Maybe it’s easier to do hard things when nobody says they’re difficult

By David McElroy · December 6, 2017

Andrew was enthusiastic when he heard I’d made my first video using footage from a drone, so he wanted to watch it. After seeing the three-and-a-half-minute video, he was gushing about how cool it was. But he wanted to know how to make such a video himself.

“How do you do it?” he asked. “Do they just have a button and it flies around and decides what to shoot for itself? Is that music just added automatically?”

The questions were shockingly ignorant. I was offended. Just a little. He thought I just pushed a button? He thought the drone did the work? He didn’t think I struggled to make this? He thought it was easy?

Let me back up.

About six months ago, the real estate company where I work bought a drone for me to learn to use. It seemed as though it would be fun and we could use it for high-end property listings. I fooled around with it for a few weeks, but then I got busy doing other things. I hadn’t touched it for four months.

Then one of our agents got a property listing and the broker suggested it would be a great opportunity to try out the drone. Since we had spent $550 on the thing — and I’d agreed to learn to use it — I didn’t feel any choice but to agree. But I knew I wasn’t ready.

You see, I had studied extensively about how to fly the thing. I had studied the principles of using the various confusing controls while also trying to control the direction and framing of the camera. The few times when I had tried it, I had felt intimidated and over my head. (No pun intended.) The results I’d gotten weren’t great. I regretted ever having agreed to learn to use the thing. It was a lot harder than I’d imagined.

For the last four months, I’ve found excuses to leave that DJI Phantom 3 Standard sitting in its box. I’ve been busy, but the truth is that I was mostly intimidated. I had learned that it was difficult — and I’m terrified of not doing a thing well and looking foolish. So the drone sat there.

But I ran out of excuses Monday. When the weather cleared enough, the agent and I drove to a remote location — 50 miles from the office — for me to shoot aerial video of this 25-acre tract of land.

I knew I could get the drone into the air, but I was afraid of losing it by flying too close to trees or by not noticing an altitude change as a hill started. And even I didn’t crash it, I was afraid the video would be nothing but jerky images that were unusable.

But I didn’t tell anybody that I was afraid I couldn’t do it.

The flight was just as scary as I had feared. The drone was soon above the trees and I had no idea where it was — maybe a quarter of a mile away. On the screen of my iPhone — which shows the video coming back from the drone — I could sort of see where it was going, but I was soon confused.

The camera was pointing almost into the sun and the ground below looked black in the contrast. I couldn’t tell which way it needed to go for me to retrieve it. I almost panicked, but I kept experimenting with the controls — turning a bit more and then moving the camera to look around — and then something eventually happened.

As I gingerly moved the camera one more time in a desperate effort to figure out what to do, I suddenly realized that I had accidentally gotten the camera into a perfect position. I eased forward on the throttle and it moved ahead, recording the majestic trees below just as I had imagined.

What had been an accident that came from desperate experiments suddenly looked like exactly what I wanted. Maybe I would end up with a few usable seconds of video after all.

Then something magical happened.

I suddenly realized that I almost knew what I was doing. The fear faded. I was still a rank amateur at this, but my instincts started kicking in. Something took over. What had seemed impossible suddenly seemed possible.

When we left that land, I had about 16 minutes of video. (The drone’s battery is good for only about 20 minutes of flight time.) When I imported the video into my MacBook, I just started cutting every section that showed the horrid and confused movements which filled most of the footage. I was left with about 10 clips lasting about three and a half minutes.

I re-arranged the clips. I listened to dozens of music choices from a service I subscribe to and found something of suitable mood and length. I added brief transitions between the clips and then added the company logo.

Suddenly, I had something I was proud of. It wasn’t perfect. It has serious flaws. The one live turn which I included is jerky. (It makes me cringe.) There were also issues with lighting and contrast.

But I had a finished video that was good enough for a first effort. And everybody else involved at the company thought it was great.

When Andrew asked me Wednesday evening whether everything just sort of magically created itself, I was sort of offended because I knew how hard it was. I knew the effort I had put into and I knew how intimidated I’d been. I even showed Andrew how the editing process worked on my computer. He was confused and thought it looked like too much work.

I haven’t been able to quit thinking about his reaction — and about my reaction to him.

I was scared to do what I did because I knew it was hard. I was terrified of not doing a good job. That almost stopped me from even trying.

Andrew thought the whole thing was easy. If I hadn’t explained to him how hard it was, he would have been willing to jump in and start flying. Maybe he would have crashed the drone. Maybe he would have been terrible. We’ll never know. But the point is that he didn’t know it was difficult, so he was eager to try.

There are plenty of times when we’re confronted with things that are very difficult and we make them even harder by studying them too closely and scaring ourselves. I’m really good at that. Maybe you are, too.

I suspect some of us would be better off if we were more like Andrew — naive but wiling to try doing more things we want to do.

After forcing myself to do this drone video project Monday, I know I’m more prepared for the next one. I’m still not very experienced. I still won’t get everything right. But I know I can do it — so I’m not intimidated.

How many things that we want do we fail to pursue because we’re afraid? For me, it’s been a sizable list. I have to learn to jump in and pursue things I’m afraid of.

There’s a cliche in the “positive thinking” world that says, “Leap and the net will appear.” That’s not always true, of course. There are times when we leap and fall on our faces. But if we really want a thing — and if it’s not a literal leap that causes physical damage — we all ought to make more leaps instead of waiting until we’re absolutely forced into it. (As I was Monday.)

Let’s try leaping more often for the things we want. As long as we’re sane and we respect other people’s boundaries, it’s likely that a net will appear more often to make our leaps of faith possible.

Note: You can see the new video below. The next one will be better, though. I promise.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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