Brandon Tries Things

Well, nothing quite shrivels my ambition and creativity like sitting in a corporate cube with no real work to do. Which happens to be where I find myself quite often these days. Life is full of winding paths that have unseen destinations when one first embarks. How did I come to this place? This career? This path for my life? Of course there’s no clear answer to these questions, only a slew of small decisions I’ve made over the years that led me to this point. 

I have a new goal. 

Bring more creativity into my life, and take action to see where it leads. 

This simple goal is something I’ve never quite been able to put together. Sometimes ideas will burst forth and I’ll scribble things down, laying out why my grand plans will work, who they’ll benefit, why it’s important. But this is often where I get stuck. Putting these things into action requires an additional step. To me it feels like the most insurmountable piece of the process, even though all it takes is one small step to begin.

Yes, I’m talking about taking action. 

I feel that it’s easy to be paralyzed in today’s world. The whole system is designed explicitly to give you exactly what you need, before you know you need it. And we wonder why kids are struggling with relationships and adults are lonely and everyone is addicted to their phone. Whether the system knows thyself (which I’m certain they do), or not, this is the system we’ve set up for ourselves. Dependence on something else to answer the needs that we can’t quite put a finger on. 

Thus, my new goal. 

We all have a creativity inside of us that needs specific conditions to be met before it can let loose. For some of us, this must be easy! “Hey, I’m just going to jam on my guitar for a bit, see what happens.” “I just start drawing when I feel the need to express myself.” “Let’s start a book club! I have the perfect book to get started.” But for others, without artistic skill, or a close group of friends, or with any number of small roadblocks in the way, this can feel like just enough of an impediment that we don’t take that action that’s needed.

This isn’t something I’ve talked about with others, but somehow I know we must all feel it. And this note is my official notice to myself, I’m going to do whatever it takes to push through the barriers and take action. 

It might be silly. It might be embarrassing. It might put me in awkward situations where I have to explain my little goal and why I’m stapling signs to telephone poles asking for new friends to play basketball on the weekends. It will surely be all those things, but it will also be much, much more.

What is there to lose? Attempt keeping a bonsai tree alive and it dies horribly? So what, you can say you tried. Try again with something else. 

I’m starting this blog as a public account of this goal for myself. I know that unless I speak it to the world, I’m unlikely to take any action. So this is the first step in my pursuit of creativity and action. If this touches one other person and convinces them to take the leap on something they’ve always thought they should pursue, then I’ll be happy. And if not?! It’s helping me begin my own journey, and that’s enough.