Self Ex Machina

If you feel that you are capable of something, then prove it.

I won’t believe you until you do.

Life doesn’t reward the what-ifs and other imagined possibilities.

Life only rewards courage, and what is actually put forth.

Do it. Do it in all of its imperfections.

Break your own heart and ego with the ugliness of your productions.

You will not do it any more elegantly later.

Do everything in this moment. Never put things off.

Trade what could be for what can be now.

It is initially unpleasant, but rapidly becomes the only source of real satisfaction.

A perfect company, a perfect piece of writing, a perfect relationship — these are figments of your hazy imagination.

I am certainly guilty of day-dreaming of perfection. But what I actually really want is to check things off my list, and to do so excellently.

It is only through a relentless bias toward acting that your situation will improve. You must keep producing. You cannot just exist in theory.

To force yourself to act can feel like agony, because nothing that you make concrete, at least not in its first, third, or even fifth iteration, is going to be anything close to what you believe you are capable of.

But what you are capable of is what you can do now, in this moment. By definition.

This is something you must come to terms with.

And you must also remember how capable you are of ameliorating things through iteration. The human mind and body are remarkable in their capacity to improve.

But you cannot improve without first producing something.

The reflex of acting will always be superior to that of deliberating.

You can think of course, but thinking can be done by moving forward, creating things, making decisions.

Be in love not with the idea of things but with the things themselves.

Such is the way of the happy life.