The World Doesn’t Need More Change
A lot of artists and entrepreneurs these days get caught up thinking that the world needs more ‘change.’
A lot of artists and entrepreneurs these days get caught up thinking that the world needs more ‘change.’
We love to believe that the world needs to be ‘made better,’ or ‘improved.’
“I’m going to go out and put a dent in the universe.” the teary eyed dreamer says.
But does anyone ever end up doing that?
The truth is, (and this is my personal truth, not objective take it for gospel truth) is the world doesn’t need more change. It doesn’t need to be improved. It doesn’t need anything added to it whatsoever.
Why? Because…
The World Doesn’t Care
The world is not your parents. You don’t have to prove anything to it.
The world is niagrous outpouring of cosmic matter, which is completely impartial to you, me, everyone that has come before us, and everyone that will inevitably come after us. It will go on doing its thing long after we are gone. Just like it did long before we ever got here.
The world is abundant in the most existential sense of the word.
And the bottom line is that the world doesn’t need anything.
We do.
We need the meaning. The sense of purpose. The significance that comes from a mission.
We are the meaning making machines and you know what, that’s okay.
Heck, that’s more than okay. It’s perfect the way it is.
The trick is to realize that you aren’t doing what you do for the world… you’re doing it for you.
Out of pure, unadulterated selfish intrinsic motivation. A sense of sweet, sweet self-indulgence.
Now, those are trigger words for most people.
We are conditioned to think being selfish is bad. That satisfying your own desires will lead to self-destruction and the moral low-road. That you should prioritize others above yourself at all times.
This is all guilt you have to bulletproof yourself to in order to create your best work.
When you bulletproof yourself to the pre-conditioned social shame of serving your own motivations you will multiply your creative output exponentially.
It’s important to take the time to check in with yourself and recognize whether you are motivated to create out of your own sense of curiosity, discovery and joy, or if you are being driven by an external motivation. Like what other people might think of you, or how what you’re doing will affect the world at large.
Why? Because when you stop creating for others and start creating for the pleasure of the process — you begin to tap into an infinite wellspring of flow that you can draw from that never runs dry.
This process of intrinsic motivation and then creation for the sake of self-satisfaction, is the key to creating positive momentum that builds with each passing day. And carries you from morning to night, with more force pushing you forward from behind each consecutive day. But the trick to positive momentum is not keeping it going… it’s getting it started.
My trick for doing this?
Think Small, Not Big
When you get into the habit of thinking big it feels like everything you know you need to be doing is so important. World changing, universe denting level important.
Which, unconsciously or not, puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you and creates a mounting sense of resistance towards doing what you know you want to be doing.
The result?
Procrastination. Which tends to manifest as endless smartphone thumb-scrolling and binge watching.
And the worst thing about thinking big?
You begin to associate each task you accomplish with your self-worth.
When you combine the idea that you derive a sense of self-worth from what you are able to accomplish, with the idea that you’re not able to get anything done due to how much pressure you put on yourself to accomplish the important things on your to-do list… you get a perfect storm for a devastating blow to your self-esteem.
The big things on your list still feel big. And the pressure that keeps you from doing them only gets heavier.
So, how does one break free of this endless cycle?
Think small. Bring your tasks down to Earth and get specific.
Instead of thinking about how important everything on the list is, try thinking about how good it will feel to do it for yourself — even if the world never sees it.
Try not to create for others, but instead just for yourself, without any thought of what others are going to think — least of all what effect what you’re doing is going to have on the world — and things will become easy.
Creating will feel like play again. And you won’t even need to make a to-do list, because you’ll be doing what you actually want to do — not because you should, but because it feels good.
When I struggle with this, I like to think of something one of my mentors told me several years ago, which helped crystallized this lesson for me.
My mentor used to tell me about how he never writes down to-do lists or sets goals, which flies in the face of what every personal growth book ever says you should do. But he said that, to him, the very act of writing down what he should be doing was disingenuous to what he actually wanted to do.
Simply, because if he really wanted to do something he just would, because it would inherently feel good to do it. The simple act of doing it would be ‘scratching his own itch.’ And writing down what he felt like he should be doing, would just be getting in the way of that.
At first, I thought this was selfish and a little arrogant. But then I made a conscious effort to shelve me ego and realized that what he was saying was that you have to…
Scratch Your Own Itch To Create Your Best Art
How could you think any smaller than just scratching your own itch?
It’s a funny, southern cooked style of personal growth, but in my experience it’s the secret to getting a lot done, and fast.
Just imagine what the world would look like if everyone went out with the attitude to change it. Change what? How? For who? Is change… better? Who gets to make that call anyways?
Versus what the world would look like if everybody sought to just enter flow and get in self-alignment with what they wanted to create for themselves.
With the former, you’d get a lot of people talking about doing things, but not actually getting anything done. Due to the endless cycle of pressure and procrastination.
With the latter, you’d end up with a marvelous exchange of ideas, energy, and creativity. One person’s creation would push the level of what was possible and inspire the next person to innovate and do the same to satisfy their own developing tastes. This cycle would go on ad infinitum and an evolution of style and taste would take place over time. Just like those which lead to the literary, industrial, and scientific revolutions.
Which is why I believe that the principle goal of the artist and the entrepreneur is to endeavor to see yourself as an integral part of this ecosystem and contribute to it scratching your own itch.
It’s easy to get caught up on a big idea that you think is going to knock the world off its axis. But when you just focus on creating what you want to experience, you may actually end up making something that does just that.
Except, you won’t be doing it to change the world, because at the end of the day it’s not others who have to judge what you create.
It’s you.
You who have to judge what you create. And once you’re happy with what you’ve made, the world will do with it what it will.
Try to keep this in mind when you sit down next time…
The world doesn’t need to be changed, it just needs more good art. Nothing added to it, just adorned.
Music is the decoration of time. Painting is the decoration of space. Writing is the decoration of thought.
The great artists know this and recognize that you don’t need to change the world to make it better, just beautify it a little — that’s all it takes to begin to create positive momentum.
So, when you sit down to do what you’ve got to do today — erase all the bits that are there for somebody else. All the bits that are there for the world. And create what you need. Play what you need to hear. Paint what you need to see. Write what you need to read. Create what you want to experience.
And you will appeal to the people who crave the same things…
And here’s the real trick…
In the process, create your best art.