Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Dropping the Ball...on Your Foot

There are untold numbers of reasons I could give, but the core, truth-be-told, horribly embarrassing reason for my failure to post here lately is that I have allowed myself to believe my own lies.

"I've been too busy." "Client conferences took all my time." "I needed more time to flesh out my ideas."

Lies. Bloody, bald-faced lies. I believed them, though. I permitted myself to indulge in the sort of indolent luxury that I find so abhorrent. And in so doing, I temporarily set an unacceptably low standard of performance.

Like many who don't see immediate results from our labors, I allowed myself to think a little respite from writing wouldn't matter and wouldn't be missed. It's the same sort of thinking that might lead someone, whose required submissions of monthly reports seemingly do not get read, to rationalize skipping a month or two. That habit is uncomfortably brought to the writer's attention by an unknown reader who happens to be the one who demanded the reports in the first place. And the writer is embarrassed to know that his failure to write has put a very big project in jeopardy.

The moral of this little tale is this: regardless of your opinion on the matter, the project or task you were assigned is almost certainly important and meaningful to someone. That's true of volunteers and of staff.

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