The Start
I’ve started a lot of things - even finished a couple.
I think for a lot of us adulthood is starting things we know we can finish. Finishing is a good thing, especially in our careers and professions. But, often we avoid starting things that make us a little uncomfortable, the things that pull us out of our comfort zones, or have some perceived risk attached. And so, starting and finishing becomes a cycle based on the familiar.
I tell my students that the things that makes us a little uncomfortable are probably the things we should do. Not because they are uncomfortable, but because the reward is knowing that we were brave enough to start without knowing we’d finish. As a child we encountered any number of challenges that we had no idea if we could finish. When everything is new and there’s no experience to draw on, there is only the start. And that was exciting, exhilarating, and yes, sometimes a little scary.
It’s not always about what we finish. It might certainly be about what we start.
