Journey>Genesis

We need to stop putting more emphasis on the starting than the doing

Our culture loves a good origin story.

The rise of superhero movies has fueled this fire. Everybody has to have an origin story.

When it comes to stories, I’m a big fan of focusing on the origins. We want to know where you came from, what led you to where you are.

The problem comes when we begin to attach more significance to the act of starting than the act of doing.

The two most expensive parts of a marriage: the wedding and the divorce

Have you been to a wedding recently?

I love weddings. I love the joy of seeing two lives united. I love the energy of friends and family celebrating together. I love dancing like a fool at the reception. Weddings are amazing.

With all that being said, dang, we put way too much emphasis on weddings.

Weddings are great, but you know what’s better than a wedding?

A marriage.

Not only do many people spend more time working on planning their wedding than they do working on their relationship, they make decisions for the sake of the wedding that actively hurt the relationship.

Going into debt to have the wedding of your dreams? The number one thing that couples fight about is money. Do you really want to purposefully start off your new life together in a financial hole?

There’s also the matter of attending weddings. Yes it’s fun, and yes you get to eat cake, but do you just plan on celebrating the couple for starting their marriage or do you take responsibility for supporting them during their marriage?

You see, we spend a lot of time celebrating the start of things, but not nearly enough time supporting people when things get tough. And they always get tough.

The start is still important

Again, I’m not arguing that it’s wrong to celebrate the start of something. Starting is incredibly important. So many people will never realize their dreams simply because they don’t get started.

What I’m saying is, we need to do a better job acknowledging that our decision to start doesn’t mean the hard part is over.

I get that it can feel that way sometimes. It can be hard for people to decide to commit their lives to someone. It can be hard to start that side hustle. It can be hard to get into med school.

Starting isn’t easy. It also isn’t the last obstacle you need to overcome.

Don’t put too much pressure on the start

With anything that you do, you want to start well.

But the most important thing about starting is usually to just get started.

You don’t need the perfect wedding to have a good marriage. You don’t need to have everything figured out to start a successful side hustle.

The thing about starting is that you usually can’t wait for everything to fall into place because it’s extremely rare for everything to fall into place.

As Chris Guillebeau says in his book Side Hustle School:

In short: when in doubt… start!

Conclusion

In life, starting and finishing are both incredibly important. But most of life is spent in between those two brackets.

Tomorrow, we’re going to talk about the fact that the journey isn’t just a step on the way to your destination, in many ways, the journey is the point.

This is the third in a series based on my article 30 Lessons About Life You Should Learn Before Turning 30. Shoutout to Dr. Christine Bradstreet 🌴 for the idea to turn the post into an in-depth series.