Choosing Where To Begin

Where to start?

Surrounded by options, it is tempting to take everything in, to sample widely and keep exploring in case something better appears. But that is rarely where progress begins.

The library is now carried in our pocket. Our smartphone offers the same breadth of choice but without the shelves to navigate, the silence to think in, or the commitment of having chosen a section. We scroll an endless stream of options, each swipe displacing the last before it has been properly considered; a small act of avoidance disguised as curiosity. The paradox is that more choice, consumed faster, can leave us less decided and less focused than when we started.

Choice has a narrowing quality. Progress begins by noticing what feels most relevant in the moment and choosing to follow that direction rather than keep scanning for a better one. Not because other possibilities disappear, but because one starts to matter more than the rest, and that is enough to begin.

Sometimes the most useful thing is to put the phone down and ask what you are looking for.

David R. Smith