In college, one of the subjects I studied was writing song lyrics. During that unit, I wrote one song a week. Near the beginning of the term, I made the same mistake more than once. I’d come up with a handful of crude outlines for potential songs, then choose one to flesh out. Pretend that, for the topic I chose, the verses were coming along just fine, but then I got stuck on the chorus. I could not make it work. In my desperation, I’d look back at the list of potential songs, and I’d write a chorus for a different song topic. At that point, I’d switch my goal to finishing the new song. Well, the chorus may have come easily, but then I’d have trouble with some other part of it- the verses, the bridge, the rhythm, the rhymes.
So there I was, halfway into the week, with a song due in a day or two, and I just wasted a day. I always ended up going back to the first song and figuring out how to finish it. I learned pretty quickly that I would have been better off staying with the original topic and working through the challenges. I think of this example often since the consequence was clear and immediate. All the options have their issues. I didn’t pick the wrong topic; I just dealt with it wrongly. I can think of a lot of life situations where it seems that the most growth occurs when you Pick It and Stick With It.
