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LM: #324: Retroactive kudos
You don’t know what you’re making until you make it. So it’s normal to begin some in-finite project – such as a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel – and soon after decide it’s not for you.
You start a project like this with an aspirational inkling. You reach out into the void and see if what you can grab. Sometimes you find something, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes what you grasped slips away.
The greatest irony of projects that seem they should go on forever is, if they fulfill their purposes as vehicles for personal growth, they will become obsolete. You learn quickly in the beginning, but that rate of learning slows down. So you must choose to either chase diminishing returns, or stop.
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Just as why you began may not have been clear, why you stopped may not have been, either. So I hereby grant you permission to give yourself a retroactive pat on the back for the ongoing projects you’ve started then abandoned.
- That podcast with two episodes? Great job! You learned about audio production.
- That YouTube channel with three videos? Impressive! You got better at being on-camera.
- That open-mic comedy set you delivered only once? Well done! You got a feel for how the spoken word lands in a room.
You learn more abandoning an in-finite project than never starting at all. So if you’ve started something you’ve stopped, retroactive kudos!
Aphorism: “I am convinced that art represents the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
Cool: NaturalReader is an app for iOS and Android that I use to listen to drafts of my writing, read by an AI voice.
Best,
David
P.S. Why I quit my podcast.
