Every Word, Every Line

When friends call me at one o'clock in the morning, I never answer. If they text, they'll be lucky if I hear it and even luckier if I respond. For what ever reason, not only was I awake but I saw my phone, read the texts, and was the one who made the phone call. When a friend is in crisis mode, it is only right to answer the call...or make the call in this case.

The conversation centered around something I have been thinking about (and writing about) for a while now: How did I let my life end up here and what motivation can I give myself to make the necessary changes?

The specifics of the conversation revolved around setting up a plan. Interestingly enough, I had a few other conversations throughout the day yesterday that were all about planning.

An influential person in my life once said, "If you fail to plan, then you are planning on failing." I always thought that I took that seriously.....until now when I realize that I have had no plan...just dreams.

Dreams are good but there is a reason they only happen when you are asleep.

The inaction that breeds the imagination never consists of the work and time and energy that it takes to get to the point where the dream can be actualized. In the shower this morning I decided to loop the song "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor. You know, its the song that they played before every high school football game ten years ago. Everyone thought it was about sports when it really talked about a writer/rapper.

The chorus of the song mentions that success requires "10% luck. 20% skill. 15% concentrated power of will. 5% pleasure. 50% pain." 

I think that it is easy to forget that to work our dreams into existence there will be pain. You will have to concentrate. Yes luck and skill play into it, but without determination and action, you will fail 100% of the time.

In a verse of the song, it says "Nobody really knows how or why he works so hard it seems like he's never got time because he writes every note and he writes every line and I've seen him at work when that light goes on in his mind. It's like a design is written in his head every time before he even touches a key or speaks in a rhyme."

The constant action. The constant thinking. The constant focus.

When you plan out what you want to do with your life, you have to have this type of determination to know "every word" and "every line". It is so much more than the big picture. A puzzle has 1,000 pieces and with even one of them missing, the big picture isn't the same. It is incomplete.

Do all of the little things that will make the big picture everything you envision it to be.

Plan it out.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I’ve learned that you can’t plan out your life. You can have goals. Planning will just upset us when it doesn’t go as we thought or even wanted. I like to be opstimistic. It’s definitely harder than how it sounds but hang in there.

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