When I was 18, my dad and I naively set out to conquer Mt. Whitney all in one day.
We summited alright, but by sundown we had only made it back down to base camp… still many hours away from the parking lot.
We had no camping gear whatsoever, so overnighting it above treeline was out of the question.
Luckily, we met up with another hiker who shared our predicament… and unlike us, he had the sense to have brought a flashlight.
And so the three of us proceeded to walk off that mountain in the pitch dark, with only one flashlight to guide us.
Here’s how we did it:
As we walked down the trail single file, the man in the middle shined the light forward for the man in front of him, then behind him for the man behind, forward and back, forward and back, over and over again in a slow, endless pendulum.
Each of us had to memorize the next few steps of trail in the instant of light we were given, then walk those steps in the dark by memory until the next swing of the light came and showed us the next stretch of trail.
Crude and mind-numbing though it was, this “swing light” method saved our asses and got us safety down the mountain and into our warm sleeping bags.
…
You are a creator. You have an incredible mind.
No doubt it has served you well.
But if you’re STUCK in any way, that means you are over-extending its role.
You are clinging to thinking because it’s what you’re comfortable with.
You think all you need is a little more research, a little more study, a little more time to ponder, puzzle, and reflect… THEN all will be revealed, the “right next action” finally made clear.
But that’s not how it works.
Stacking wood in a pile won’t make a fire. Only striking the match will do that.
Thought does NOT lead to action: thought only leads to more thought, on and on and on. Action is a fundamentally different animal… one that must be applied to thought by force.
It is only through the power of ACTION that all the potentiality you have built up by thinking is finally translated into tangible results.
Yes, action without thought leads to disaster. But thought without action leads to dick all.
Thought and action are like two blind men helping each other down a path.
They must take turns lighting the way for each other, shining their light back for the other’s next step.
If you keep prizing THOUGHT over ACTION, you will wander in the dark forever.
So get off that cozy cloud and swing the fucking light.
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