Navigating Doubt
To Share or Not To Share
Many times we find ourselves having created something but contemplating: should I share this or not? We are typically driven by this idea of the "point" and it motivates us to do or not do something.
Not everything happens because there's a point to it. A dandelion blooms in your back yard. As long as it blooms, is there a point to it blooming yesterday vs. today? Everything we do has an impact whether we realize it or not.
How does one grow without doing things they have to be responsible for? If there is no way to score in the game of basketball, how can one grow the skill of throwing the ball into the hoop?
Sometimes we will get the response and reaction that we anticipated. Sometimes we will be unpleasantly surprised. But regardless of how the world reacts to us, WE are the ones learning something and growing as a result of sharing. I need you to be deeply interested in your own growth, and intentionally do actions that foster your growth.
Is This Good?
The eternal question that serves as the loyal companion for creators: is this good? This question has two sides. One, there is the pursuit of "goodness"; we want the things we create to be good. Two, there is the avoidance of "badness"; we want the things we create to NOT BE BAD.
Although the two sides seem equivalent, in my experience people suffer because of the latter. The regret and anguish we feel when we create something bad lasts for a long time, like too much garlic sitting on our stomach.
As long as you subscribe to the good/bad binary, there is no way you will escape the suffering that accompanies the binary.
As a Korean person I eat a lot of rice. When you eat rice, not every grain will be of good quality; some will be chipped, some will be half, some will be in perfect shape. But when you're eating rice, does the quality of each individual grain matter? No, you just eat the rice regardless of how it looks.
When you focus on individual good/bad, it's like you're working at a rice mill where you're looking at every individual grain. The purpose of creative urges is simple: it is to bring something inside of you out into the world. Good/bad are judgment calls, and your judgment on your work is but one of the many judgment calls that your work will receive. But the precious act of letting something inside of you emerge into the world is something that cannot be tarnished by a judgment call.
Creating must be your first and foremost intention, and the more you focus on creation itself the more the "good/bad" worry will naturally subside.
For the full guidebook on content creation including format-specific guides for shortform video, longform video, live streaming, and writing, ask Billy for the Content Creator Companion guidebook.