I have treated preparation as something I do before the real thing begins, then stopped preparing when it was over and wondered why I felt unprepared whenever something harder arrived without any kind of announcement,
I have treated preparation as something I do before the real thing begins, only slowly understanding that they are where the real building happens before the next demand arrives to find out what I built,
I have treated preparation as something I do before the real thing begins, then wondered how much distance I covered in the wrong direction while I had temporarily suspended the guilt effort,
What do I do with the time between demanding seasons that would make the next one meet a version of me further along than the one the last season that has left behind,
I have treated preparation as something I do before the real thing begins, rather than the quiet, daily, boring work that the version of me I am becoming has already accepted as the price of getting there…
I have shown up halfway to things that deserved the whole of me and called the half-showing-up presence when the more honest name was the minimum I could offer without admitting I was withholding,
I have shown up halfway to things that deserved the whole of me and blamed the circumstances instead of asking what I had actually brought to the thing before asking it to give me something worth having,
I have shown up halfway to things that deserved the whole of me while avoiding the one question that would have made the complaint impossible to sustain,
Am I showing up fully to the thing I keep calling the most important thing in my life, or am I showing up to a comfortable dedicated commitment because full commitment would require something I have not yet decided to give,
I have shown up halfway to things that deserved the whole of me to feel like my natural level of engagement when it was really a deliberate withholding I had never been honest enough to name…
I have assumed I knew what an idea would become before I gave it the chance to exist in the world and tell me what my mind could never discover on its own,
I have assumed I knew what an idea would become and held the assumption long enough for it to become certainty, then used that certainty as the wall between me and what might have been possible,
I have assumed I knew what an idea would become and responded to my interpretation of their idea rather than the idea itself,
How many ideas have I rejected not because they failed, but because I decided they would fail before they ever had the chance to prove me wrong,
I have assumed I knew what an idea would become one of the safest ways I have found to remain comfortable, certain, and completely open to the kind of discovery that only arrives when I am willing to be surprised and open to all the ways it can be possible…
I have been waiting to be fully ready before giving the thing I am building the level of engagement it actually requires, and slowly understanding that readiness was never meant to arrive before the commitment but because of it,
I have been waiting to be fully ready before giving the thing I am building to justify the full investment, while quietly moving the threshold every time they almost did materialize,
I have been waiting to be fully ready before giving the thing I am building a kind of discernment, wisdom, responsible restraint, when sometimes the more honest name has been fear of discovering what I can actually do when I stop holding something back,
What would I build in the next twelve months if I stopped rationing my capacity and started treating it as something that grows the more fully I believe in what my hands can hold,
I have been waiting to be fully ready before giving the thing I am building, only to discover that readiness and doing were never two separate things but the same motion, because I was never meant to become ready before moving—I was meant to become ready through moving with it…
Watchwords:
The in-between season is the only real building time,
The minimum I could offer without fully admitting it,
The certainty became the wall the better idea couldn't cross,
Full capacity grows in proportion to what I actually spend,
Readiness and the doing are the same motion...
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream: