Distraction
I must admit that I often find it very difficult to concentrate on any given task for more than a few minutes at a time. It is a problem that I have always had, and though I’ve found ways to use it to my advantage at many points in my life, I more often find it a very grave disadvantage. Traditionally I have found that working on many projects at once is a very helpful way for me to keep myself engaged while still making progress toward various goals. In painting class I always had several canvases going at once, for example. While this made me prolific, it also often made my work shallow and diffuse.
Today I am finding this approach to be less effective than it has been in the past, though as yet I can’t tell if the change is a passing phase. I find that even though I’m currently trying to start two businesses at once, sell my house and move across country, train for a marathon, and read a half-dozen books at once, it is painfully difficult for me to concentrate. My mind is full of ideas for new present and future endeavors, but devoid of those faculties necessary for the steady application of simple diligence in my current work and life.
I long to be steady and diligent in my daily life. I have always admired great craftsmen and crafts-women, who invariably posses the mental strength and stability of the tortoise. Instead I am a hare, and a most egregiously nervous one at that. The cruel irony of that old fable is that the Tortoise did not choose to be born slow and meticulous, and the hair did not ask to be born quick and unpredictable. It was not wisdom that coaxed the Tortoise steadily to the finish line, nor folly that exhausted the poor hair miles from the end of the race. It was simple genetics, passed down to each, and to each his own. I wonder if the Tortoise ever wished he were quick, or the Hare ever wished he were steady. It was not for them to decide.
We humans are not so set in our ways as the Tortoise or the Haire. We have the gift of near-infinite adaptability, and the ability to steer our adaptations by force of will. We can make ourselves more patient by practicing patience, and improve our quickness by working quickly. But in doing so we may never change the fact of who we are, those qualities passed to us at birth, and the strengths and weaknesses entailed therein.
I was born a hair. And try as I may to change, it will never be possible for me to be anything more than a poor facsimile of a tortoise. I will continue to stretch myself, and continually work to teach myself patience. But perhaps rather than working so hard at growing a shell, I should focus more energy on the proper application of long ears and fast legs.