Kickstarter, Day 17: You Can't Always Get What You Want

I'm a big believer in working for what you get. Hand me something I think I really want without any contribution of effort on my part, and I'm not convinced that the accomplishment feels accomplished. Donated, maybe; lucky, sure; understood, probably not.

And from where I sit, if you don't understand what you're doing, it's not replicable. That's not a prescription for learning to do something you can apply over and over again. Without that ability, you benefited from a fluke that you don't understand how to harness and use.

Not great. Unless what you don't understand is how you got a set of winning lottery numbers and a great big Fome-Cor? Board check with your name on it.

Now, if you're going to say that I had certain things handed to me, I'll agree with you. Up to a point.

If you believe talent/ability is innate, built in at birth, then I got certain things. The language-related stuff that propels my work as a writer, for example. But I've spent years writing and (more importantly) revising a zillion words. I strive for consistent improvement. I revisit past work and instinctively see where I could do better.

So it's a combination of nature and nurture. If I woke up tomorrow morning and all of a sudden, I could play the violin or the piano with no prior training, would I really value or know what to do with these abilities?

Considering that's not going to happen, the question's not really answerable. However, I know how strongly I value the things I work to do well.

How's this connected to my Kickstarter project? If you've been reading any of these posts, you may have seen me talk about how I got the idea and how I applied myself to the tasks of creating the project itself. The idea popped into my head with a sudden poof! of personal inspiration. The project itself took required the 90% perspiration that's supposed to underlie achievement. I doubt I'd value my project as much as I do if I didn't have a substantial investment of time, effort, and belief in it.

(By the way, if you've been reading along and have a question for me, let me know in the comments and I can answer it in a future post.)

Time once again for the shameless plug: As always, if you're interested my project, you'll find it here.