Completing your Priorities

Is it ever acceptable for someone to just never complete something? Have you ever started a project that you had every intention of completing, but you just never got around to finishing it because somewhere along the way you just lost all interest?  Do you ever feel guilty when you end up not finishing something, or do you figure that it just wasn’t all that important to you in the first place?

The reality is that everybody has started something at one point in their lives that they just never managed to complete. It may have been something like a movie or book, a class or hobby, an exercise routine, a vitamin regimen, etc… And the reason we give up may stem from a number of different factors. Perhaps you came to the realization that skydiving just really wasn’t your thing, or you read a story that was so ridiculously inconsistent that you just couldn’t pick it up anymore, or perhaps you started something that you really did like and meant to finish, but just somehow managed to forget about it.  

In some cases giving up may be seen as a bad thing, perhaps because it shows that you were too weak or uncommitted for a task. This seems to be the way society views such matters, and in some cases we may feel guilty because we were unable to meet society’s expectations. Regardless, I think the things we choose to do and the things we give up (whether we consciously choose to or not) can say quite a bit about our personalities. Everyday people are prioritizing things in their lives based on the decisions they make and the time they set aside for some things, even when that means taking time away from others.  

Trying new things is one of the wonderful aspects of humanity. There are so many possible avenues for us to take, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that each and every route will always be the best one for us. I know I’ve had times where I started something and, even when I would try and push through to enjoy it as best I could, it was such a relief when I stopped trying and invested my time in something that I found to be much more enjoyable. The reality is that there are simply so many things out there that we can do, that sometimes we have to choose one thing over the other.

This is not to say that we should give up on anything that takes more work than we expected, or that doesn’t excite us at the time. Rather, we should ensure that what we are committing ourselves to is something that we know we love, despite the amount of effort that we have to put forth in order to get to where we want to be. Growing up, I personally had a friend named Corey who was into wrestling simply because of his father's expectations for him. My friend’s real passion was theater, and even though his wrestling career made his dad happy, it didn’t make him happy. Eventually he gave up wrestling, despite his father’s protests, and has since had many wonderful roles in multiple performances. Giving up wrestling and letting his father down was not easy for Corey, but he made a conscious decision to prioritize his life and do the one thing that he really loved to do.

As for me, when I find that I leave projects uncompleted, I take comfort in knowing that the great Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci also had trouble with sticking to his projects. That however, did not diminish the value of the work that he did complete! Lucky for us, we have the same amount of hours in a day that Leo had, and that means that our efforts have the ability to take on just as much significance, just as long as we choose to spend our time wisely!