There is an allegory about two apprentice potters. One potter tries to create the perfect pot, while the other doesn’t care about quality and prioritizes speed. After a few days, the potter who attempted to create the ultimate pot created five mid-quality pots, and the other potter created forty. Amongst those forty pots, the latest ones were a testament to mastery, every millimeter a beacon of perfection. The second potter created better-quality pots and learned how to be fast and focused in execution, like a swift arrow hitting the bullseye.
Let's say I would have tried to create the perfect essays at the very beginning. I started to write in March 2023. My texts lacked deep insights and quality of expression. I did not care; I wrote regardless. By the time you read it, I had written no less than half a million words in as little as five hundred days,* thus attaining competency in this craft.
Most people are brutally arrogant. They think they are too good to fail, so they strive for perfection even though they are novices. They put themselves under pointless pressure and false expectations. Let me tell you – no one expects flawless performance from an apprentice, yet everyone values effort, humility, and speed. These are the true markers of progress and the keys to unlocking your potential.
In the beginning, perfection doesn’t matter. If you fail, you learn. Failure is not a setback but a stepping stone to success. Avoiding lessons is the real failure. Experience comes from bad decisions, so make as many bad decisions as possible. Be fast to learn fast.
A scientist doesn’t go to the lab and discover something. Often, it takes decades of futile attempts to get one thing right. The brightest scientists don’t know what they are doing; they act, assess, and adjust. They use experiments to figure out the truth. – You can’t think ‘hard enough’ to figure out the truth. How can you predict or estimate something you have no idea of? – You have to try. Then, when you try, you can interpret the result, fix certain aspects, and try again. Most people have an action-thought imbalance.
Act, assess, adjust – that’s the only way to learn. This mantra should guide your every step. You need to be open to try new things and demonstrate speed in execution. Then, you must assess your actions and improve accordingly. Shut up and do.
First, shoot the arrow.
Then, see where it lands.
Then aim better.
*The texts currently on my website are not original. In June 2024, after I had written around four hundred thousand words, I started to rewrite my entire blog, because I wanted to add a spiritual boundary and because I believe my readers deserve nothing but excellence.