I’ll never get it done (and I cannot get it wrong)

Jonas Ellison
2 min readApr 20, 2022

Here’s a mantra I heard the other day that’s growing on me…

*I’ll never get it done.
I cannot get it wrong.

I mean, sure… I can accomplish little things. I can even accomplish things that seem like they’re big. But even the things that seem monumental turn out to be small and eventually fade from view in the rear-view mirror of time as life moves along.

And yes, I can make messes of things. Big messes of things. But everything is salvageable. Much like my accomplishments, my mistakes, in the grand scheme of things, are eventually blotted out by the rest of life.

So… I can surmise that the above mantra is true.
But if it is…

Then why are we here? What’s the point? Why is there a constant inner sense of incompleteness buzzing like itchy static in the backdrop of my consciousness? What is it that I must complete and why does it always seem like I’m late or behind?

If this mantra is the truth,
which it SEEMS like it is…

Then maybe ‘the point’ is for the fun of it. Maybe the ‘goal’ is to realize that all pressure has been removed from every goal.

And then, this concern arises:

But then, won’t I get lazy and complacent?! I mean, if this mantra is true, then why do anything? Why not just sit here for the rest of my days? Why keep going at all?

Yes, this turn into nihilism is possible. But if you sit with it long enough, you might notice that eventually, a little nudge within you arises and you’ll see…

Life won’t let you just sit there.

What WILL let you sit there is crippling anxiety about how you’re not getting it done and you’re doing it wrong. But if those pressures are removed, then, well…

You might notice that,

In the absence of having to do anything,
and in the absence of having to get it right,
there arises a gleeful impulse to…
DO SOME THINGS.

And you might notice that, since you cannot get it wrong (and consequently, you cannot get it right), there’s a lightness about the way you do things. You might feel that a weight has been lifted and replaced by

playfulness.

You’ll never get it done.
You cannot get it wrong.

Amen.

*Yes, my Christian friends, if we trust the Gospel, we trust this is true.

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Jonas Ellison

Not here on Medium much anymore. Head over to my Substack to see the latest: jonasellison.substack.com 👍🙏🤙