Oliver Burkeman has a great post this week on embracing discomfort. If you’re waiting for the right feeling to get busy, you are not truly free. If you need to be excited before you take action, you are no action hero:

It’s eye-opening to think of excitement this way: not as the thing we should all seek in life, but as a mildly embarrassing affliction that’s as likely to distract you from what matters as guide you towards it. “The only way to really deal with the problem of excitement,” Krech writes, “is to stop becoming dependent on it”: it’s after excitement fades that you discover what you’re made of. This needn’t mean resigning yourself to a relationship or job you hate; it just means not relying on excitement, or the avoidance of discomfort, to decide what to do next. Life (to paraphrase the Buddha) is inherently unsatisfactory. And that’s liberating: you never have to wonder if the path you’re on will lead to unbroken thrills and zero frustrations, because you can be certain it won’t.

What if you didn’t wait to get excited about that thing you want to do, or to feel like doing the work you know needs to be done to be the person you want to be? To be the hero of your own life takes action, whether you feel like taking action or not.

As Chuck Close says, “Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

“To be able to do what needs doing, whether or not you feel like it, is pretty close to a superpower.” –Oliver Burkeman

“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.” –Bertrand Russell

Even when I’ve got the chance for quiet moments, I often fill them with noise and distraction.

Can I just be still?

Why not let the quiet steep? Let me sit past the restlessness to find the beauty and joy in the quiet.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” –Blaise Pascal

This Razor A5 scooter is a blast to ride. Yes, I’m 50 years old, but I’m not too old to enjoy the thrill of coasting downhill on a kick scooter.

Today was a family fun day with my kids. My 7-year-old learned to ride a bicycle last week, and she’s been eager to get outside and try her new skills.

The scooter we got her last year is just sitting there now that she has this new love for her bike. What’s a dad to do?

“Out of my way, kid on a bike! Dad on a scooter coming around.”

This thing is a delight to ride. The large wheels give it a smooth ride, able to handle bumps and uneven pavement. The handle adjusts to fit kids or adults (who are just big kids). And it’s a solid little machine, clearly well designed and well made.

Thumbs up for the A5 from kid and dad.

I know, I know… Give it a rest, right?

But December 31, 2015 is now exactly 51 weeks away. One whole week of 2015 is gone.

I hope it was a good week and a lovely start to your year. Each of the next 51 weeks will disappear just as suddenly.

I tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in a week or two, thinking I can completely revolutionize my life in a fortnight. (Yes, I just used the word fortnight for the first time in my life. The joy of this landmark moment that you are sharing with me right now, it’s inexpressible. This glow of vocabulary achievement will linger for at least, what, fourteen nights, maybe.)

I, however, tend to underestimate the impact of incremental, consistent, even if slow, improvement. Just keep being awesome in small ways, and do it over and over even if you don’t notice any big change. You can usually only see the big change looking back on it over a long period of time. It sneaks up on you. You can’t see it while it’s happening.

But you won’t get there by trying to check off your list of awesome in one fell swoop. Just start. Do what you can with what you’ve got where you are. And then keep at it and improve just a little. And 51 weeks later you might truly surprise and delight yourself.

via BrainPickings.org

Accepting uncertainty and your own ignorance is the way – the way to being an authentic human and living a true and courageous life.

Those who seem to have it all together are probably just faking it, wearing that mask of certitude to hide their fear. It takes courage to be humble and acknowledge your real place in the grand scheme, in the really big picture.

Know that you don’t know and clear your mind of the clutter of your fixed opinions and prefab answers. Make your way to the beginner’s mind where there are many possibilities.

We had tickets to the big game tonight. But it’s been a full, happy day. And the kids are away at a slumber party, and it’s an unusually cold night. And when do we get a night at home alone to sit by a fire and watch the big game from our couch?

I regularly ask this question in job interviews: “What would an ideal day look like for you?”

When I ask that interview question, I’m more often than not disappointed at the responses. So many stumble and search and seem perplexed trying to imagine their ideal day. It’s clear most people have not given much thought to what would make for an excellent day.

Imagine, in detail, the components of your ideal day. An excellent life ultimately is just a collection of excellent days. What if you were intentional about crafting your days and building them around what was most important, around what added the most value to your life, and around what truly delights you?

For me, today has been an especially excellent day.

Getting my mile in while walking a familiar road.

We all have our own holy places. A pilgrimage is just a memory away.

A little bit of summer is what the whole year’s all about. -John Mayer, Wildfire

There’s January 1 and the beginning of the school year and the always exciting turning of the fiscal year. But I also love the beginning of summer as a time to dream new dreams and make new plans.

I know I come more alive with the warm weather and my kids’ long break from school. I’m outside significantly more often. Shoes are less necessary. I play more and eat better and generally feel healthier than any other time of year.

Why not use this season as a time for new adventures and grand ideas? What can we do to change our routines and make the most of the season? What healthy habit can you adopt? What new skill can you learn? How can you better connect with the people you love most?

Play and work and love and create like you’ve got a fresh, new start on life, and let this sunny season inspire you to be even more awesome and make some history and some memories worth talking about for many summers to come.

A little bit of summer makes a lot of history. -John Mayer, Wildfire

My 8-year-old daughter learned to ride a bike this weekend. We took her with her bike to the field next to her school and found a slight incline where she could practice balancing before she tried pedaling. She struggled the first few times. But she kept going back and starting over, taking fewer steps on each subsequent attempt to master balancing on the bike.

We moved to the school driveway for more balancing work, and it just seemed to click for her then. Finally, she was ready to give it a go. She was successful as soon as she began pedaling. Her mom and I were as giddy and proud as she was.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mastery and practice and doing hard things. My daughter just gave me a great demonstration. She was motivated and eager to learn. She was a little embarrassed that she didn’t already know how to ride a bike. She took instruction well. As she began learning, she encountered struggle. It wasn’t easy. There were a couple of moments early on where I could see the frustration mounting. (And I’m worrying I’m going to scar her for life somehow and fail completely in my parental responsibilities.) I just kept telling her that she is great at sticking with something, even when it gets hard. (I wanted her to think that, at least.) I reminded her of an award she got for “perseverance” when she was a first-grader, trying to embed that thought in her more deeply. I said, “What was that award you got? What was it for… persistence?” “Perseverance,” she corrected me. And she did stick with it until she got it.

The next day she had her first wipe out and scraped her knee and shed some tears. I was ready to put the bike up for the night, but, an hour later, she asked if she could go back out and ride some more. Success.

I’ve seen her learn to swim and roller skate and now ride a bike. These skills don’t come naturally, but once you’ve got them, they stay with you forever. As we become adults, there seem to be fewer obvious opportunities to learn hard things and master new skills. We usually can get by with what we already know.

I want to find some new skills to learn, something that will be hard enough that I will want to quit but rewarding enough that I will have an incentive to stay with it.

If we can keep attacking life the way a kid on a mission goes after skills we take for granted, we can’t help but keep getting better and enjoying the journey along the way.