I Know the Answer to The Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
The answer is progress, not perfection (or it’s 42).
I love The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The story goes, an alien race built a computer to answer the question of life, the universe and everything. They waited 7.5 million years for an answer to finally be produced. It was 42. And no one understood. The computer explained the answer could not be comprehended by those who did not understand the question they were asking.
So often, we look for the perfect time or circumstance to start living our dream. I am guilty here too. My dream to be a writer has been held up by a picture of perfection in my mind. Without the ideal circumstance, I couldn’t start writing. In my mind, the picture forms: I wake up and grab a cup of coffee, walk to my writer’s studio overlooking the water and write in complete serenity. In essence, I was asking the wrong question. I was asking for the perfect picture of me as a writer. But is that really what I wanted?
I realized the picture I had painted was not going to happen anytime soon, so instead I decided to begin. I was on a train to New York City and had the inspiration to tell a story, so I did. I wrote. I edited. My kids were talking. The train was rocking. I struggled to finish and to make any sense…
