The Jungle Between Us and Civilization

The plan was simple.

Go live on TikTok with my writing bestie. She finally hit the follower count required to invite guests. Yay! Another platform for us to grow and reach more people with our around-the-world writing sprints and turn it into a writing group! Our first ever!!

Easy peasy, until it wasn’t.

Because that one step, the milestone we thought would unlock it all, turned into three more. Turns out TikTok doesn’t just want your numbers. It wants your consistency. Your time. Your patience. She had to go live for at least thirty minutes a day for three consecutive days to gain the privilege of inviting others with her. To share the experience with those all over the globe who wanted to simply write stories others, as it can be lonely writing alone. 

It made me think about steps and how simple and easy everyone makes them seem until you have to take one. And when you do, thinking you’ll reach your goal, three more steps appear to take. Then you realize your goal is farther away, maybe out of sight, for now. 

We Think the Next Step Is the Final Step—Until It Isn’t

It’s a human thing. We make a plan, take the leap, feel brave for doing it, and then the road gets longer. Bumpier. More uncertain. We meet resistance we didn’t plan for, rules we didn’t know existed, and setbacks that feel wildly unfair. Especially compared to those overnight successes that have been quietly plodding away for the last ten years.

I went down a ponderous trail, wondering if we knew in advance just how much effort it would take, let alone even start, would we finish. Or would we even try at all?

Would we go after the dream if we knew it would ask more of us than we were ready to give? Willing to give? Wanted to give?

Or would we stay where it’s familiar and comfortable? Say a riverbank with plenty of fresh water and fish to nourish ourselves. Whilst casting an eye at the wild jungle beside us, telling ourselves we’ll try again later, when the jungle looks less daunting and overwhelming.

Sometimes the Jungle Isn’t a Detractor. It Is the Path.

We love the idea of clarity. Of clean next steps and easy wins. We want a smoothly paved road, with perfect lines and curbs, sprawling flowered esplanades and clearly written and well-lit signs.

Who wouldn’t want that? It’s aesthetically pleasing, packed with cozy snacks to munch on while the car drives itself on cruise control, only needing our attention for an occasional speed trap. 

The reality is that real growth and chasing dreams rarely come that easily.

More often than not, the thing we want, the life we want to live, the goal we want to achieve,  lives on the other side of that thick, tangled jungle. A place where nothing is mapped out. Where the only way forward is by hacking away at branches, tripping on roots, slapping the mosquitoes stabbing at your flesh, and battling the underbrush of doubt, fatigue, procrastination, and resistance.

It’s slow, frustrating, and infuriating.

Yet beyond the jungle is something so much richer than we imagined. A door unlocked. A new world to explore. New people to meet and new friends to make. A new version of ourselves. A life we couldn’t have pictured from the safety of the riverbank. Not because we lacked vision, but because the jungle blocked the view. Only giving it up once someone, anyone, a traveler or explorer was brave enough to look to sigh, pick up his machete, and start hacking away.

We Delay the Dream Because the Full Path Feels Too Big

If someone had told me in detail how hard building a brand would be, how long it would take to build trust, to find an audience, to get good on camera, to juggle creativity and consistency and rejection and the years it would take to sell books, I would have stayed on the riverbanks, lying in the sun listening to the frustrating sounds of a fellow traveler chopping his way through a jungle I didn’t want to mess with.

I would have thought, nope, that’s far too much work for such little reward. Why live in a jungle full of anachronisms when there are poisonous spiders when I can build a raft and float down the river.

But something you don’t see until you’re in the thick of the brush, with a dulling machete, sweat pouring from every pore, is that you hack as you go.

One bush.

One branch.

One step at a time.

Even when surrounded. 

Every tangled vine you clear, every dead end you double back from, every cut you bandage along the way, that’s where the building starts. That’s where the clarity and grit come from. The jungle doesn’t just block the path. It forges you for the destination.

Don’t Let the Riverbank Fool You Into Settling.

There’s sustenance, a nice view, and the sound of relaxing water. It’s peaceful and predictable. You know how to survive on the riverbank. Set up a life, create a schedule, and establish some routine. Settling in while sometimes looking at the jungle next door, wondering what if, then quickly dismissing it.

But this is only about survival, not growth. The little voice inside your head is having you stare at the bushes and trees, wondering if you’re making the right choice. 

Because success rarely unfolds in a straight line. No, it looks like sweat-soaked clothes, scratched-up arms, and heat-covered frustration. In the stop-and-start efforts, hacking and cutting a path through the dense foliage, hoping for a clearing to help you out.

Somewhere in the middle of that enduring experience, you begin to realize something important. This is how it is. How it has to be to get to the other side. To cross the jungle, you have to do everything you can to survive the terrain. In the process, your arms are gaining more muscle definition, your body is becoming stronger, and your lungs are increasing in capacity.

Essentially, you’re becoming the version of yourself who can handle the terrain, not just the version who glanced at it, wondering, whilst sitting by the river. You're figuring out how to sharpen your blade and trusting your instincts in the dense, overgrown parts of your journey.

So don’t wait for a clear trail to magically appear. Take the next step. Swing the blade. Blaze your own way forward. Because the jungle was never meant to stop you. It was meant to make sure you’re ready for everything waiting on the other side.

Even though we didn’t know about the multiple steps involved with going live on TikTok. We stepped into the jungle. Blade swung and chopped away the path to get to what we wanted.

Because the jungle was never meant to stop you, it was meant to shape you.