What did I get myself into?
Oh boy, this is going to get worse before it gets better.
When I was in the sixth grade, my parents moved me and my brother to a new house in a brand new neighborhood. And when I say “brand new,” I mean that very literally.
When we moved in, we were only one of two houses on our street. The rest was undeveloped, wooded land — a perfect arena for middle school kids with big imaginations.
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My brother and I, along with other friends who came over to visit, spent so much time out in those woods playing secret agent, pirates, treasure hunters… anything that we could dream up (those games may have also included some not-so-safe/not-so-smart activities, but I won’t go into too much detail here, as my mom is an avid reader of this newsletter).
But time and progress slowly took over. The woods were cut down and the land sculpted into lots onto which new houses were built.
But those construction sites soon proved to be yet another playground for us teens to occupy our idle time.
Excavators rolled in and dug deep holes to prepare for foundations and the eventual basements. And it was on one eventful day that I stood on the edge of a hole and had a spark of inspiration:
Why not build a bike ramp and jump this hole?!
My brother and our friends thought this to be a fantastic idea and we set straight to work assembling a ramp Evel Knieval would approve of. Now, civil engineers we were not, and the time spent on building the aforementioned ramp was minimal, because how much time do you really need to prop a piece of plywood up on a cinder block? Turns out — not much.
We dusted the dirt from our hands and stood back to admire our work, confidence brimming like the Titanic builders watching her sail off over the horizon,
“What could go wrong?”
The only decision left to make was, who’s going first?
Since it was my idea, the responsibility fell to me and I was eager to accept the challenge. I walked my bike back several dozen yards to a starting point that was determined not by scientific calculation, but by an eye-ball test, a shrug, and a fleeting thought,
“This looks about right.”
I pedaled as hard as I could, picking up speed with every revolution, the small group watching me grow closer and closer to the end of the plywood ramp.
My front tire struck the plywood dead center — my approach was perfect — but I hadn’t counted on the propped up end of the board slipping off the cinder block (because, of course, it wasn’t attached to the board). The entire thing collapsed…
…which meant I had no lift.
…which meant I couldn’t get my front tire up.
…which meant there would be no clean landing.
I careened straight down, into the hole.
Now there was a point, somewhere between me going over the edge of the hole and crashing face-first into the dirt below, where I said to myself,
“I didn’t think this through.”
And even now, as an adult, I experience the same feelings. While I’m no longer flying face first over my handlebars, I sometimes find myself flying through the proverbial void of anxiety, brought on by my own self-doubt, and I can only hope to find safe landing on the other side.
Take my latest creative commitment, for example.
Only a few weeks ago, I responded to
and her invitation to join her in a 20-week screenwriting challenge, wherein participants would all help to hold each other accountable as they each worked to finish a feature-length screenplay by Halloween this year.1
Yes I committed, but boy did I labor over the decision. Thoughts swirled…
Why waste your time writing a feature? You won’t get it produced anyway.
You’ll never finish.
You could be spending your time doing any number of more worthwhile projects.
This is going to take away time from your family, and it’s not worth it.
And so I hesitated. Can you relate at all?
But it was a conversation with a trusted individual that helped me change my mind. And what was the difference? She encouraged me to shift my perspective on the problem.
Don’t think about all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it. Rather, think about all the things it can give you if you commit.
new contacts that might develop into beneficial professional relationships
new opportunities, yet unseen, from those contacts
new insights about yourself and your skills
valuable practice
improvements in your writing
I’ve often viewed things from a glass-half-empty perspective. Maybe it’s easier for you to see the potential upside of things, but it’s something I’m still working on.
Even now, after the initial boost of positivity I felt when I first said “yes” to this challenge, I find myself warding off those negative thoughts once again.
you can’t do it
you’ll never finish
you’ll never write anything as good as everyone else in the group
And so, like that young kid still in mid-air, facing the inevitable impact from a poorly thought-out bike stunt, I’m thinking…
What did I get myself into?
I didn’t think this through!
And finally, “I’ll never get out of this without getting hurt.” Hmmm…
maybe that’s the point.
After all, what lessons do we learn about ourselves without getting scraped up and bruised along the way? Those are the moments, in retrospect, when we were molded — refined into something better — something we never would have thought possible beforehand…
before we started pedaling.
I hope to write more throughout this 20-week project to provide updates and the things I’m learning about myself and the process of screenwriting.