Start to Finish

It’s an accomplishment to start something, I’ve also discovered that beginning an adventure is merely half of the battle but finishing it brings just as much challenge. I have numerous projects of all shapes and sizes left undone, a scrapbook for a friend, the notebook full of script ideas, reorganizing my shoes for fall/winter and putting spring/summer in storage, and it goes on and on…for some reason I have found it easy to give up and leave all these things undone, a habit I’m so sad I’ve developed. Some of these projects, ideas, and creative sparks had a beginning full of enthusiasm, then boredom, frustration, or simply distraction with the next new thing got the best of me. It’s all about prioritizing time, managing emotion, doing something to the finish even if you don’t feel like it. Recently I read a book called called The War of Art by Steve Pressfield. Mr. Pressfield does an incredible job of calling out resistance, combating excuses and motivating the creative to use their gifting and ideas to contribute to the world because that is what they were made for, it’s what the artist was called to do.

MANY creative ideas float through my mind on any given day, some ideas I grab onto and run with… for awhile anyway and others I let fly to see if they come around again. I think it’s important for people to realize giving an outlet to ideas is a type of therapy. It’s good to develop things, its part of how you were made, and it’s no wonder people get so stressed out in life… I think we play too little OR we play too much and don’t allow ourselves to put some of our play to work. When I was about 13 I wanted a piano more than anything… I wanted to LEARN piano more than anything… And guess what, one day someone “gave” us a gorgeous piano. I’ve heard it said there’s no such thing as a free piano because one day or another you’ve gotta move it, be it money, be it the backs of strong friends – there is a price, I digress. So we got the piano and then my parents got me lessons, I loved it…but eventually I didn’t love it enough to pay attention to it. I did practice, some, in between my weekly lessons… and then less and less. I remember my teacher getting frustrated with me during one lesson; it was obvious I hadn’t practiced at all. It lost my attention, even though I loved and enjoyed it – the work, wasn’t fun. Wouldn’t be nice if we could become great at things that we liked automatically, wouldn’t it be just wonderful if natural talent was enough… But unfortunately it’s not that way. Even a singer with natural talent, eventually has to develop skills in order to “go somewhere” with that talent, it wouldn’t be fair to expect someone to teach you an entire Broadway show by rote method just because the singer decided not to spend the time learning the skill of how to read music. We need to take our ideas and talents and do work on them… Develop them; face the good bad and ugly to make it happen… Eventually those giftings, those talents will be something incredible to share with the world.

I could continue to sit on the couch and zone out with the TV – contributing nothing to the world but my presence or I could pick up that scarf I started knitting last winter, finish, and give it as the gift I had intended it. What a shame I settled on a gift card to the local coffee shop instead a handmade thoughtful birthday gift I started with. There are two battles, the battle to stop being lazy and to start something and the other to stop being lazy and to continue to keep going until it’s done and then move on and start the next. Perhaps the only battle is with laziness, or allowing it to dominate our lives securing us so we don’t have to experience the fear or failure. Robert Kennedy said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Sometimes I get so frustrated with my life, sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in the same routine but how much better would it be if I started finishing some of these random ideas I have. The bottom line is, to stop being lazy, what’s the worst that could really happen if you start something and then finish, so maybe the first go round it’s not the greatest, but one thing leads to another and eventually you’ve accomplished something truly amazing. Keep going, don’t quit, finish the thing, it will be worth every effort.