Ever had days like this: little sleep, big meal, little movement, low energy, but high ambition... ?
It feels like your world is ending..
You can't do what you want to do.
We all experience it, but why can't we all realize it's just an experience... Not the end of all experience.
I am struggling with that today.
I think, on my worst days, that the rest of my life will look like this...
Then I think, on my best days, the rest of my life will look like this...
But it's somewhere in the middle.
It's always in the middle. The goddam' middle.
Remember it. Never forget it, I tell myself.
My present self will try to learn from my past experience. But why can't I learn from my future mistakes? That's where the juice is.
That's where the love is.
"That's what I'm missing", I think.
The love for the thing...
It should guide my actions.
The love for building, making, writing, walking, painting, coding, anything.
But the love isn't always front-of-mind. For whatever reason.
The pain always is...
Speaking of pain, the first pain I had while making something was in 2010.
I was in Hatteras, North Carolina.
My parents house got foreclosed on, so we were living in a rental property we had, until that house also got foreclosed on a few months later.
Anyway, I needed money. I didn't really. I just needed something to do.
So, I tried to get a job.
But if you know anything about Hatteras in the winter, there is nothing. No people, no stores (ok, 1), no events, no jobs, nothing...
I don't remember how I got the idea, but writing for money seemed doable.
"I speak, so why can't I speak at the keyboard for money?"
I sent like 30 emails to magazines, and blogs in the design / developer space... I wasn't a designer or a developer. Why did I pick it? No earthly idea. Interest, maybe?
I got one reply: Web Designer Depot.
I owe them a lot. That kind of changed my life, even though it was painful.
The response: "sure, send us that article and we'll pay you".
Ok, simple.
I'll just ... uh... write ... an article? No idea how to do that.
But I packed up my stuff, drove 30 mins to the nearest library in a nearby town and sat there... writing my first "article".
I remember the feeling like it was yesterday.
It was like I was being stabbed while I wrote it. I hated the feeling.
Ok, I'm exaggerating, it was painful, but not that painful.
Nowadays, I know there's a common refrain, "painters like painting, writers like having written". And it's kinda' true, for me at least.
But it was my first experience making money with my brain, and even though it was miserable, it felt really good.
I grew up the opposite: a plumber-dad who had us digging ditches from age 10 and onward on job sites ... which I enjoyed (weird, I know).
Anyway, I wrote the article, and went back and forth with the "editor" to get the grammar right and cleaned up, then I got paid.
$250 bucks... in my PayPal.
Crazy.
I remember feeling so elated.
So, I continued writing for that site until my main "hit" came out.
An article titled: "UI vs UX". It ended up being the #1 result on google for that topic for like 10 years.
But then I stopped writing.
"I'll just take a break" I thought.
But why?
Why did I stop, period...
I had something working, and I stopped doing it, right when it was working the best it ever had..
Genius move, Dain. Seriously... genius.
Anyway, fast forwarding back to today, trying to get back on the writing train is one of the hardest things to do.
Yes, I remember I've always felt the pain of writing, but for some reason my body is really resistant to it.
Then I loop back to the beginning... "You had 4 hours of sleep each day for the past 3 days. Ate a huge meal. Watched a TV show from 2006. Had 3 sips of water. Didn't walk at all. And it's 3:46pm. No fucking shit you're resistant to it. You're the opposite of making smart decisions today."
Again, genius move. 🙄
So, I'm going to cut myself some slack. I'm not perfect, and I'll try again tomorrow.
Yes, I have a list of things I want to write about.
Yes, I'm excited about the ideas.
They're just not gonna' happen today.
But this did...
So I'm not gonna' force anything else.
I'm hoping you don't either.
-Dain
PS - new changes to the StartHereFM podcast coming in 2026, will discuss in one of the next few posts.
It feels like your world is ending..
You can't do what you want to do.
We all experience it, but why can't we all realize it's just an experience... Not the end of all experience.
I am struggling with that today.
I think, on my worst days, that the rest of my life will look like this...
Then I think, on my best days, the rest of my life will look like this...
But it's somewhere in the middle.
It's always in the middle. The goddam' middle.
Remember it. Never forget it, I tell myself.
My present self will try to learn from my past experience. But why can't I learn from my future mistakes? That's where the juice is.
That's where the love is.
"That's what I'm missing", I think.
The love for the thing...
It should guide my actions.
The love for building, making, writing, walking, painting, coding, anything.
But the love isn't always front-of-mind. For whatever reason.
The pain always is...
Speaking of pain, the first pain I had while making something was in 2010.
I was in Hatteras, North Carolina.
My parents house got foreclosed on, so we were living in a rental property we had, until that house also got foreclosed on a few months later.
Anyway, I needed money. I didn't really. I just needed something to do.
So, I tried to get a job.
But if you know anything about Hatteras in the winter, there is nothing. No people, no stores (ok, 1), no events, no jobs, nothing...
I don't remember how I got the idea, but writing for money seemed doable.
"I speak, so why can't I speak at the keyboard for money?"
I sent like 30 emails to magazines, and blogs in the design / developer space... I wasn't a designer or a developer. Why did I pick it? No earthly idea. Interest, maybe?
I got one reply: Web Designer Depot.
I owe them a lot. That kind of changed my life, even though it was painful.
The response: "sure, send us that article and we'll pay you".
Ok, simple.
I'll just ... uh... write ... an article? No idea how to do that.
But I packed up my stuff, drove 30 mins to the nearest library in a nearby town and sat there... writing my first "article".
I remember the feeling like it was yesterday.
It was like I was being stabbed while I wrote it. I hated the feeling.
Ok, I'm exaggerating, it was painful, but not that painful.
Nowadays, I know there's a common refrain, "painters like painting, writers like having written". And it's kinda' true, for me at least.
But it was my first experience making money with my brain, and even though it was miserable, it felt really good.
I grew up the opposite: a plumber-dad who had us digging ditches from age 10 and onward on job sites ... which I enjoyed (weird, I know).
Anyway, I wrote the article, and went back and forth with the "editor" to get the grammar right and cleaned up, then I got paid.
$250 bucks... in my PayPal.
Crazy.
I remember feeling so elated.
So, I continued writing for that site until my main "hit" came out.
An article titled: "UI vs UX". It ended up being the #1 result on google for that topic for like 10 years.
But then I stopped writing.
"I'll just take a break" I thought.
But why?
Why did I stop, period...
I had something working, and I stopped doing it, right when it was working the best it ever had..
Genius move, Dain. Seriously... genius.
Anyway, fast forwarding back to today, trying to get back on the writing train is one of the hardest things to do.
Yes, I remember I've always felt the pain of writing, but for some reason my body is really resistant to it.
Then I loop back to the beginning... "You had 4 hours of sleep each day for the past 3 days. Ate a huge meal. Watched a TV show from 2006. Had 3 sips of water. Didn't walk at all. And it's 3:46pm. No fucking shit you're resistant to it. You're the opposite of making smart decisions today."
Again, genius move. 🙄
So, I'm going to cut myself some slack. I'm not perfect, and I'll try again tomorrow.
Yes, I have a list of things I want to write about.
Yes, I'm excited about the ideas.
They're just not gonna' happen today.
But this did...
So I'm not gonna' force anything else.
I'm hoping you don't either.
-Dain
PS - new changes to the StartHereFM podcast coming in 2026, will discuss in one of the next few posts.