7 Words from Mark Twain That Inspired Me to Become A Full-Time Writer

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”

These are the 7 words that changed my life.

Why?

For as long as I can remember, I dreamed about becoming a full-time writer. I dreamed about sitting in my house by a lake with notebooks full of unwritten stories. I dreamed about coffee rings staining my desk revealing the late nights I’d stayed up writing. And I dreamed about having a library full of my favourite books that each infused me with the knowledge that the journey was worth the wait.

However, as much as I could romanticise about my dream life, it always felt too big, out of reach, and destined for someone else. That stopped me from ever going after it.

Being the full-time writer that I am today, I can definitely say that it’s not at all as romantic as I had once dreamed. But exactly because of that, I love it more. I love it more because it’s real. It’s not make-believe anymore. There’s no fantasy. It’s my life and I feel incredibly blessed. Sure, it sucks at times, like anything we do often enough, but it’s beautiful and inspiring at others.

I feel like I’m fulfilling my life’s purpose and there’s no greater feeling than that.

The journey from fantasy world to reality only began though when I heard those 7 words from Mark Twain. After all, I had spent as much time procrastinating and putting off my dream life as I had been fantasising about it.

For too long, I had been waiting for the kind of perfection that only comes from the thousands of steps taken towards it. I had forgotten that there is no end game, there is only the opportunity to arrive as we are today, only to move on tomorrow.

And… what is perfection anyway?

Once I broke it down, I found that my own sense of perfection was built on a social constraint that was handed down to me from society, schooling, and my childhood. After seeing that much of my ideals around perfection were not mine, I began to rethink what I thought about it.

Taking Mark Twain’s words forward

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain

This is where I started writing lists on how to go about actualising my dream. I committed myself to improve by just 1% everyday. I broke the complexity of writing full-time down into smaller, more manageable tasks to make it feel possible. I then either started doing those tasks or learned the necessary steps I needed to start doing them.

I took comfort in the old adage — Rome wasn’t built in a day and then went about creating my city brick by loving brick.

“Many of life’s failures are people that didn’t realise how close they were to success when they gave up” — Thomas Edison

From one brilliant man to another

Thomas Edison is another great inspirational figure to me. That’s because his genius is humble too, just like Mark Twain’s. I can relate to both of them equally. After all, there’s nothing romantic or pretentious about how Thomas Edison describes a genius — “Genius is 1% inspiration. 99% perspiration” and “we often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Thomas Edison’s genius wasn’t in his ability to think differently from anyone else or that he belonged to a special club that had access to secret knowledge.

His genius was his acceptance, curiosity, and a child-like wonder that was fused with the wisdom and patience of an elder. Much of his genius was simply in his ability to persevere.

Genius is the idea or thought. It’s the spark of inspiration. It’s the 1%. The other 99% is hard work. It’s everything else that turns that idea into something real.

When speaking to people after he had just invented the light bulb, this is what he had to say:

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison

He then went on to say: “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.”

Something else that inspires me about his life is that he always seemed to see failure as an opportunity to learn.

After all, no one endures failing 10,000 times without believing in something bigger.

His genius then was his ability to accept reality as it was and to take tiny steps forward each day without judgment or expectation.

His genius was simply to never give up.

How to enjoy the process as much, if not more than, the outcome

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time” — Thomas Edison

In 1914 a fire of epic proportions burned Thomas Edison’s factory to the ground. In it were hundreds of plans, designs, and patents that never made it to the light of day.

It was a fire that was to define his life and inspire the world, perhaps because it revealed his unshakable character.

As the fire raged on, a young boy who lived across the road from Edison’s factory ran to Edison’s house to wake him up and alarm him about what was happening. “Quick, quick, your factory is on fire!!” He said.

Thomas Edison ran with the boy to his factory where he saw what has happening. Instead of rushing inside to salvage what he could, he turned to the young boy and said, “Go and get your parents. This will be the greatest fire they will see, it will be a shame for them to miss it.”

Can you imagine? After years of dreaming, imagining, planning, creating, and working on hundreds of new ideas, he had to watch it all burn to a glorious crisp.

Somehow, instead of feeling utter despair, Thomas Edison appreciated the fire that was responsible for doing just that.

Many people expected great things to come out of that factory, and maybe they would have. But Thomas Edison didn’t worry about such speculation. He didn’t need anything to come out of the factory to deem himself successful. The process was a success. The fire was a success!

That’s why when it all burned to the ground there was no fear of failing, no scarcity of abundance, and no pain in letting it all go.

In response to the media that asked Edison how he felt in the aftermath of the fire, the 67-year-old simply said, “I’ll start all over again tomorrow.”

In true Edison fashion, the disaster led directly to innovation. That night, as he watched the fire rage on from a neighboring tower block, he noticed that the firefighters tackling the fire were having trouble seeing in the dark.

Two days later he invented a battery-powered searchlight that solved the problem.

That’s the inner workings of a genius: They alchemise fear into love.

He didn’t let his pain that night allow him to miss an opportunity. He didn’t let his external circumstances determine his fate. Instead, he allowed it to create a new one.

Closing thoughts

To close, I’d like to leave you with a Chinese proverb that speaks directly to the subject of this blog: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

And with each new step remember this:

“Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile.” — Mark Twain