If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next
— Steve Jobs
A media trope is the used-to-be: the criminals who has done their time and reformed, the rehabbed drug users, those who have lost weight and become active, the bankrupts who have rebuilt their fortune, the performers who have belatedly discovered authenticity.
But in the process we ignore those people who were never any of those things in the first place.
Is it more remarkable to redeem yourself or to never need to?
On the other hand, we prefix the descriptions of those who are now past their peak with “former”. It’s a kind of sympathy, I suppose, but also a gravitational pull which traps people who have achieved great things in their used-to-be.
Is it better to be a former supermodel or a never supermodel?
How do we rate somebody who is now retired against somebody who was never tired in the first place?
Whenever I am asked “What are you going to do next?” the cheeky answer I’m often tempted, but generally too polite, to give is: “What are you going to do first?”
The correct answer is always: Start Again.
