Let it go

Mark Rothko

In January, I’m inspired by articles about focus:  tidy closets, priorities, writing routines, a week of simple meals for $10 or less, whether can one attend all those committee meetings this year. 

Richard Smith says, Let it go:

“The rules of success change. In fact, they make a u-turn. Succeeding in the second phase of life becomes about giving up. Doing less. It is about focusing on what you were meant to be doing, leveraging your greatest strengths and passions, and letting everything else fall to the side.   …

At some point, you need to be true to your strengths and passions. The acquisition of knowledge and experience is an extraordinary gift, because only through this path can you find your calling. But once you find it, you must summon the confidence to let other things go. You must delegate to others more talented than you. You must focus on the challenges that most excite you. This is what authentic leadership is all about.

Success to a point requires gaining as much knowledge and experience as you can get your hands on. But ironically, breaking out to achieve the life you are capable of living eventually requires the strength to let it go.”  

 –Richard A. Smith, The Huffington Post, 1/13/2009

Passion

I’ve lost far too much sleep watching the Olympics this week.  Phelps, Liukin, Torres, Misty May, Yang Wei, Coventry—the headliners, but every athlete in Beijing has devoted an inordinate chunk of life and sacrifice to training.  What drives a person to pursue the shot put (all that chalk on the neck), or synchronized diving?  I decline to participate in any activity, sport or otherwise, that requires a Brazilian wax. 

But perhaps I am the last person who should speak about the eccentricities of passion.  I waited 2 long weeks for titles to arrive from Amazon:  Eastern Pilgrims—the travels of three ladies (published in 1870), Books and Readers in the Early Church, How the Codex was Found.  Guardians of Letters.  Arcane books for an eccentric passion.  Yes, they’re fairly riveting.

Not sure why I’m gripped by the interests I have.  Who can explain why someone feels an inexplicable pull towards 400 meter backstroke or headstone transcription…Nascar, 18^th-century furniture, LP album covers, hot-wire chemical vapor deposition? 

Or, in my case, parallelism in Hebrew poetry, or the issue of parablepsis among ancient scribes?  Are my Scotch ancestors to blame for this?  Maybe all those canned green beans from my childhood.