So how is it that at the start of a new project e.g blogging, our enthusiasm for something new powers us to 'keep at it ' and then, unexpectedly, we lose the momentum, something interrupts us and we slide a slippery slope of priorities, until, what we were most animated about suddenly becomes a lesser priority? I don't know the answer to this but I do know the experience, repeatedly, through life, and I refuse, absolutely, to allow this to happen again, here and now!
This is important to me, even if there are distractions, inconsistencies and pitfalls along the way. I must maintain this account of what I now recognise as ' the last chance" episode of my life. This is the time to put into practice all that I have learned, all that I want to learn and all that I can share, there won't be any second chances, if ever there were any, and time is racing ahead of me.
The way I see it , if I am lucky enough to remain in good health, sound of mind and body, I have at the most 20 more years of this little life to do something with. How can I have drifted through it for so long. Admittedly life's currents , karma, have taken me in some interesting places but there comes a time when all of us need to be at the helm of our lives. I'm sure this must seem ridiculous to some people, the fact that at my age, this has never occured to me before, perhaps I thought that I was at the helm but simply didn't realise that I was adrift on a raft made of dreams and the desire to please.
In Poland, where I come from, we call it "slomiany zapal" which - literrally, means "straw enthusiasm". We Poles "praise" ourselves on being a nation of "straw enthusiasts". We start things quickly, promise heaven and earth and then suddenly claim "changed circumstances" (rebus sic stantibus as an old doctrine in international law calls it) and considered ourselves free from any previous promises, abandoning an unfinished project just to enthusiastically start a new one.
ReplyDeleteThen, when I emigrated to Sweden I observed that most Swedes seemed remarkably unethusiastic at the beginning and eqaully unwilling to make promises without seriously considering if they would want and be able to keep them. But once they commit, they stick with it to the end. Pacta sunt servanda = agreements (or promises) have to be honored no matter what.
Neither approach is fault free: one is too flexible, the other too inflexible. But a team consisting of straw enthusiasts and honor-my-word people can work well together: the straw enthusiasts providing ideas, inspiration and - yes - enthusiasm to start something new, while honor-my-word types provide doggedly steady implementation of any project.
My (sadly - late) spouse was of the second type and I loved it that way. After his demise I learned to delegate execution of started by unfinished personal projects ... but, how does one delegate blogging? :-)))