Haruki Murakami
Nobody asked you to do this
So the reason has to be your own
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, on placings and other people's verdicts
How to hold a long effort nobody required of you. The reason he found for himself, and where he keeps it.
What actually happened?
He has run for over thirty years, finished more than thirty marathons and one hundred-kilometre ultra. Nobody asked him to run, and there is no placing worth chasing. So what keeps him going? The only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be. A little further than yesterday, a slightly steadier stride, and that is enough. Writing runs on the same fuel. His own country's literary establishment kept him at arm's length for years, and it never became a reason to stop, because he had not been writing for them in the first place.
Nobody asked, so the reason has to come from you
A job has reviews and school has exams, and in both the reason is supplied from outside. Something you chose has none of that, and the moment you make the outside response your reason, the views, the likes, other people's verdicts, that reason can be withdrawn at any time.
Three posts, nobody reads them, and you stop. The reason for writing was in other people's hands from the start.
Yesterday's version of you never runs out
Comparing yourself to others makes winning slack and losing bitter, and there is always somebody better. Yesterday's version is present every day and sets a bar you can actually reach. It does not get the blood up. It also does not stop.
Half a page more than last time. Only you know it, and only you need to.
Silence is not a reason to stop, attention not a reason to continue
Nobody reading does not mean you should stop, and people reading does not mean you should go on. Both are signals from outside. The question worth asking is whether not doing this would hurt. That answer holds still while the response moves.
People who go quiet after a spell of attention were usually running on the response the whole time.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you have been doing something nobody asked for, long enough to start wondering whether to keep going.
Ask first: the last time I wanted to quit, was it because the work was bad or because nobody saw it? If the second, separate the two before deciding anything.
Where it goes wrong: using it to justify working with your eyes shut. Not being governed by feedback is not the same as not reading it. And comparing yourself to yesterday should keep you moving, not become one more review to pass.
Lines to keep
If nobody asked you to do it, the reason must be yours.
No readers is not a reason to stop; readers are not either.
Same situation, other people are asking
I've been saying it for years and nobody listens.All these years of not making it — did I write any of it down?I planted it years ago and nothing has come up.I've been at this for years and it has never worked.It still hasn't worked · all 19 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.