>What are you letting slip between your fingers today and why? Are you afraid of success or failure? Are you thinking it is absurd to try, no way you can do it? Then you have failed before the attempt was even made. Why not fail attempting it, what difference does it make, right?
Quote by William James, 1842-1910, American Philosopher.
Just an interesting aside. I always look at the birth/death dates of the quote giver and think of what they saw and what they missed. James was 19 when the American civil war started and lived to see the Wright Brothers fly. He was lucky to have missed WWI (1914-1918) but missed seeing women get the right to vote in America (1920).
Effort is a tricky thing. It is very easy to excuse yourself, to talk yourself into believing you have put out quite a bit of effort when you haven’t.
I notice often that people have stock replies to certain situations such as ‘oh, that gives me a headache’ when they don’t really have a headache, they just don’t happen to like a certain sound. Another example is ‘I am completely exhausted’ when in fact they aren’t exhausted, they are just a little tired. Perhaps you have said ‘I have worked all day in the garden’ when actually you worked an hour and a half.
We all know these are just examples of hyperbole or exaggeration. But the danger with exaggeration is you start to believe it is true and you excuse yourself as a result.
You want to achieve something? Be honest about how much effort you are actually putting out. Work hard, keep going, be tenacious, finish strong and go beyond what you expect of yourself when you say those cliche things in your head.
“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out if they’ve got a second.” – William James, 1842-1910, American Philosopher and Psychologist
This is a tough one. How do we know we are misunderstanding something? What it really comes down to is the actions we take based on that misunderstanding. The recent movie ‘Atonement’ seems to have touched on this idea.
“There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood” – William James
What are you letting slip between your fingers today and why? Are you afraid of success or failure? Are you thinking it is absurd to try, no way you can do it? Then you have failed before the attempt was even made. Why not fail attempting it, what difference does it make, right?
