Saturday, August 28, 2010

“The future comes one day at a time”

My fortune cookie yesterday. I often wonder, why is it that the best of us struggle with the inability to finish something we start. Correction something we dare to start. There are the usual suspects which all end up at fear combined with slothfulness.

I was watching Julie and Julia the other day, and there was a moment where Julie wanted to give up, she said “I’m taking a break” in response to her overbearing mother's inquire as to why she wasn’t cooking that particular night. Other than the obvious fight with her husband which was all to easy to blame her desire to quit on, it was clear she was feeling defeated.  Her mother uncharacteristically ends the phone conversation saying “Don’t quit.  It’ll do you some good to finish something for once in your life. Who knows you actually might learn something.” The scene ends with Julie getting up off bed and heading to the grocery store.

While I am no cook, I too have this problem, unable to finish what I start. I believe its cowardice mixed in with slothfulness. But I want to work through this, I really do believe at the bottom of the task we set out to do, its on its way to completion that we realize a lot about ourselves.

I once read “When you get right down to bottom of the word ‘success’ it means to follow through.” Think about it, how good is the greatest golf swing if you never follow through?

I decided to air this issue out a bit because I think a lot of us struggle with this, and I say this because I can’t really even sum it up in a single word.

The quote I started with is significant in what I’m setting out to do because it takes changing what you do one day at a time, that changes the slope of the line of your life. One day at a time…