We’re All Mad Here

You may remember that, the other day, I skipped a Reverb 10 prompt, one on the topic of action, because I didn’t have an answer for it.

Scott Belsky’s prompt,

December 13 – Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

threw me for a loop, I won’t lie. I didn’t even know where to start, and ironically, I think that was the whole point. Where to start, indeed. Because whether you’re in the middle of a project, a career, or a lifetime — even if you’re directly in the thick of it all – every next step is essentially a start. And one thing is for sure, starts, for reasons we may never fully understand, derail people’s best intentions for getting things done.

Recently, I read a post on the Forbes Career Talk for Women blog. In it the author quotes the classic, Alice in Wonderland.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” to which he responds, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

When she says, “I don’t much care where,” the Cat points out, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Part of a longer exchange between Alice and the Cat — one I’d forgotten about — the author left out the part that comes next.

“—So long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Ideas so often come to us as a journey, a stepping stone in the middle of a walkway yet to be built. They’re usually neither the beginning nor the end product of what we’re really envisioning, but thinkers aren’t born knowing that. It’s learned. And a hard lesson at that. Not only does the achievement of aspiration require action, it requires a plan. And perhaps, more importantly, it requires a destination in mind when you develop that plan. If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t possibly determine in which way you should be traveling to get there after all.

My next step: a plan.