Your nerves are what kill you, the limits to your imagination are what prevent you from living. Both aspects of you need to be ready for dragging the world kicking and screaming into your frame of reference.
Let’s start with your nerves. If you have a great idea, but you’re unwilling to step into the person that can achieve your desires, you’re ultimately going to be incapable of action. Sit with, process, and address the insecurities. Think about the alternatives of growing bigger, of being different than you’ve been before.
There’s this concept in literature of dirty moats, where in order to get to the castle, you need to trudge through some sludge. The more comfortable you are, the less desirable the mud gets. In order to achieve, you need to believe in the far off, and accepting looking stupid temporarily to achieve rewards.
There’s something funny about internalizing the tradeoff between temporary pain and longterm satisfaction, it gets addictive. You learn to love the pain, to fail in public. You learn to grow faster, to ask for help, to push through.
Becoming more imaginative requires loss of what you’re used to. As you grow, you might start to recognize that you “outgrow” some of your friends, as you continually sharpen the sword. To have space for the unknown, sometimes it requires exploring some wilderness and accepting loneliness. In these moments of loneliness, get inspired. Find something you need to do from deep in your bones, and start doing it. You’ll start to find people aligned to your mission the longer and harder you work on it.
The benefit to cultivating creative and goal-oriented friendships is that you become open to possibilities you didn’t know were possible. Be around people who read, write, and chase their passions, and you become them.
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