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What do you really want out of life? Now what's stopping you?

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Step by step

Today was just one of ‘those’ days where everything got interrupted, where it would be easier to throw in the towel and just go and enjoy the sun. Work takes diligence. Blogging takes diligence. Diligence. Nice looking word, not so nice to enact, difficult at the best of times. Perseverance is one of those elusive qualities. When times are hard, diligence is avoided because of conflicting interests (‘there is too much else to do’). When times are easier, complacency becomes the enemy (‘it won’t matter if I skip a day’). Either way, we never get on and do that which we should be doing.

Lack of diligence means a lack of commitment. It is easy to begin in the emotion of the moment, but when feelings pass, what are you left with. The more unpleasant the task, the harder it is to be diligent with it. Diligence will cost you something, but the rewards may not always be an obvious gain. Daily scrubbing your teeth may not add anything extra to your life, but miss a few days and the world starts to let you know. Gains may also be slow, ask any dancer who is trying to increase their flexibility in order to do the splits.
Ultimately, diligence will get you where the uncommitted cannot go. It will develop the sort of character that is sort after by others. A man who cannot be taken at his word is a liar and a cheat. People do not often remember how you begin, but they will remember how you end-if you end. Only diligence will see you to the end of something meaningful.

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