“Nothing Happens . . . 

geometric drawings and formulasuntil something moves.”  Albert Einstein

Another great quotation from the funeral of Gil Johnson.  I’m sure that this is a well-known statement, but I don’t remember ever hearing it before.  So let’s unpack it, as the current jargon says, not in the scientific sense that Einstein meant but in a more practical sense:
​1.  There has to be a beginning before there can be an end.  Isn’t that, like, deep?  But it’s true.  The rockslide will never happen

until that first pebble shifts.  I have found it to be incredibly helpful to think in terms of that first pebble; that is, in terms of the smallest action I can take to get a project started.  So I’ve finished recording the audio version of my book, but now I need to edit out the flubs.  Jim has told me what software he thinks would work well, so the first pebble is obvious:  download the software.  As soon as my Pomodoro Timer rings I will look this up.  (I’m probably going to change to a different app for this technique as the one I’m using now is rather clunky, so I’m not including a link.  Plus I can’t find it online anyway.)

2.  There has to be a willingness to move without having complete information.  This is the old “analysis paralysis” problem.  For me, there are times when I act impulsively and should indeed get more information, so I don’t suffer from this problem as much as some. We can all get that feeling of being stymied, though, as we try to move forward without knowing the outcome.  (That would be pretty much all the time.) The bigger the decision, the more information is needed.  At some point, though, unless you’re just willing to stand there in the middle of the stream with the water rushing over your toes, you have to make a choice and get going.

3.  There has to be openness to the status quo.  This is a little tricky.  Sometimes I can get impatient about a situation and think, “This has to change!”  Okay, fine.  I can take that first step by doing some research and being honest about what I find.  So, back last fall, I was convinced that we should seriously consider selling our house and downsizing to something smaller.  Gideon was planning to go off to grad school (which didn’t happen, at least not this year), and there Jim and I were going to be, rattling around in this big house.  I was uneasy as I walked around our enormous back yard, caring for my many plants, thinking about the water bills, and the electricity bills, and the mortgage.  We could sell our house, make a fortune (we got a great deal back in 2009), and buy a smaller house for cash, thereby eliminating the mortgage and vastly lowering the bills.  Right?  So, rather than stewing about it, I did a little homework, going onto Zillow and Trulia and seeing what was out there for the amount of money I thought we’d have left over after paying off the mortgage we currently have.  Jim and I drove to several of these places, and while a couple of them were quite nice, I realized that we wouldn’t have the capabilities for hospitality and guest-hosting that we have now.  I went ahead and contacted a real estate agent who told us what we could have found out for ourselves:  that, while the value of our home had indeed gone up dramatically, we were still about $50,000 short of being able to do what I wanted to do.  There just wouldn’t be enough money left over from the sale to buy a smaller-but-still-decent house for cash.  So we decided to stay.  But here’s the thing:  it was an informed decision.  I did move some pebbles, but in the end the rockslide didn’t happen.  And that’s fine.

So, on to the next step in getting the audiobook done.  There will be a special offer on this item as soon as I get it done.

1 thought on ““Nothing Happens . . . ”

  1. Excellent insights! I’m finding with no work to schedule around moving that first pebble every morning is quite difficult! I’ll try to think in terms of pebbles moving to get the rockslide going for the day.

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