The Universe Rewards Courage
To fully understand the most powerful forces in life, you have to experience them.
Compound interest is just a buzzword until you watch it happen. Iteration is just an idea until you turn something that started out badly into your greatest work yet. “Follow your dreams” is fairy dust bullshit until they come true.
It’s the same with commitment. Until you commit to something with your entire being, you won’t understand how the world moves for you. It moves to help you. Because the universe rewards courage.
Most People Are Stuck In The Realm Of Possibility.
Most people think they “could” write a book if they tried. Or launch a business. Or build that product. Or start a blog. And many believe they one day will… once they find the time. These people are living in the realm of possibility. And it’s a very attractive place to be.
I was in this position for a couple of years before I quit my job. I was dreaming about the possibilities of writing a movie. Or building a business. Or building a product. And it was nice because when you’re dreaming about the future, anything is possible.
In the realm of possibility, your dreams come true in your mind before you have to do any of the work to get there. There’s no rejection to deal with. There’s no failure. There’s no risk you have to take. It’s just endless, glorious possibility.
But it’s also a very dangerous way to live. Because the pleasure you get from living in the realm of possibility can easily stop you from committing to any of the things you dream about. Years pass and you’re still dreaming. And talking about your dreams to your friends and family, who stopped listening ages ago.
Philosopher Ichiro Kishimi explains this in the excerpt below from The Courage To Be Disliked:
Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked
At some point, you are either going to try something or not. You’re going to commit to something or not. Only talkers and dreamers endlessly keep their options open. Don’t do it.
As Joe Eszterhas (writer of Basic Instinct, Sliver) says:
“Real writers sit down and write: wannabe writers sit around and talk.”
And as wise Dumbledore says in Harry Potter:
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
You must commit to something. Yes, it will be scary. Yes, you can’t be sure that it will work. But once you do, something amazing will happen: the world will move to help you.
When You Commit, The World Moves For you.
The universe rewards courage. Once you commit to a single path - a single goal - with honesty, the world will move to help you.
Here’s writer Terence McKenna explaining this:
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.”
Conviction works like a magnet to attract the people who can help you. And passion works like a fuse to light them up. Like Kevin Kelly says, “being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.” If you commit, things just happen.
You Have To Experience It To Believe It.
I didn’t believe in this kind of thing until it happened to me. When my wife and I had an idea for a feature film, we weren’t sure what to do with it. All we knew was that we had a personal story to tell that we thought could work commercially.
Both of us made a commitment to write the screenplay. But we had never written a script before and needed help. So, we wrote an outline of the idea (about 10 pages) and put together a visual pitch deck for the concept to see what kind of response it would get. Kind of like a quick and dirty market test. Then we sent it out into the world.
We sent Instagram DMs, cold emails, LinkedIn messages - anything to get producers’ attention who would see the potential of our idea.
It took no more than a month or so to generate interest - and a lot of it. We had multiple zoom calls with production companies and producers until we ended up partnering with an all-star producer in our genre.
The producer helped us with the script. And now, eight months later, it’s being pitched at the very highest levels of the industry. Whether it sells or not - whether it gets made or not - my wife and I succeeded. We committed and wrote the best script we could.
That’s what happens when you find the courage to commit. The universe will move to help you.
Courage Is Contagious.
Being courageous gets easier over time. That’s the paradox of fear: the more scary stuff you do, the less scared you are. Because you quickly learn that nine times out of ten, the thing you’re most scared of never comes to pass. And even when it does, it’s never as bad as you imagined.
The longer you wait to commit to something you really want to do, the harder it becomes. Entire lives have been wasted waiting for the “right time.” Stop waiting. Commit. And watch the world move.
Thanks for reading.