Luckyshirt

On Motivation:

Find the Starlight was an idea that existed in countless forms in my head over many years. And that was where I left it. Because as I shaped it over and over and over, and as it began to become clear how perfect the project and story were for me, it also became more and more frightening. I’ve posted about that fear too many times already. This is a post about motivation.

Sometime in the middle of this year, I took a long break from posting. I had exhausted myself creatively on jokes and halfhearted drawings and videos and blah and blah. And I began to feel like I was eating the wallpaper at a really fancy brunch buffet. Like everything I wanted was in view, and I was… well… eating wallpaper.

During that break, I struggled with how to take what I had learned about myself creatively and otherwise over the years, and focus it on something I could be proud of, and (more importantly) that would feed that asshole creative monkey on my back.

But even then, I still stayed the hell away from Find the Starlight. Every now and then I would go to a coffeeshop with my laptop and nudge it, but then I ran like hell.

Until one day I did something stupid.

I posted the post pictured here. What was to become M’s first, in a way. And I was sure to post it on a Saturday, so nobody would see it.

It was only up for just under an hour, and I received more responses than I knew what to do with.

And all of a sudden, I was actually responsible to do this thing. I had pushed on the boulder one too many times, and off it went down the hill. Toward my face. And the wallpaper. Don’t worry about it.

And there, beneath the paralyzing panic and terror, I found my motivation. And I got to work. And the people who responded are some of the people getting their boxes now for Chapter One.

What is true for me is not true for everyone. I’m old enough to know that. But I can say that for me, motivation was simply waiting on the other side of action. It sounds backwards. Hell, it’s backwards. But that’s how this went. I got the motivation to get off my ass by actually just getting off my ass.

It’s like a rule I made for myself about a year ago that I absoulutely cannot believe actually works:

When I wake up, as soon as I think “Ugh I should get out of bed,” I have to immediately get out of bed.

I know. But just try it.

And if your life has brought you anywhere near where I was, try both things.