It has certainly been awhile since I wrote anything here, which makes no difference as no one reads it, but I think this illustrates an important point. If you go back and look at many of my posts I make commitments to do such and such every day or every morning or for a certain period of time. Some of these I have done, such as waking up at 7:30 every morning for a month, going only fruits, vegetables and nuts for a week, going without sugar, staying in ketosis, doing italian everyday, but many I have not even come close to completing. The reasons vary, but the lesson is to never stop trying new things. Many people will start a diet, blow it, start again, blow it, and think they just aren’t cut out for things like that. It’s not always going to work out, no matter how disciplined you are. Sure maybe if someone put a gun to my head and made me do it every day it would happen, but just because I haven’t done it thus far doesn’t mean I lack intrinsic will power. If you don’t believe you can do absolutely anything if you put in enough time, then you’re wrong. One can either try, fail, and give up, or try, fail, and go back to the drawing board. Ideally there is no failure, but it happens. Maybe it doesn’t happen to people with better skills than me, but I imagine for the majority of us failure happens all too often. Go watch Cool Hand Luke and pay attention to the scene where he gets rocked repeatedly boxing. That’s Paul Newman, leading man, getting beat to the ground, but getting back up. Sure, at the end of the day winning is imperative, but perhaps if you’re losing you’re keeping score the wrong way.

So I’ll continue to make wild tries at things I want to accomplish, and if I fall short I’ll try and come up with a different, better plan, and I hope you do the same. As I mentioned earlier, anything can be accomplished with enough time. So try and think how much time a task will take to accomplish. I have two papers due next week, one research that needs to be 10-12 pages, and one shorter comparative essay that needs to be 4-6 pages. To read the book for my research paper will probably take a total of 10 hours. Finding other resources will probably take 2, and writing the paper may take 4-6. So that’s 16-18 hours to finish that paper doing a good job. The essay will take about 2 hours to watch another movie, and that paper may take 2 hours, a total of 4. I have to be sure to put in that time. Other things are the same way, it’s just about making the time.