The Problem With Problems

Have you ever wanted to start something in your life, basically any project, creative endeavor, or even a new hobby or career path, and immediately come up with problems that would stop you from succeeding or even finishing the thing?

I wear a couple of different creative hats, and every time I set out on a new endeavor, as soon as the wonder and romance of how cool it would be to actually do that thing wears off, I immediately start counting off a list of insurmountable problems that make any enjoyment or merit I’d get out of that thing I’m thinking of seem totally pointless, and definitely more trouble than it’d be worth to actually complete.

Even doing something as simple and low-stakes as writing this, I found that within the first few sentences I already started catastrophizing about all of the things that could go wrong with this relatively simple thing I decided I wanted to do.

It’s not just that I’m lazy, (although I definitely am), it’s that I have an unconscious habit of turning almost anything I can think of pursuing into a massive walking problem.

I imagine that a lot of other creative people must do this too, because the number of genuinely moving passion projects in the world seems low, and the number of relatively boring, paint-by-numbers cash-ins seems painfully high.