Obsess or Produce?

Any­thing can become an obses­sion. Take any sub­ject and let it run in cir­cles in your mind. Whether you do this for min­utes or many hours, the end results are the same — exactly zero. Obsess­ing is a lit­tle like sit­ting in your car with one foot on the brake and the other slowly push­ing the accel­er­a­tor toward the floor. Heat builds up in the engine, trans­mis­sion, and brakes with­out the vehi­cle going so much as an inch for­ward. This dam­ages a very expen­sive machine and burns fuel with­out any pro­duc­tive out­come. In short, doing that to you auto­mo­bile is sim­ply crazy. The fact that we do that sort of thing to our own pre­cious ner­vous sys­tems (worth much more than any car), is even more insane.

Pro­duc­ing a Mona Lisa or an epic novel is quite beyond wish­ing that you had or obsess­ing about why you can­not seem to get started. Obses­sion is avoid­ance. Some­times it is not want­ing to con­front a per­son that should have been con­fronted years ago. Think­ing about it gives us the illu­sion that some­thing is being done about the prob­lem. It isn’t. Obses­sion is not even prayer or med­i­ta­tion. It is just another round on the merry-go-round of unfin­ished busi­ness. Need and will have become sep­a­rated. Desire has been sti­fled by per­fec­tion­ism. The men­tal magic car­pet is becom­ing worn by all of the pac­ing. You are not fly­ing any­where on it.

Get­ting started is the key to any pro­duc­tive day. There is an art to it. For me, it is going to the weight room or writ­ing a brief arti­cle. Just load­ing up the com­puter with the day’s tasks will suf­fice. I get dis­tracted into one of the projects on the screen. The next thing I know it is noon. The mind likes to do real things. It wants to run the court and shoot the ball, not just stand there drib­bling. Look at the goal more than the ball. So what if you miss! Shoot again! Whether the crowd boos or cheers is irrel­e­vant. YOU are play­ing the game of life, while they are only obsess­ing about it.

Eval­u­a­tion is the least of my con­cerns when I teach. What mat­ters most is whether the expe­ri­ence I present to oth­ers is some­thing that can change them for the bet­ter and one that they will never for­get. It is not hard to stay busy, but it is a gift to be truly pro­duc­tive. It is no acci­dent that there is a direct cor­re­la­tion between forms of poverty and habits of avoid­ance. Life rewards doers. A “cup of water in his name” may be all it takes to tip the spir­i­tual scales of spir­i­tual rev­o­lu­tion in the direc­tion of world-wide repentance.

Give it a shot.