Excuses are the bridges that connect us with the things we want. When you want to find the best way to get what you want just examine the strongest excuse for not going after it. It even goes beyond things. If you want a girl and you just can't make yourself to go after her, take a look at the strongest excuse you have because in it lies the solution. If you are finding it hard to send that pay raise request email to your boss, again, the answer you need lies in your excuse for not sending it. If you've given up your ambition for a masters at a dream school, look into the eyes of your main excuse and you'll find the flame rekindling. Everything you want is just an excuse away. Face that excuse, walk over it and it will take you to your aspirations.
Growing up, my excuse for not asking a girl out was "What am I going to say?" Then I faced that excuse, I told myself I'll say whatever comes to my mind. Then the excuse changed to "Whom am I going to say the whatever to?" For years I'm still trying to find answer to that excuse. Maybe this is a bad example. Let's try another.
When I started this blog in 2009 every post I made took days and weeks to finally publish. I envied those who blogged more frequently. My excuses were numerous. I had 3 blogs, then later, 5. There was no way I could blog daily with 5 blogs. I compose my blog posts from original contents, they are work of pure inspiration and technical work. Inspirations don't come daily or else they won't be called inspiration. I once spent 2 weeks making one very detailed blog post that got me a moment of fame in the world of Linux geeks, I was getting quoted on Chinese blogs and stackoverflow. There was no way I could keep that level of quality up if I posted daily. And I had other things to do -- looking for work, working, overworking and finding another job. Then I took up learning French, swimming and becoming more sociable. I had valid overwhelming excuses.
One day, I decided to take on all the excuses. I pulled the plug on my remaining 4 blogs to focus on this one. I lowered my standards, and quit waiting for inspiration. When I can't generate any original content I share someone else's great content. Remember the posts on Abraham Lincoln's letter to his son's headmaster, Shooting an Elephant and Meet Colonel Sanders of KFC? Yeah, they were the product of my lack of impressive original contents on those days. I quit my work too, not because of blogging but it did help. I've stopped swimming regularly but it's because I'm on a shoestring budget. And I'm as sociable as I want to be, which reduces the chances of someone taking over my day. So by taking on each of my excuses I achieved my desired goal of blogging daily.
I'm planning on applying this same principle to one more thing, but won't be sharing that soon.
Happy Eid al-Fitr to my Muslim friends. I'm yet to see your hands, fortunately, it's not late yet and I'm on a weight gaining diet.
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