When the First Version Stops Leading

I start before I’m ready, and I can sense the old instinct urging me to wait until confidence makes the first move feels a lot more safer,
I start before I’m ready, and I know how easily I can confuse the absence of certainty with evidence that I should not move yet until I feel right knowing,
I start before I’m ready, and sometimes I want preparation to protect me from the embarrassment of discovering that I still have much to learn,
I start before I’m ready, and can I let myself be inexperienced without making that experience feel like a verdict on what I might eventually become in the net era,
I start before I’m ready, and perhaps readiness isn’t the prerequisite that precedes the work, but rather something that the work gradually imparts to me…

I test gently, and what seemed convincing in my mind can sometimes change the moment my hands have to give it a tangible form,
I test gently, and there are ideas I want to defend simply because I have already spent so much time believing everything would work out the way I hoped for,
I test gently, and it can be painful to realize that the version I envisioned so vividly doesn’t withstand the contact with what I’m actually creating,
I test gently, and can I let something fail in front of me without immediately needing to rescue my opinion of myself, needing to defend this present plan,
I test gently, and every unexpected result becomes less threatening when I stop asking it to confirm that I was right from the beginning…

I relinquish control, and the work starts revealing things that I couldn’t have noticed while I was preoccupied with safeguarding the initial version that I cherished,
I relinquish control, and I notice how quickly certainty can become a small room when the thing I am making needs more space and time than I originally expected it,
I relinquish control, and some of the most powerful directions only come after the ones I trusted the most have stopped taking me where I expected,
I relinquish control, and can I follow what is becoming stronger even when it means admitting that my first instinct was not the one that served the real work,
I relinquish control, and the work becomes more alive when I stop treating surprise as evidence that I have lost my way into my own imagined future…

I allow for mistakes, and I’m gradually realizing that even unsuccessful attempts can still yield valuable insights if I’m willing to examine what they revealed,
I allow mistakes, and the harder part is often not making the mistake but resisting the urge to turn it into a story about my ability, my strength and my own future,
I allow mistakes, and I can feel myself becoming less interested in avoiding in every wrong turn and more interested in noticing what each possible one opens,
I allow mistakes, and can I stay curious after something that does not work instead of immediately reaching for the familiar, negative answer,
I allow mistakes, and perhaps the work becomes clearer not when I avoid being wrong but when I become less afraid of finding out that I was, and somehow the moment I stop needing to be right, I can finally see what the work has been trying to tell me…

Watchwords:
The absence of certainty with evidence
What looked convincing in my head
Protecting the first version I loved
What is becoming stronger
Less afraid of finding out

Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..

As and will always be reminding you to dream:
“As you are still the Master of your destiny and the maker of your dreams…”

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