Should We Always Finish What We Start?
Short answer…NO.
When I was in university majoring in art, I had one of those self-discovering moments when I learned something new about myself. At that time, I was taking a painting class, and I was working on a still-life. I was about halfway through with it when I realized that the composition wasn’t working, the colors were off, and overall I just wasn’t pleased with the whole project.
I had probably spent a good 12 hours or more on it when I decided to stop and just start again from scratch.
The other students in the class were amazed that I would start again considering the painting was due in two days. But since I am a intuitive, semi-logical and efficient person, I knew without actually putting it into words that it didn’t make sense to continue.
As it turned out, I’d been doing this a lot with my art projects in other classes as well. My painting teacher, who was also my instructor in another class, knew my habits.
That day when the 3 hour class was about halfway finished and I decided to start again (based primarily on a sub-conscience decision), my professor came up to me and said, “I really like it how you’re not afraid to start over. You’re really smart not to spend time on something that isn’t working.”
This really surprised me. I had never consciously realized that this was part of my character. I just did it because it made sense, but I had never formed this conclusion into words. This was the first time I “realized” this about myself.
As for now, I am aware of my projects and their current state. If I realize that the composition of my life is unbalanced, or the colors of my situations are dull, and if I realize that something is a waste of time and won’t likely be a success, I won’t finish it for the sake of completing what I’ve started.
I will stop and start afresh.
I’m sure you’ve probably figured out that this is leading up to something specific in my current life. And you would be correct.
The other week I wrote my first blog post for LibertySeeds, and I said how I was going to send a letter to a random person enclosed with a one dollar bill and some suggestions on places to learn about liberty and the corruption of the government. That was my intent, but now I realize that the execution of this was quite wrong because it would most likely be a waste of time (and money).
I had this change of mind because of something my brother said. He was talking about the Walk For Liberty, and he said how our mission was to spend our time on folks who were already liberty-minded because our ultimate intent is to get people turned-on to the Free State Project who are apt to listen. We shouldn’t waste our time trying to convince a staunch socialist about moving to New Hampshire when we could be spending our time on the multitudes of people who truly love freedom and liberty but perhaps don’t know much about the Free State Project. It’s best to focus our energy on our “target audience.”
That’s a damn good point, Will (or Bill as only I call him).
Why waste our time trying to sell cars to blind people? We will be more successful and prosper quicker if we are efficient by selling our ideas to people who like cars and need cars.
So I now realize that my spontaneous idea of sending 52 letters and 52 total dollars to potentially blind people in the course of one year will not be as efficient as say, donating an extra dollar a week to Free Talk Live.
I am currently a part of the AMP program with Free Talk Live. For those of you who don’t know, Free Talk Live is a call in talk radio show that speaks the truth about the government and gives positive solutions to problems. They don’t make a lot of money yet, so they need the help of their listeners. So they’ve created the AMP program (Advertise, Market and Promote) to help get on board with more radio stations throughout the country (they are now on over 30 radio stations).
So I am not going to finish what I originally wanted to do. So for now, I am going to up my current 3 dollar a month donation to 7 bucks every month. FTL is a better investment.
That’s my thought for the day that I want to share. If you would like to listen to the latest episode of Free Talk Live for free, click here. If you would like to donate to FTL like me, go here. Thanks for listening and/or donating.
Your Friend In Liberty,
John Buchanan
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Tags: Art, Change of Mind, Donate, Free State Project, Free Talk Live, FTL, Liberty
