The Engineer & the Fork in the Road

A friend of mine is brilliant. I have known Mark for twenty years, and during that time I’ve never doubted that the workings of his mind could solve many of the worlds problems (or at the very least eliminate a hundred inconveniences that you and I experience on a daily basis).

“I had that idea!” he’ll say when he sees a product on the market that he’d drawn plans for years before. “That was my idea!”

In his head, Mark has blueprinted all manner of machine, from widgets to mechanical monsters. Safety gear for fellow engineers, dive equipment, off-the-grid energy solutions.

“That may be true, Mark,” I’ll say. “But what did you do about it?”

Then begins the grumbling and mumbling. The production of a thousand reasons why he didn’t take action on his brilliance when it first occurred.

He’s the embodiment of analysis paralysis. Everything must be perfect before moving forward. The problem with that is… there will never come a time when everything is perfect.

When Mark hits a fork in the road, he doesn’t choose a path. Instead he comes to a halt.

Writers can suffer the same fate. Coming up with ideas is fun, but actually seeing them through is hard work.

The indecision, the self-doubt.

We imagine the outcome of our efforts as an endless loop of negative scenarios, every now and then interrupted by dreams of wild and unprecedented success, but only for a moment before we fall back into the loop of certain doom.

The writers who make strides in their craft move on regardless. They may wrestle with the same fears and doubts, but they don’t become mired in them.

When I think about all of the times I’ve come to a fork in the road, I can look back and see that there was never a right or wrong path. There was only the question of whether I put one foot in front of the other, or whether I let myself get stuck there, standing at the crossroads.

Did I choose a path and move forward? Or did I deliberate so long that eventually night fell and I could no longer see either choice in front of me?

How do you approach the crossroads? How has that served you?

As for Mark, one day he might yet take that first step. If he ever does, there’s a good chance he will change the world.

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