Choosing Where To Begin

Where do you start?

Surrounded by options, it’s tempting to take everything in. To sample widely. To keep scanning in case something better appears. But that’s rarely where progress actually begins.

More often, it starts by noticing what feels most relevant in the moment — the question worth sitting with, the thread that pulls a little harder than the rest.

Choice has a narrowing quality to it. Not because possibilities disappear, but because one direction starts to matter more than the others. From that point, progress has something to work with.

That’s often how progress begins. Not with more options, but with a decision to start here.

David R. Smith