Thinking about my life and my energy, it strikes me as fascinating, the way physical stamina mirrors mental stamina. When running, I am great at sprinting a short distance. Long distances, screw that. I go slow and steady and yearn to give up the entire way. No way can I aim for speed goals or I'll never finish. But boy do I hate life while I'm doing it. At the end, I feel a sense of accomplishment but am mostly glad that I can do something else.
When it comes to projects of a mental nature, I've realized I'm the same. Short term goals are easy. I power through and make it happen by the sheer force of my will. Perhaps that's why I work so well under a deadline. If the deadline is far out, I usually procrastinate until the deadline is closer and creates a sense of urgency. A need for a huge amount of energy and the ability to move mountains. That's the energy I find thrilling.
I admire people who seem to plod along, moving forward toward their goal. In my heart of hearts, I would rather magically leap over all the slow and steady and zoom to the end like a rocket. But life doesn't work like that. I mean, I guess for some it might, but a lot of things that are valuable and lasting are built from the slow and steady.
Quite unexpectedly, I think of The Tortoise and The Hare. My natural tendency is to be the hare. To dance around the slow pokes and show off how amazing I am and how fast I can go. But in the past, I have always dipped out or taken a vacation or just lost interest and, lo and behold, those turtles with conviction keep moving, right past me, right to the finish line.
I suppose I need to embody more of the tortoise. Boy does that feel stifling. Constricting. But if I want lasting success, maybe I need a balance of the two. Maybe I need to dredge up my inner tortoise and use my inner hare to give the tortoise more flare. How can I get them to work together? I wonder. I dunno. Food for thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment