“The secret to success,” chirps the fitness instructor on the video, “is getting started.” As I plant my feet in position for the first set and hoist my hand weights for the warm-up, I mentally pat myself on the back. “Forgive me,” I confess to the forever lithe and muscular priestess on the tv screen in the Church of Procrastination. “It has been seven months since my last workout. I’m sorry.” But here I am. Getting started. Again.
The message about getting started comes to me in many ways. The Tao says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Nike (the shoe, not the goddess) says, “Just do it.” “Never put off until tomorrow…” declares the old adage. One of my favorite messages is the poem below from the literary magazine Plains Poetry Journal (no longer published.) Over the years since I first ran across it, I’ve tried to track down the author to say how much it has meant to me—to help me understand how life actually works, and to smile at myself.
NOT DOING IT
You’re supposed to do it.
You’ve been supposed to do it for weeks
But now you’re really supposed to do it
But it’s going to hurt to do it
So you’re sitting there not doing it
And you’re so guilty that
Not doing it hurts almost as much as doing it.
When it hurts more than doing it
You’ll do it.
George Randall Griffin
Perhaps guilt isn’t the best motivation for doing the right thing. But I take heart in the idea that the moment will come eventually. The moment to get started. With good intentions held in my mind, with or without guilt, I can usually expect to recognize the moment when it finally arrives, the moment when I can “just do it.” Sometimes, truth be told, the intentions and the actions simply evaporate. That’s all right, too. “Not doing it” means letting go of whatever result the action might have produced, and that’s another story about priorities and perhaps ultimate purpose. Still, the “secret to success” of any sort is…getting started.
For now, thank you, George Randall Griffin, and Jari Love (my perky video workout pal), and my Inner Mom, and whoever shows up occasionally as my poetic Muse. You inspire me and encourage me toward every hopeful moment of getting started.
P. S. Could you please just stop keeping me awake at night???
And all this time I thought the secret to success was to aim low.
One of my beliefs is that you can accomplish any goal you set for yourself if you are willing to pay the price for success. And the price can be getting started, persevering, giving up everything else in life…or trampling everybody in your path. I won’t moralize about this because there are successful people all around you, and you can generally see the path they took.
Thank you, Bill and Gail, for being my friends and readers. Clearly, “getting started” is not the ONLY key to success. I kinda like “aim low.” (I don’t know how to insert a laugh emoji on this site). I could and probably should write another essay on the definition of “success” so everyone will know, according to me, when they have arrived. (insert another laugh emoji here–I’m realizing how I’ve come to like them)
I love the poem! I exercise for osteoporosis which the docs say I have and which I don’t think I have. I talked to three other women about this at a party today. One said she “walked her way out of having osteoporosis.” She walked two miles a day for a year and then her bone scan said she was home free.
My husband walks 6 miles a day! WHEW! The track at the nearby health club is calling my name. First, of course, I have to JOIN the club!