One of my best and oldest friends, also a Naval Academy alumnus, has a way of shouting the word “MOVE!” in the kind of way that only military personnel do, that all at once surprises, terrifies and, as luck would have it, moves you.  He’s so good at it, in fact, that I often try to imitate it – if for no other reason than to get him to correct me with the real thing.  As much as I enjoy the visceral sensation and memories it engenders, it is also a reminder of the most important lesson I learned in my ten years of military service: to move.  As children of the Information Age, we have access to more information, more quickly than at any point in human history.  As I’m want to say, the vast majority of Americans walk around with a pocket-sized computer that gives us access the collected works of humanity, on command, for pennies a day.  Of course, most of us use it to publish flattering photos of ourselves and self-indulgent commentary on the everyday banality of our lives, but that’s a topic for a different day.  Nevertheless, in our better moments, we can access almost any/all of the world’s knowledge – which is a tempting way to delay nearly any decision.  After all, with more information, we could make less mistakes and better decisions, and shouldn’t we do that?  In a word, no.

There are a great many lessons that one can take from life aboard a ballistic missile submarine and apply to real life, but few are as important as the first rule of submarine tactics: it’s better to move in the wrong direction than not to move at all.  For submariners, this isn’t philosophy, it’s physics.  You see, it takes more time and energy to get the boat moving than it does to turn it completely around.  In other words, it’s better to go in any direction, including the completely wrong direction than it is to just sit there.  Keep in mind that this is the rule when the stakes are about as high as they can go.  U.S. Navy Ohio-Class Ballistic Missile Submarines carry enough destructive power to eliminate a small nation from existence, and their survival and value are predicated primarily on their ability to remain undetected.  These vessels are not nearly as quick or maneuverable as their “hunter killer” counterparts, including the version sailed by the few foreign navies that operate submarines.  They have reasonable defense capabilities, but they aren’t going to “outrun” much of anything serious.  So, tactical mistakes aren’t just potentially deadly for the crew, but for all of us.  Nevertheless, we are all taught the same first rule: move.

Of course, even the slightest consideration renders this advice sensible.  Most things are more difficult to start than they are to continue.  For writers, the “fear of the blank page” is far more imposing than a mid-work “writer’s block” and any fitness enthusiast will tell you that the hardest part of any workout is getting to the gym.  There is almost certainly some cognitive explanation for this, but my knowledge of neuroscience, behavioral economics and psychology is colloquial, at best, so I’ll leave that to better minds.  What strikes me about this particular advice is the striking frequency of starting paralysis in a time where it’s never been easier, less expensive or faster to start almost anything.  Want to start a new business?  Write a book?  Compose a song?  Travel to exotic locales?  There are apps, sites and even brick and mortar storefronts to help you do all of that – even all at the same time!  But we’re starting less and less.  In 2008, for the first time since they were measured, the “birth rate” of new businesses dropped below the “death rate” for closing businesses.  College applications are down, fewer books are being written and marriage and birth rates are nearing startling lows.  So what gives?

Modern American life is lived under an extraordinary microscope.  The rise of cheap and nearly unlimited data storage has given rise to social media which has given rise to self-publication of nearly every notable detail (any many not-so-notable details) of our lives.  Of course, as we are each the heroes of our own stories, we desire to tell those stories in the most flattering light.  As the distance between what we actually experience and what we publish grows ever shorter, the pressure to editorialize our lives to perfection gives way to the far more insidious pressure to actually live a perfect life. This pressure now commonly manifests itself in the paralysis of deciding what to do.  For even the most mundane undertaking, you can find an endless stream of advice on how to do it better, cheaper, smarter, sexier, and more.  With anxiety poised to wash away the fragile confidence of starting something, a frenetic notice that you might (or are probably going to) do it wrong is often all it takes turn a strong first step in a pensive reconsideration.

Of course, these pressures are all wholly contrived.  These fears are not only stoked but manufactured to produce that same paralysis.  This painful uncertainty reliably turns doers into consumers, which is why it is so commonly inspired by marketers, tastemakers and other influencers.  The simple fact is that perfection is only an idea, something that doesn’t naturally occur – especially in the exceptional collection of cosmic probabilities that constitutes a human life.  Every mistake looms less large in the rearview mirror, while stagnation fails to age nearly so well.  In the time you take to carefully consider your first move, those who know better have already made a few wrong moves, corrected themselves, and built a lead that you’ll likely never overcome.  Now that’s something to be afraid of.  It turns out that the best way to think about what do next, is to stop thinking about it, and just do it.  Or as Jason would say: MOVE!