Other Mountains

In my junior year of college, we had to craft a Thesis-- a series of pieces that tell a story. We were supposed to work the whole year. At the beginning of the year, we came up with ideas. I thought I had a pretty good idea. Then we got started. Some of the projects looked great, some looked not-so-great. There were a lot of talented kids in my class, and looking at their work I realized my idea was okay, but not great, so I came up with another idea and started over. Then I did that every week until by the end of the year everyone had an epic project-- even the ones whose projects started out not-so-great-- and I had nothing.

It took a very, very long time for me to recover from that year of turmoil. I've found that the best thing that I can do for myself when I start something is to keep my head down so that I'm not looking longingly at another journey, another path, another project. Don't look at other training plans, don't look at someone else's work, just keep my head down and reserve judgement until I've seen it all through.