When I was little, I had stickers.
I had sticker albums, where you collect Pokémon, or football players. But I also had cute or cool stickers of random things, like dinosaurs, or fish.
Back then, I was saving them. Storing them in a small tin box. I had to find the right opportunity, the right moment. The right thing to stick them on.
The sticker was unique! I only had one like that! I was scared of making a mistake - wasting it on something that wasn’t worth it - and ruining my one chance to use it right.
I probably still have them somewhere, at my parents’ house.
Read this again. I never used them. I never used the stickers. I was protecting them until the moment was right. Now, the moment is gone.
It’s too late. I missed the opportunity to have fun. To enjoy the stickers. Little Tom never got to play with his stickers. Instead, they are safe, in a box in the attic. Maybe when I die, we can stick them on my coffin???
Seriously though, I am writing this because a few weeks ago, I found some stickers hidden in the back cover of my notebook, this very notebook that I am writing my draft in.
A couple years ago, I went to the GOTO conference in Copenhagen. I got to hang out with Daniel North, and meet Martin Fowler. I learned so much, I had fun, and spent a few days in a city I love. It is a great memory. Before leaving TAP1 (where the event was hosted), I grabbed a few GOTO stickers.
What are these stickers still doing hidden in the back cover of my notebook?? I don’t know. I am waiting for the right opportunity. The right thing to stick them on. My notebook? My iPad? My phone case? Who knows.
I feel the same about my guitars, my trumpet, my flugelhorn, my camera… It’s like I’m saving them for a worthy project. The next video on my YouTube channel has to be a big hit. The next piece of music I release needs to be the proof I know what I am talking about.
If I never pick up the instrument, I keep the dream alive. But if I start playing or filming, and realise I am not that good, here is the definitive proof that I am not good enough and should give up.
But I am wrong. They’re tools, not a label to prove that I am “legitimate”. And tools are meant to be used. Otherwise, you blink, and thirty years later, your stickers are still in that tin box.
Meanwhile, my 4 year old nephew sticks his stickers everywhere. Anywhere. Tractors (his favourite) on a wall. A dinosaur on a piece of white paper. Actually, scratch that, he decided that was the wrong spot, so he removes it (aaaaah it starts to tear), puts it somewhere else (it’s now half torn and not sticking as well anymore - am I the only one stressed by this???).
He doesn’t think twice. Do I want to put the sticker there? Let’s go. Done. No voice that says “But what if it’s not the right place for it? What if my choice is not good enough?”
He is playing. And it makes him happy. I have a lot to learn from that little guy.
So I picked one of those GOTO stickers, and put it on the front cover of my notebook. Because two years was enough. I don’t want to let them sit another ten years in a tin box.
And guess what: seeing that sticker makes me happy. It reminds me of a great time in Copenhagen.