Sunday, July 21, 2024

I Do but I Don't

These words were written by the immortal Ernest Hemmingway and even though it was specifically penned for the subject of writing, the same could be said about nearly any project or endeavor ever conceived. Substitute, if you will, the word "writer" and "writing" for another venture:

  • Artist/drawing
  • salesman/selling
  • runner/running
  • cook/cooking
I often doubt if I truly want to do any of the things I say I want to do  because so often I might choose to take a nap instead, or watch TV, or surf the web or anything else unrelated to my stated desires. 

The late Brian Klemmer wrote in his book 

If How-to's Were Enough We Would 
All be Skinny, Rich and Happy

that if we set a goal to make $100,000 a year but instead we made only $70,000 then we really didn't want to make $100,000. We say we did but our deeper, more focused desire was, instead of doing what was necessary to reach the goal, we were unwilling to do something uncomfortable, or something that would make us look ridiculous. Maybe we didn't want to to do something that would be interpreted as pushy and as a result, we lost sales and we fell short of the goal we set. 

This can be said of anything we say we want to do. What is the stronger desire?





No comments:

Post a Comment