I Won't Back Down

Last night at softball practice the girls were doing a ladder drill, quick steps in and out of a little plastic ladder, on the run. One by one, every girl who started the drill in front of the watching parents said, "I can't" about two steps into the drill.

This morning I woke up with this song stuck in my head.

Connected?

Hard to say. I hate sitting at practice and listening to I can't, or working on the tiny house and hearing I can't from La, or holding this pose for four minutes and hearing I can't in my head.

I also woke up thinking about this clip from This American Life's Ira Glass, talking about creativity and how for "the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't so good..."

So the solution is to keep making whatever you are making (art, music, béarnaise sauce, whatever) until finally your skill catches up to your taste. Don't let the I can't stop hold you back and in fact start right now because you will only start getting better as soon as you start.

And I suppose the same goes with the softball girls. And the yoga pose.

So this is pretty straightforward stuff. Not shocking, I know. But think about all the times where that voice comes in my head or the words come out of my mouth. This isn't some rah-rah, power-of-positive-thinking, The Secret-based bullshit. There is no substitute for working your ass off. 

Still.

Tom Petty had it right (or Johnny Cash, if you prefer). I won't back down. Or at the very least, I will try to shut up that voice.