Now I’m Going to Send Two a Week

You think you succeeded, you passed the finish line. Now what?

Once you decide to start, which is important, you need to actually do the work.

Now is the even bigger decision.

From Shawshank Redemption where after he succeeded in getting funds for the library, he knew he couldn’t quit. Now instead of stopping and saying he had succeeded, the real work began.

He could have stopped right there. He had, truly and officially, succeeded. But in his mind, it wasn’t yet success. He was just getting started. He had awoken the giant beast (the government) and that was his cue that he could make a difference. He had won a battle, but he was up for the war.

I keep talking about this book I just published (Kite Hill). I’m allowed, I did it, I finished it. But what did I really do? I actually started something. Yes, I finished something, but I also started something bigger. Is that a good thing? Am I happy about it? Yes, sure, but it’s also daunting. Part of me wishes it was just that little book and I’m done and I can call it a day (or a year or a career!). But I don’t want to. It’s a start, a small beginning, the first step in many. But how many steps is maybe the question. Was it one step in ten or a hundred? Or a thousand? I suppose that’s up to me.

Once the government wrote back that it would send him some books, he knew he began, but he also knew he needed to double up his efforts. The one letter a week was a great plan to get the thing off the ground, but now it was going to be bigger. He had to rise to the occasion. Are we ready to do that?