Why You Should Try Again
I went to bed a hero and woke up a schmuck.
How's that?
I wrote a post at night, set it to auto-publish while I slept, then woke up, read it again, and hated it.
There were no typos, nothing egregiously wrong. It was a mildly amusing post, with a takeaway for the reader. But it wasn't good enough. It was a no-rep outside of the gym. It wasn't exactly a "shit rep "but it was not something I could point to with pride.
So I set the post to private.
Why am I telling you this?
Because we all make mistakes—every single one of us—and sometimes those mistakes look good enough to pass. They're good enough to get by. Good enough for a Monday. Good enough for free. Good enough for the moment. Good enough.
Ugh.
That's no way to live life.
Better we should get tough, get good, get great.
Get absolutely incredibly fantastic. Get blood-pumping, fist-punching, "YES!"-yelling great. And that takes work, more work than you want, more work than most people are willing to do. But, please don't be most people. Don't settle.
Excellence, that sexy elusive Siren, waits on the other side of "Let me try this again."
She won't come to you easily.
In fact, she'll pretend she doesn't even hear you for so long that you'll want to weep for her icy silence, for her cruel denial of your efforts, for her maddening refusal to even acknowledge your earnest but ugly tries. You are often the unwelcome suitor, and she turns away. But she is always there, waiting. And that is simply why you must try again—because somewhere deep in your heart, you know there will be beauty.
You can see it, and you simply must continue your march toward it.
Be willing to throw away your good work in order to get to your best work.
"And who will have the patience and stamina, the seriousness of purpose, to make the most of his or her gifts?" — Roger Rosenblatt, "Unless It Moves the Human Heart"