Drive

When I was younger I noticed my dad using cruise control often while we were on the highway. Being curious, as I always have been, I asked him why? He said, "It's because if you are going one speed you don't use as much gas as you do when you slow down, then speed up. So I use it to save gas." It didn't really make much sense to an 8 year old so I just left it alone with an, "OK." and we continued the drive.

Now that I am older, It makes more sense to me and I understand why and how it burns more gas and I understand how it saves gas if you're going at a consistent speed. If you're on a highway and you're going too fast, you slow down to go the speed limit (I'm sure none of you speed :P), and if you go under it you speed back up to your speed. Begin thinking about what to eat for lunch, or if you locked the door, or even, perhaps, what that person's name was, but you lose that thought and begin to slow down again. Distraction leaves you and you start paying attention to your speed again and you speed back up and maybe a little faster. It isn't much, but you burn more gas then you normally would have if you had been going at a constant speed.

Isn't that how life is? We spend so much time focusing on other things that we lose track of our dreams, or get sidetracked. I know I do. If only we had a "cruise control" for our life, but maybe we do. A schedule could be our "cruise control", I think. The schedule tells us where to go, at what time, and helps us dictate how much time it could take to get to a location. You can deviate from it, like an actual cruise control and you can choose whether or not you want to turn it back on, or follow it. Set dates and time so you have goals you want to reach at the time you want to reach them in, and so you don't over work yourself and burn your self out.

What's your cruise control? I use my calendar for little victories to help me stay consistent and press onward, but I do deviate quite a bit. I think it's time for me to get off the brake and get back to a consistent speed.

Drip by drip

   I've always said with my kids that "consistency is key," and I sincerely mean that. I have always known that, believed it, but it's for my kids and not me. Everything from eating, sleeping and rules; it's all on a schedule, for them. Why then do I treat myself any different? Why is something so important for them treated less than significant to me?

   I like to think of caves, I know it's a little off, but is it really? Stalactites, stalagmites, one created from the other and not just in a few hours, days, or decades, but millennia. Taking a look at caves shows us 3 things:
 
   First, is that great and awe-inspiring things take time. I'm not talking about thousands of years, but time. Mozart practice for some 10,000 hours in order to become a "musical genius", but he wasn't born as such. He studied and practiced as well as many other great composers. So much can be learned if we take a cave approach and not expect things to work in out to completion in a week, or month. Some things need cultivation for years.

   The next is consistency. For every hour of every day of its birth it drips. It might do 1 gallon in 1 day, or a few ounces, but  it keeps going. Through it's consistency it creates the wonderful formations we see in inspirational posters. Drip by drop it persists.

   Lastly, we aren't done. Believe it or not just because both formations, the Stalactite and stalagmite, have connected they are not done. They continue to have minerals run over it and it accumulates, then it changes. It is no longer a tite and mite, but a pillar.

I say this to remind myself as I have a struggle. Don't go too fast, but don't go too slow or stop. Both could mean the end of the project.