Don’t Get Out of Bed

Pure thoughts don’t get a chance to come around too often. When they do, don’t squash them, let them live.

It’s the same evening as this morning, but it feels like ages ago already. Here’s a perfect example of why you need to let your best ideas come to fruition.

I took notes this morning, right after I woke up, put them in blue pen in the upper right hand side of my notebook. I had a title, bullet points, even something of a quote. But now, just 14 hours later, I can’t remember a word of it. I also can’t find my notebook … I think it’s out in the car, but the coyotes have been howling tonight and I’m too chicken to go outside. But that’s another post anyway. My point is the following.

Kids were waking up, dogs needed to pee. My wife was sound asleep and I think I heard her come in around 3 AM. I knew I would need to get up and start with the hustle and bustle of 5 boys under 12 any minute. But I just had to finish my thought, my stream, my idea. I did, too, I even wrote it down.

Thank God, because I can’t remember anything of it now. I’m smiling to myself as I know that we had such a beautiful day in the mountains that my thoughts are more concerned about pine cones and mountain lakes. So I don’t care. In fact, I don’t care about much other than those mountain lakes. One in particular is one of my favorite spots on the planet. I also know I wrote it down. Because I probably knew I would forget, and I knew that the purest ideas don’t come around that often, or they’re not that pure so often, so you need to grab them when they’re there, while they’re fresh, while they’re pure.

So stay in bed the extra 1 minute or 7 minutes and get that thought through, push it out, work with it, fight that last mile of the ride even though your legs are burning and you want nothing more than to coast. Coasting is easy. Pushing is hard. Coasting will keep you at pace. Pushing the burn will pull you ahead.

Don’t squash the ideas that come at the purest of times. [At mountain lake. See the ant?]