You’ll never be ready. It’ll never be the right time. You’ll never have the perfect set of skills that you need to do what you really want to do. I don’t mean that in a discouraging way, rather, I see it as a way to free myself from the fear of creating something out of nothing, allowing myself the space to make mistakes, learn & have fun along the way.

Most of the things that have stuck around in my life were things I just started doing. Not waiting for the right time, the right gear or the right skill set, I sort of jumped in head first & let things take their natural course. When you’re starting out, it’s rarely an optimisation problem as I wrote about here. Spending time just doing the thing is way more important. As you un peel the layers of the metaphorical onion, get more knowledge of the thing, you understand the intricacies of how things are done, whether it’s something you want to do, whether you even enjoy doing it & whether it makes sense to continue doing it. Everything is data & our aim should be just to collect as much of it to make better decisions.

Incidentally, most of the things that I’ve tried to optimise before getting started have ended badly. Maybe it’s because of the dopamine released in anticipation of doing the thing that makes me feel like I’ve accomplished it or maybe it’s just the fact that I realised AFTER optimising & spending a ton of time & money that it wasn’t for me. Most recently, I got into motorcycling & having grown up watching Top Gear, I thought I wanted to make a Moto Vlogging channel. Instead of just going ahead & making random vlogs using my phone, I spent two months planning the channel, researching gear, making scripts & spending a lot of money on the right camera, mic & helmet mounts. I ended up making 2 vlogs, not even uploading them & coming to the realisation that I didn’t really want to do this.

On the other hand, I think about motorcycling itself, & it’s a whole other story. At the onset of winter in 2021, Delhi was beautiful & since I’d moved close enough to my workplace, I thought it’d be great to ride a motorcycle. Without thinking about it too much, I borrowed an old motorcycle from my friend, got it fixed enough to ride & just started riding. After 6 months, I realised that I truly loved riding motorcycles & went ahead & bought one for myself. It’s been more than a year to that day & I ride almost everyday, motorcycling being a source of great joy in my life.

The next time you want to do something, just start. Don’t think too much about whether you’re ready, whether you have the right gear, whether you know enough.

Start doing things, see what sticks & accelerate on that.