“Okay. Put it in your pocket. It’s yours. With the rest of those wallets and the register that makes this a pretty successful little score.” – Pulp Fiction
If Snow White gets tired of feeling Sleepy in the bath tub, is it okay if she feels Happy?
I think a lot about what could be versus what is. Probably too much, sometimes.
What sort of examples? Well, a piece of walnut could be turned into fine furniture that might be used for hundreds of years. Or it could be burned in a fireplace and turned into ash.
That’s what I’m talking about. Yes, both of the results are useful, but one has enduring value while the other is ephemeral. Yeah, if it’s the single piece of firewood that keeps you alive for a night, well, that’s a goal, but in all the years I spent cutting firewood, not a single stick ever lived up to that level of valor. In fact, some sticks are downright bad, when a doctor presses my tongue down with a stick, I feel depressed.
There are other things, though, since I’m done talking about my wood. There is the split between having a high IQ and the performance that comes from that. Yes, generally higher IQ is correlated strongly with having a higher wealth and income, but I’ve seen geniuses who wasted it all. Athletic ability is in there, too. How many potentially great athletes disappeared because they had the work ethic of lightning: they followed the path of least resistance?
In France, is marijuana called oui’d?
I could go on and on with examples of this, but I’m thinking that these are enough. And, generally, it’s not firewood that I’m concerned with as much as human potential. A wasted stick of mahogany is one thing, but a wasted Isaac Newton is a tragedy. Man, after a few pints, Isaac really was a mess: Leibniz really pissed him off somehow.
The biggest part, I think, of turning human potential into achievement is something very simple: language. In one sense, I think we speak the world we live in and ourselves into existence. When I say, “I’m going to write a post today” that changes my future. There have been several times I’ve promised something like, “And I’ll have a great post on Monday” and I was very pleased with the result of what I created each time I said that.
You have to know your limits.
We take, I think, potential and will it into use. There is no time, ever, that I achieved something great and that it was something that accidentally happened. Dead Roman philosopher Seneca said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity, but the preparation took place in order to prepare for the opportunity. Thomas Jefferson didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to write the Declaration of Independence. Nope. Jefferson wanted to write it. Plus, they knew if Franklin wrote it that it would have been filled with jokes that everyone would have missed until after the FedEx® horse and buggy dropped it off to the king.
I’ve noticed that when I say that I’m going to do something, that’s 90% of the way to success in whatever I had planned. Today, for instance, I wanted to write a post that didn’t focus on politics or the cares of the day (that will come on Monday with the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report) since I felt I wanted a brief change before jumping back into the fray. So, with that declaration, I looked at some notes I had scribbled down, and saw that there were three that were related.
And I started writing.
Words, then, crystallized my vague intent into something specific.
The policeman was arresting me for counterfeiting, but I gave him 50 crisp $17 dollar bills and he let me go.
This brings me to the final point: the difference between potential and achievement is words, but with intent. Nothing (generally) happens in my life without intent. Sure, there are accidents. Sure, there are the things that other people do that change my plans, but more often than not, the only real barrier to any achievement that is physically possible is me failing to put my goal into words and intent.
I think that intention is important. Without intention, all I see are obstacles. If my goal becomes to achieve, however, I start to try to focus in my mind ways to achieve my goal by going around, through, or even using those obstacles to my advantage.
The final point is:
What is it you are here to do?
Why are you here?
If you’re unhappy, why aren’t you changing your circumstances? Until we draw our final breath, we have choices. Sure, I don’t have the same wide array of choices in this world that I did when I was 18, but there is still a lot of runway left for me to say those words that lock in the intent.
Did Noah keep the bees in the Ark-hive?
I’m here tonight writing because I want to be. I’m going to get up tomorrow morning because I want to. And I know I haven’t written the best essay I’m going to write, because I know that’s in front of me, not behind me. And I know that the grandest revelation isn’t behind me, it’s in my future.
So, almost everyone reading this today has the option to make the work that they do with the rest of their life a pile of ashes, or a piece of furniture worth being handed down.
Maybe I’ll make a recliner. That way my grandkids could say, “Me and this chair go way back.”
