The Toolbox Fallacy

The Toolbox Fallacy is the belief that you would be doing something if only this or that was in place, even though you haven’t done it in a very long time.

I can’t do X until I have Y. Once I have the (gym membership, tablet, camera, laptop, time), then I’ll be able to (workout, paint more, work on my photography, write, be happy.) That is the Toolbox Fallacy, […]

A creation is a marker dropped in the stream of time, and the longer we go without dropping the next, the less meaningful that marker becomes. As the unyielding grip of each passing day dragged me farther from the things I’d made in college, am eventually became was. A writer writes. A painter paints. And at that moment, with my head on the desk, I understood for the first time that I was no longer a video creator. I had put off making anything new for long enough, using the same fallacy over and over and over again.
— Ian Martin, “The Toolbox Fallacy“

There are many great examples, one is part of the story in the excellent movie Collateral, covered in this video essay:

(Youtube)

And in part in this:

(Youtube)