Word by Word

No matter what you should be doing, an excuse will smooth over almost any problem. Even a bad excuse will generally get you out of trouble. Having no excuse at all is looked upon as just being lazy.

If you use an excuse enough, you stop looking for reasons to use it. In fact, the excuse itself becomes the cause. Instead of an excuse to avoid your life, your life becomes a servant to the excuse.

I planned to give some words over here to describe my excuse and perhaps dissect it for your consideration. Sometimes, when a thing has gotten hold of you, exposing it to the light of day can rid it it of its power.

But I think I’ve had enough of this excuse. I know what it is and why it is. I see very clearly how I have used it to stunt my life and I simply refuse to give it any more power.

I got up at 5:15 this morning to go for a run. I haven’t really gone for a run in years, but it wasn’t that long ago that I lived to run each morning. This morning’s run wasn’t like those other runs. It was hard and painful. I felt the bloody burning of my lungs as they strained to give me oxygen. I heard my heart pounding in my ears.

After I finished that miserable yet oddly wonderful excursion, i set to the really hard work of windsprints. They were not pretty I’m sure but I finished the set. I also notices that the last few were faster than the first and I felt stronger when I finished. I pushed myself through the line and beyond.

Writing is like this.

When I sat down in the sun to write this post, I wasn’t sure what I’d say. I stumbled through the first few paragraphs, found a stride that seemed go work (though it was still far from what I used to do). Then, when I finished, I began the more difficult work of tearing it apart.

I only have a few lines left now, and I want to finish strong. I want to tell you that you can push through your excuses and change. Yet, this was only one day. Not even that really. It was just three hours of my life.

This is what writing is too. It is putting aside excuses, and taking control of your life word by word.

5 thoughts on “Word by Word

  1. I’ve been doing more writing and less excuse-making these days. It feels good! I set my alarm for an ungodly hour, but once I’m up with coffee in hand, the writing feels good. Not to mention the rest of my day feels better knowing that I did what was most important to me first thing in the morning.
    .-= Jean Sarauer´s last blog ..A Newbie’s Guide to Guest Posting =-.

  2. Seriously, I take great pleasure in sitting at the computer for a few hours and banging out 5000 or even 10000 words at a stretch. Then, two days later, deleting half. But it’s just as much fun to stop the bicycle, pull the notepad from my shirt pocket, and scribble down a few notes before jumping back into the traffic chaos that is urban Thailand. So what have we learned?

    1) Writing 5 words at a time works
    2) Shirt pockets work
    3) I’m insane

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