The Lie of Skipping Ahead

How Trying to Skip Steps Is Part of the Problem

When I first began learning public speaking, my life was simple. I drilled the basics over and over — reading aloud from books, repeating speeches I didn’t write, copying gestures that felt awkward at first. If you’ve ever seen beginners rehearsing the same introduction twenty times in a row, that was me. I was the one standing in front of the mirror, practicing eye contact, working on pauses, obeying every instruction even when it felt mechanical. In other words, I ate, slept, and rehearsed... that’s it. I won’t lie, it was exhausting, but in some ways it was easier than where I am now. I had one purpose: master the form.

Compared to those early days, many would say my speaking life today is better. I have freedom to improvise, to inject stories, to adapt my delivery into something that feels like mine. I can even coach beginners now.

Yet these gains come with a cost. I am constantly weighing when to follow the structure of a well-designed talk and when to break it, when to lean into spontaneity and when to stick to the script. A bit ironically, things got harder when they got freer. Looking back, I realize the deepest challenge doesn’t come at the start or at the peak but in the middle. The beginner has no choices, only drills. The seasoned speaker has transcended drills, flowing naturally with the room. But the one in between? They know just enough to get tangled.

And that’s the trap: frustration rarely comes from discipline itself, but from trying to skip past it.

Life at the Extremes

When we live at the extremes of the path, life is simple. Not easy but simple. Choice plays little role for those at the start or the end of Shu-Ha-Ri, a beautiful Japanese philosophy that maps the rhythm of mastery by first obeying the form, then breaking from it, and finally transcending it altogether.

Consider Shu, the stage of obedience. Life is ruled by necessity, not freedom. You don’t decide whether to invent a new form — you repeat the old ones. You take the instructions you’re given and live within them. Like me as a beginner, you don’t waste time asking whether the kata is efficient or whether you prefer a different style. You bow, you practice, you repeat. There is no choice to make.

Oddly enough, the same is true at the opposite extreme. In Ri — transcendence — choice becomes irrelevant not because of limitation but because of integration. The master doesn’t stress over which form to pick, because every movement flows from embodied presence. They can delegate to instinct, improvise without fear, create without calculation. The decision dissolves into fluidity.

It is in the middle stage, Ha, that life is burdened by endless deliberation. You see options — break the rule or follow it? Question or obey? You have some freedom, but not enough mastery to make every choice cleanly. Thus, stress arises not from discipline or from transcendence, but from the temptation to skip straight to the end.

Stuck in the Middle

When we look at Shu and Ri, their lives are marked by a noticeable lack of deliberation. But in Ha, life is marked by almost endless questioning. You know enough to spot possibilities, but not enough to integrate them fully.

Take training as a concrete example. A beginner doesn’t argue with form — they repeat it. A master doesn’t argue either — they’ve embodied it. But the intermediate constantly wonders: “Should I follow this tradition or invent my own? Should I break the form now or later?” Each option feels like it could work, but none feels secure.

The consequence is mental overhead — the burden of managing freedom before it has ripened into sovereignty. This leads to fatigue, self-doubt, even collapse. The temptation is strong to skip ahead: to rebel without roots, to transcend without discipline. But skipping only delays true mastery.

Thus, the life of one who tries to skip ahead is defined by restlessness. Always testing shortcuts, always chasing transcendence without structure, always feeling the emptiness that follows. This isn’t driven by laziness but by misunderstanding. They think freedom is the start, when in truth it is the fruit.

Aristotle and the Golden Mean

Aristotle taught that virtue lies between extremes — courage between cowardice and rashness. Shu-Ha-Ri shows something similar. Shu is like cowardice in that you don’t face every danger — you follow rules.

Ri is like rashness in that you act fluidly without fear. But the sovereign path is courage: discerning when to obey, when to break, when to transcend.

And just as Aristotle observed, this middle ground feels heavier than either extreme. The coward and the rash live simply: always run, always fight. The courageous must decide each time. Similarly, the beginner always obeys, the master always flows. But the one in between must judge moment by moment. It’s admirable — but it’s a burden.

Yet philosophers remind us: the stress of discernment is the price of becoming whole. The examined life is harder, but it is also the only life worth living. Shu-Ha-Ri is not a hack to bypass difficulty. It is the rhythm of mastery, and the middle stage is where sovereignty is forged.

An Imperfect Path to Perfection

In the age of the program, we are urged to skip steps — to rebel before we’ve learned, to transcend before we’ve embodied. This drive, though tempting, is a trap. What begins as hunger for freedom collapses into a cycle of half-built skills and shallow rebellions.

Many of us tie our worth to appearing free — skipping ahead to perform transcendence. We chase perfection without roots, and in doing so, sabotage ourselves. True sovereignty is not a sprint to Ri. It is a walk through Shu and Ha first.

If we are to keep the rhythm of Shu-Ha-Ri, then perhaps sovereignty is best defined as knowing which stage you are in and honoring it. The beginner’s virtue is obedience. The intermediate’s virtue is discernment. The master’s virtue is authorship. Skipping ahead doesn’t accelerate this — it only delays it.

Virtue here is not in pretending you are further along. It is in respecting the sequence. Peace, not posturing. Mastery, not mimicry.

Freedom waits on the other side of discipline.

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Always in your corner,

Alan

Founder, TheCodexx

Author of The Passive Power Manifesto