The Mother of Invention

    You never know what you are capable of until you do it.  Years ago I had a mentor at work who became increasingly frustrated with me because I was always asking his opinion.  This went on for months; I'd have an idea, but before doing it, I'd run it by him.  Finally he blew his stack.

    "How should I know!" he bellowed.  "JUST DO IT!...For Christ's sake, do it...screw it all up, fix it and make it work.  I don't pay you for thinking, I pay you for doing."

    In these pre-Nike days, this was, the most brilliant piece of advice I'd ever heard.  At times I was a human wrecking-ball and at others, a genius.  Think about it, it's so simple.  My reputation became special.  I was a "get it done" guy.  I also learned that my mistakes were quickly forgotten.

    I was freed from the fear of messing things-up and rapidly became a leader.  This simple piece of advice, once I put it into my toolbox, made me wealthy.  I'm not saying this to brag, but instead to point out how rare the "doers" are.

    I've never failed to encourage the people with whom I worked to act as I had been taught.

    Now think about two other things: this blog and lastly, you.

    When I was diagnosed with arachnoiditis and fibrosis of the spine it was a relief.  Prior to that i didn't know what was wrong with me; something that caused me to become inert.  Pain is pain, but this was something totally different.  A whole new scale that was of such a severe magnitude that i became unable to follow-through on the simplest of tasks.  I also began to become afraid that I'd lost the will.

    I joined several arachnoiditis forums and was promptly tossed.  It's no small thing to get eighty-sixed from a self-help group, but I managed it.  I hated the snivelers and whiners, and they hated me.  But there wasn't one darned page in the entire sphere that I could find that was devoted to fixing the little things that make-up our lives; there was no hope; no fun.  Sure we have problems, boatloads of them, but I wanted to talk to people who still wanted to have a rich, fulfilling life.  People who found happiness, joy and contentment, despite pain.  So I made this blog. My co-writer, Anne, joined me and we launched in May, '06, neither one of us knowing a damn thing about how to build a blog.  We messed it up...colossally.  We still do.  But we do it.  Imagine, there was a group of people who felt as we did.  We found readers!

    By many measures, we're doing very well.

    Now, how about you?  Think of a time when you were a kid, standing on a bridge over a lake, waiting to build-up the courage to jump.  Why not?  What could happen; you get wet?

    Count to three, but jump on two.  God bless, Colin

Comments

-- you can drown in an inch of water (or even in bed of pneumonia) so you might as well jump in the water and be at a depth where you can really swish your legs -- with that first breath of life we take we are ALL in over our heads! We might as well jump in and do whatever it is God made each one of us to do.K.S.

[hannah]

Just stumbled upon your blog while searching for pain pump information.
Just wanted to say hello, and thank-you to Anne and yourself for writing your blogs. It sometimes helps people so much to just know they are not alone.
Gentle hugs
Hannah