Get Gardening

Anyone who told you that life doesn't get easier was either lying to you or living life in the least fun way possible. Either way they forgot that we all die in the end.

Anyway, walk in a 10 year established dry cleaning business and tell me I'm wrong. Do you see them out campaigning for new customers? Nope. And that's because the effort, the real effort that has to go into making a real idea blossom, is all about starting.

It's about getting out of the bed in the morning an hour earlier, or staying out of bed an hour longer than your eyes would like. It's about planting a seed and then filling in all the dirt and nutrients around it. Finding that perfect spot where the sun will hit it just right.

After that it's all about water. It's all about making sure that your seed turns into more than a little ball of compost in the ground. Because believe me, for all the ideas I've started, I know how it feels to leave a few rotting.

So go ahead. Stop thinking about that idea and start thinking about how that idea would work. And I don't mean writing it down. Heck, that's what I've been doing. Get it down, get it out there, and prove to yourself that this idea is something worth staying up late for.

What are you afraid of? Failure? You're big idea flopping like freshly buttered toast on the kitchen tiles?

Let me save you the drama: your idea will fail.

But the key is not failing. The key is the realization that failure is the engine of more (See Bre Pettis' Done Manifesto for more on that). Failure counts as something, and if you've failed then you've DONE it. And you now can feel guilt-free as you try something else. That's more than you can say about all those people around you who complain about gas prices and how they "don't have time" to start their idea.

Either way, it gets easier one way or another. By failing, giving up, or just settling down for that 9 to 5 job working for the man, it'll get easier. The question is whether it's the kind of "easier" that you'll want to live out your days with.

Get gardening.