Resisting Your Duty
Resisting Your Duty

Resisting Your Duty

TLDR:

  • The more resistance you’re feeling towards something, the more certain you can be you have to do it.
  • If not, you’re cheating the world with your life by not fulfilling your duty to create for yourself.
  • Self-doubt is the worst thing to dawn human society, something we all probably have struggled with at least once in our lives. But if it’s something that you should be doing, you’ll be doing it anyway.
  • If it really is meant to be, you’ll be pulled towards it sooner than you know it, working on fulfilling your duty of what your brand really should be before you even realize it.

Pulling yourself towards what you’re meant to do

As Steven Pressfield says, the more resistance you’re feeling towards something, the more certain you can be you have to do it. If not, you’re cheating the world with your life by not fulfilling your duty to create for yourself, which is something Kevin Kelly would say.

Self-doubt is the worst form of resistance for anyone trying to create something, and I have firsthand experience with in writing, where from start to finish, I’m constantly doubting myself be it consciously or subconsciously, thinking whether or not I have the authority to write on this topic, and if I’m not just word vomiting.

But I do it anyway.

Why? I find that it is something I truly enjoy doing, and the satisfaction you feel within yourself after completing the first draft knowing that deep inside, even though you refuse to admit it, is good quality is second to none.

It made me realize that as I practiced my craft, I’d enjoy constantly writing, specifically until the point of diminishing marginal utility started to set in, essentially going against the concept of work/life balance.

As I got better, and developed a smidgeon more confidence, the ideas that flowed in my mind on what topic to next write on, after listening to the Kelly episode of How I Write, I had an epiphany, a certainty that it was indeed my duty to pursue the ones I knew were worth it.

Even if in the end just one person ended up reading it, it was still my duty to fulfill, one that I’d complete with no questions asked. If I didn’t, I’d merely be resisting, and eventually find myself pulled towards it more no matter how much I may try to resist.

When I have to commit the majority of the day to things I’d rather not be doing, like today, I find myself more hungry to fulfill my next duty, innately being pulled towards what it is I know my natural aptitude says I am meant to do.

If it really is meant to be, you’ll be pulled towards it sooner than you know it, working on fulfilling your duty of what your brand really should be before you even realize it. And that’s the jist of resisting your duty.