you enjoy. It always feels good to help people, but which of the skills you used and which of the contributions you made matter most?
Lest you be concerned that at the end of this process you’ll remain lost — worst-case, you’ll have helped people, developed skills, and made a small difference. Believe me, you’d rather be there than still stuck at the beginning researching, wondering which path to take.
It’s human nature to avoid uncertainty. To want to know ahead of time where the scary monsters lie, so that you can stay far away from the trees they hide behind. But the real demons call you away from the forest entirely. The only way to outrun them is to step forward, into the dark unknown.