One Final Effort

If you are rather driven, as in you will often push yourself to complete a project until you are happy with it, you may have found yourself asking yourself if the matter really is done with. Pushing yourself from start to finish is one part of it, while I would place know-how right below if not right next to that in importance, knowing when to let go is paramount.

This can manifest itself in one of two ways. Deciding when a sinking ship can’t be saved is the first, where if you are giving an honest effort to save something that will inevitably fail, you can keep yourself trapped in a perpetual problem that has no hope of being solved. Situations like that can range from the stock market to abusive relationships, where every second you spend keeping things the afloat you cause yourself more damage and pain.

The second way should be used in a similar but different manner. This part can be the hardest for some as it involves entirely forgetting about the project you’ve been working on. Think about a carpenter making a wooden table. They cut four legs and a flat square surface from different lengths of wood, use some nails or screws to secure them in place and they have a working table. But what if the customer has children and needs a safer design? That’s no problem, just sand down every single edge and corner until they’re rounded and smooth. But what if they want to impress their guests? Carving some designs into the wood while dyeing and glossing it many times over can offer a more impressive appearance with some effort. But what if they want it to stand apart from any other table in their neighborhood? Well, hollowing out the middle of it to give the table a glass top and adding some metal filigrees should fill that need. But after adding all of that, is it still sturdy enough for everyday use?

By the time you’re adding supports for the newly minted table, you might decide it’s too late to stop and move to a new project. Though do remember, the best time to start a project could have been 20 years ago, but we are here today, so you might as well forgive yourself and move on.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something from my own lesson in life.