At a glance over my shoulder, I spy many opportunities un-taken, aspirations abandoned, ideas given up on and life unfinished, in the fading distance behind.
Life left waiting.
Cards on the table face down in front of an empty swiveling chair. Chalk the unfinished business up to a risk too demanding or a challenge deemed too daunting. Either way it adds up to life incomplete, damaged and maimed by our choosing to not do rather than to do. I feel as though every one of them outlines a small death of me on sidewalks behind.
For me, it was no different with the book I almost didn’t write. I threatened abandon nearly every day. Some evenings crawled by. Minutes hung suspended in time as I procrastinated and counted excuses worthy of attention and affection. I hated my pen and loathed the empty sound of would be keystrokes.
After all, writers should write . . . right?
And what if a writer doesn’t write? Is he really a writer? Or did he one day dream too high, much higher than his reach?
Even after writing a book, words don’t necessarily come easy for me, and that is precisely the point. We find ourselves, not in what we produce but in the process - along the way to finishing what we started, even it was a late night, our hearts swelled with possibility and we swore we’d do it.
Life is about finishing and in finishing, we learn to live well; much better than we ever could by taking the easier route around the mountain. Up the mountain or through the mountain, but not around the mountain.
The one thing you can do to change the course and forecast of your life ahead is to finish.
Right here in this very moment don’t just nod your head and sink a bit in guilty agreement. Finish.
Deny yourself escape and abandon and write the chapter, have the conversation, draw the plans, take out the trash, clear the garage, send the resume, schedule the class, buy the ring, book the trip.
Here’s all you need to become a consistent finisher: talent just don’t quit.