Sometimes we do things, sometimes we do not

Sometimes we desire something more than anything. The painting so vivid in the mind is frozen by the trembling hand, then the paint dries, the sun sets and the canvas stays blank. The story is complete, the setting, the characters, the plot, all meaningful and interesting, the reader would put down the book, reflect upon everything, and become better for it. But the writer stares at the blinking cursor, blinking with the ticking of the clock, tick-tock, tock-tick until the sun rises again.

I have experienced it. Chances are, you have too.

It is the product of the painter who does not paint, the writer who does not write, the world-changing idea lost in the endless drawers, the project set to begin on the tomorrow which never comes. It is the excuse for yesterday’s preparation which never started due to another excuse, another conflict, or simply “not feeling it”. It is the internal voice that says no, the second mind in our body holding us back from other desires, leaving us sedentary. Stuck in bed, on a couch, on our phones, in a daze, allowing our ideas to dissolve in the endless oceans of senseless media.

It is the ever-expanding chain of “later”, but later comes and the canvas stays empty. It is the hours spent researching, distracted by a cat video, lost in the web ways while the draft stays unfinished.

American author Steven Pressfield calls this the “resistance”.

If you have left an assignment, a project, an idea, unexplored, incomplete, and forgotten. If you have felt love and fear for a desire so strong it consumes you, but leaves you frozen. If you know you should be doing something, but sit still, waiting in shame for some beam of motivation to pierce the veil. It is ok. It only means you are human. And all humans must face resistance.

Resistance is fear.

So how do we overcome resistance to set ourselves upon the path of self-realization? How do we diagnose a universal force that adapts to individuals? How do we succeed against doubt that grows as we approach success? Is resistance the perfect antagonist? Always adapting, ever-stronger, always two steps ahead while haunting us one step back. The following advice is horrible, but it is the only advice that can be given against resistance.

Work.

If you stand upon the stage auditioning for the role you have dreamed of as a child. Work. If you stand frozen before a canvas holding a stiff brush and a drying palette. Work. If you are stranded on the couch, lost in some rabbit hole of insignificance, get up. Work. I am sorry. I wish I could give better advice. I wish there was better advice. However, your resistance is an enemy I cannot understand. My excuses, righteous and justified to me, are lazy to you. Only you can understand your resistance. Only you can fight it. 

There is a desire, and where there is desire there is a path. That is all that matters. If you want it, there is nothing that can stand before the human spirit.

— William Ouyang