Punch fear in the face.
Escape average.
Do work that matters.
Those are the collective subtitles of the book Start. I just read by Jon Acuff.
You may be familiar with Acuff from a little blog called Stuff Christians Like, where he pokes fun at silly things Christians do, like side hugs and inserting “just” dozens of times into their prayers. He’s an everyday comedian. I secretly want to be his friend.
This was the perfect thing to read right before New Year’s. Sometimes I get paralyzed in the “preparing to start” phase. Sometimes it’s like I live in “If you give a mouse a cookie-land.” Let me explain with a real world example:
If you tell Kelly to set the table, she’ll go to get the silverware, and she’ll notice crumbs on the countertop. She’ll wipe the countertop and then notice that she knocked some of the crumbs onto the floor and now it needs mopping. Kelly goes to her closet to change– not wanting to enter full cleaning mode in her current clothes. While standing in the closet attempting to find a change of clothes, Kelly begins cleaning out clothes she never wears anyway. She’ll then need to clean out her car to place said clothes to prepare them for donation. Kelly will then need to locate her tax info to for charitable giving purposes. Kelly will then find an unpaid credit card bill in her pile of “important paperwork” and she’ll race to the phone in an attempt to avoid late fees… meanwhile dinner is cold because the table was never set.
Acuff encourages me to stop making lists and prioritizing my interests endlessly. He says simply, “Start!” Pick something and go with it. Get out of “If you give a mouse a cookie-land” of half finished tasks and do something.
If you feel like you cannot pick a New Year’s Resolution because you want to lose weight and eat healthier and get more sleep and save more money and be a better friend and learn to sew and run a six minute mile and become President… stop fretting, pick a path and Start!
Happy New Year! Start something new!
What do you plan to start?