I read an interview not long ago with Nick Woodman, the billionaire founder of Go Pro. Woodman studied visual arts in college, not business. “I just followed my gut because I didn’t know any better,” he explained. So, when he was in his twenties and one business venture he was pursuing fell apart, he followed his gut again and decided to go on a surfing vacation. Surfing seemed like the most practical thing to do at that moment because he had noticed that good ideas only came to him when he was doing something he was passionate about. As it happens, he got the idea for Go Pro while on that get-away.
The story has stayed with me since. I’m sure turning that inspired idea into a business required risks and sleepless nights and frustration. As a writer, I have certainly known plenty of those myself. Every book, every story, is like a new business, and there’s no guarantee what will come of it. All I know is that I’m interested in the story I want to tell, that I would read it if it were a book on the shelf. That’s all you get for a long time. If your own interest in the story isn’t enough, you’ll give up.
You’ll give up because there’s a lot of what we call “hard work” and dedication required to turn any idea into a physical reality. For the writer, that hard work is showing up at the desk every day whether you’re in the mood to write or not (and I’m usually not, by the way). Showing up even if things didn’t go well the day before, even if you got rejection letters, or if you have no idea what to do with the middle of the story. You show up no matter what. After all, books don’t write themselves.
Sound difficult? It wasn’t for me, actually. Showing up felt like chopping wood. It’s easy: you just do it. The tricky part, the mysterious part (and the most essential) is getting the inspired idea. Without the inspired idea, I’m not showing up for anything. I have nothing to build with all the wood I’ve chopped. The actual hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life is trying to write without such an idea. In fact, it wasn’t just hard–it was impossible.
That is why I love Woodman’s story so much. He took inspiration seriously. He even had a plan to find it, which went something like this: have fun. That’s a great plan. That was always mine when I was a kid; not so much once I became an adult. Adulthood can be tricky, what with all its concerns about survival, the uninspiring business of not-dying. It’s easy to believe that fun is something you earn, something waiting for you on the weekend or in retirement. But a plan?
Yes. After all, what am I surviving for if not fun, enjoyment, and effortless engagement with life? It’s just that once you’re an adult, allowing fun to be the plan requires true, consistent discipline. To have fun, I can’t be afraid. I am, of course, and frequently enough. I turn my attention to the future, the unwritten chapters of my life, and wonder how I can ensure I’ll be all right there, that I’ll survive there, have enough money there, and that I might even enjoy myself there. No matter how hard I fixate on the future, plan for or worry about the future, it remains agonizingly out of reach. The truth is, anything could happen out there in the endless unknown.
Fun, meanwhile, exists in exactly one place: the here and now. It’s the only place you can have it. If remain disciplined, bring my attention to where I actually am, and look for the fun, inspiration, and effortless engagement there, I always find it. Once I find it, that fun and inspiration become a path I can follow to all the success and security I worry I won’t find in the future. But only if I follow it, trust it, and obey it. The future is none of my business. The path will take care of that.
Strangely, as soon as I get back onto that path, I feel as though it stretches not just into the future, but from the past as well. I was on it when I was a boy playing Whiffle Ball and football and Dungeons & Dragons. I was following it when I was goofing around with my friends, telling stories, going to movies, and listening to music. The path is the same; all that’s changed is what I’m doing on it. Now I write these essays, or write music, or give workshops and lectures. That’s what fun looks like now. I didn’t know that’s where I was headed when I was a kid, but I didn’t need to. All I needed was to ask myself was “What’s the coolest thing I can do now?” If I did that, I knew I was headed in the right direction.
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