TSG 39: The Power of Pause

Haste makes waste, gentlemen. In today's modern society of what I like to call Throwaway Ideals, it can be difficult to see yourself finishing anything all the way. Most of us are too easily conditioned to cut and run when the going gets tough because there's opportunity and alternatives abound. We start a lot of projects, chase a lot of ideas, and break ground on new endeavors... but we rush through the motions so quickly that we often miss details, and cause things to derail. More importantly, when things derail we jump ship and start something new. It's like building a wooden boat. We begin applying the wooden slats to the hull, nailing them into the frame, and increasing our pace. We get excited at the prospect of soon sailing our new boat, that we begin cutting corners, skipping nails, and forgetting small details. Some of us will quit building about halfway through because a step we missed (skipped) in the beginning, needs to be completed, which means we have to backtrack and start over. No good. The others that get the boat in the water immediately notice the skipped steps when she starts to take on water. The effort to rescue and rebuild can seem too much, so we let her sink and start a new project.