Eric Tian

Birds sitting on a tree aren’t worried about a branch breaking.

If it breaks, they just fly away.

Their trust is not on the branch, but in their own wings.

In anything with inherent risk – investing, starting a company or asking someone out – paralysis analysis can run rampant. It can be easy to envision possible doom-and-gloom scenarios which halt one from starting at all.

But on closer inspection, the root problem isn’t that the risk is dangerous, but more that we don’t trust ourselves to survive if all hell breaks loose.

We have all overcome hardships. You being alive today and understanding this sentence is a biological miracle. Your lived experience has made you into an intelligent, adaptable force. Your sufferings have strengthened you in unimaginable ways.

Why not trust the wings that have sprouted from them, as birds trust in theirs?

Avocadoes are tricky things.

Sometimes, they’re too hard. Yet, leave them out for a little too long and suddenly, they’re rotten.

But every once in a while, you’ll cut into an avocado and it’ll be perfect.

When you encounter the perfect avocado, you certainly aren’t going to waste it. You’ll turn it into the most delightful avo-toast sandwich, eat it straight out with a spoon or do whatever you enjoy the most.

Recently, I’ve been musing about timing. As a baby, reading the Vampire Academy series would have been beyond me. The task would be premature; too hard. But if now I were to go back and read it, I’d probably cringe after every chapter. The task would be overdue; too rotten.

The perfect time to read Vampire Academy was in my teens. And when I did, it was great.

What opportunities are ripe for picking right now? Things that seemed far-fetched a few years ago, and might seem childish in a few years: where are they?

Because we only really have the present moment. If we continue doing what we’ve always done in the past, we might find a rotten avocado. Yet, if we look too far forward, we might begin an endeavour we’re not ready for. The perfect adventure for us exists right now but is on an expiry date.

Are we not ever-changing, both gradually and per situation?

The perfect avocado is waiting.

It took me three weeks to write my first ever article.

Along the way, I gave up multiple times. The reasons to stop were deafening. It’s not worth your time. People will judge your work. You have nothing to share.

The loudest one was: You can’t write.

I had never taken a writing class and had no writing style to draw upon. Ideas in my head constantly failed to materialise into words. Imagine trying to tell a story but having no voice. Utterly paralysing.

One day, I decided to try something new. I pretended that I knew how to write and invented a story for myself that I was a writer; that people were interested in what I had to say and would enjoy my prose. All completely unproven and probably not true.

But it worked. My first article was posted exactly two years ago: 02 March, 2019. It was a terrible piece of writing and is one of my least read posts, but it got this train started. And now, after 130 posts, I finally feel like I’m finding my voice.

You might feel like you’re not capable enough. Quite frankly, you might not be. But if you tell yourself a good enough story, you just might rise to the occasion. And if you do it long enough, the fiction might just become a reality.

In his commencement speech at the University of the Arts, Neil Gaiman gently urged:
So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.

Just pretend.