We Are Never Quite Done.

There’s a tendency in life to focus, and remember, the good parts of life. Simultaneously, we fixate on the bad parts; the lowlights.

And in between these moments in time is the mundane: the everyday, familiar; the patterns that play out over and over again. In a sense, life can feel like a never-ending story of maintenance.

For those who love systems, life can be thought as a series of undefined projects. I myself am a big proponent of the tiered goalsetting system, where I set goals for larger projects, and work towards these outcomes week by week, little by little.

But because life is undefined, unlike projects, there is no clear goal. And once you reach a goal, there’s a chance you might feel unsatisfied, continuing to set even higher, unrealistic goals in an effort to chase something undefinable.

What’s with that?

And when will we be satisfied with being done?

Afraid of Being Done.

The paradox begins when you realize that you can hold both a fear of success and a fear of failure.

A fear of success feels counter-intuitive. Why should we be scared of a good thing? But it turns out, the reasons for being afraid of success often has to do with other factors, such as:

1. Fearing greater expectations from others, once we succeed
2. Fearing we are setting others up for disappointment; imposter syndrome: “this time was luck”
3. Fear of additional responsibilities
4. Fear of not being able to sustain this success¹
5. Not knowing the next step that comes after (lack of clarity)

And with a fear of success often comes procrastination, self-sabotage, and too much weight on the project needing to be “perfect”.

Similarly, sometimes I am afraid that once something is done, then it can never be reopened, revised, or re-experienced. I fear the tediousness of the process, and yet when I eventually finish a project I am attached to, I will look back and miss the process, too.

I love dreaming big. I want to one day create art that inspires others to do the same. I want to bring to my own art aspects that I’ve drawn from countless inspirations, as a way of thanking them; of preserving the things I loved. With Worth the Wake, I want to build on myself, while also making the act (or should we say, the art) of self-improvement less outcomes-focused—and more on inner satisfaction from discovering yourself.

I want to become better at socializing and creating deeper connections with people. But what if, after all that, after I’ve achieved something I’ve always thought of as a pipe dream rather than inevitable, something that is a matter of “someday”, an “if” rather than “when”—

—what would I do then, if everything is done?

Afraid of Not Getting Things Done.

At the same time, not getting things done, not making something of yourself or leaving a so-called legacy, is a core fear I imagine is shared by many.

The Jonah complex is a term coined by Abraham Maslow (yes, that Maslow) which explores the concept of the fear of success and the fear of failure in the same breadth². In this, this fear of being your best self prevents you from reaching self-actualization, while at the same time, fearing that you have sunk to your lowest might actually propel you to improve.

It feels strange, the contradictions.

His solution? Maslow suggests, in his book The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, that “to invent or create, you must have the arrogance of creativeness.” By balancing and holding true both equal parts humility and pride. To be humble, yet ravenous in your pursuits.

When is Something Done?

Artists often deal with the dilemma of knowing when something is done³. The truth is, a piece of art is never done until you decide it is done: it can be remastered, remade, revised, added upon, destroyed, and abandoned.

Something that opened up my eyes to what it means to be “done” is The Cult of Done manifesto⁴, written by Kio Stark and Bre Pettis. The Cult of Done is best applied to creativity (you wouldn’t want to apply some of these to your everyday life or job!), and introduces some of the following concepts:

1. There is no editing stage. Under the Cult of Done, being done is a binary action: you are doing something, or you are not doing something and/or you are done.
2. Failure is done. Abandoning your ideas is also done. You can call the shots when something is done, and it’s okay to move on when something isn’t working for you, as…
3. Getting things done is to get other things done.

The manifesto is less concerned about the view that art is never done. And just like Maslow’s solution, we might need to view “done” in a similar manner: as two existing states.

When you finish something, it is done. The next step can be both something entirely new, or a continuation of what you’ve learned from your last project—i.e., an extension of done, thus meaning we are not quite done yet. (Walk the Penrose steps with me, shall we?)

In an article published to Forbes Magazine, Jessica Hagy⁵ prompts the following questions and answers to assess when something is done, which echo what is posited in The Cult of Done:

1. Does it have a deadline? Finish it by the deadline, then you get to start something new.
2. Is it something personal/to be kept private? You get to decide when it is done.
3. Does it feel less valuable the more time you put into it? Let it go. Make note of what didn’t work, and carry that with your next project.

In my personal view, it might be better to view a project as “done, but open”. With my Notion notes, I have three statuses for what I consider a Complete status: open, closed, and hiatus. With closed notes, I intend to not add onto it and view it as a complete, finite piece of work.

With open notes, I invite the possibility of an addition, a revision, a reconstruction.

Always Never Done.

You’ve probably heard of “lifelong learning” before, the concept of continually learning and growing each day.

And while being better every day might not be possible, it’s still good to aim ourselves, at least, at that direction.

Life might be a series of never-ending projects (until it ends). Your goals could be one of many, stacked on top of each other. You may check off your tasks for the day, and go to bed knowing that there will be more the next. Perhaps, you finish that project you’ve always dreamed of pursuing, and perhaps, you haven’t yet started it yet.

But when we get there—and I am using the word “when”—remember this:

When we are done, we can create something new.

Appendix

1. BetterUp. Fear of Success. https://www.betterup.com/blog/fear-of-success ↩︎
2. Jonah Calinawan. Jonah Complex. https://jonahcalinawan.com/blog/jonah-complex/ ↩︎
3. Independent. How does an artist know when something’s finished? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/margaret-heffernan-art-essay-bbc-radio-3-b2246177.html ↩︎
4. Stark, Kio and Pettis, Bre. The Cult of Done Manifesto. https://medium.com/@bre/the-cult-of-done-manifesto-724ca1c2ff13 ↩︎
5. Hagy, Jessica. How Do You Know When You’re Done? https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicahagy/2018/03/30/how-do-you-know-when-youre-done/?sh=77bb770d1263 ↩︎