I start so many things in my life and leave them unfinished...dangling to blow in the wind. It's as if a gust of energy blows right up to me and transforms itself into tangible energy for me to use...and when the gust leaves, the task falls at my feet. Or so it seems. But what really happens is that I have these great intentions or an idea, and when I start to work on it and it starts to look like what I never intended or I leave it too long that I am left feeling too embarrassed to start at it again. It sits there to rot and join the ranks of many other fallen soldiers of tasks in my life. I know, I should be so far beyond this by now. For what this smacks of is Immaturity: when A becomes too hard to turn around and change or B requires too much sticktoit-ness quit both A and B and leave them hanging and start C (keep this cycle going as long as you can). This is embarrassing. I am embarrassed to myself. This is not what I believe is right or what I want to do...yet I do it. This is not who I want to be...yet it is who I have become. If I dig even deeper, what this smacks of is fear: fear of failing and not getting it right. Fear of giving something my all and it still stinks...it doesn't measure up. So now I can't hide behind the safe bastion of "potential" or "what could be". I am in the wide open field of what is...and, the me that I am may not measure up. You may not like me. You may hate what I throw my whole soul into. And, the thought of that makes my stomach churn and my back bend a little closer to the ground. Ode to care less of what others think...

When I was in college I saw this wonderful movie, "Mr Holland's Opus", on a date with an unfortunate fellow who had to listen to me cry and snot for the entire film (by the way there was no second date...surprise hey). You see Mr. Holland was writing an Opus, a musical composition, that was his life's work up to that point, but in the mean time he needed a job to pay the bills. Mr. Holland took a job as a High School Music Teacher for the interim. The only problem is, "life occurred" as it has a way of doing and twenty years later Mr. Holland was still there. I cried like a baby for what I thought his life should be...for what he had wanted it to be. I cried because I thought that my life would follow the same trajectory: that twenty years would pass and there would exist this big gap between what I had hoped for and what I actually had. This all may seem a bit melodramatic...but I truly felt the tension of what I wanted and what may never be...

At the end of the film, Mr. Holland's students returned for a 15 or 20 year Reunion: they came to celebrate him. They asked that he play that Opus he had written years ago. Because, you see, that Opus had become a part of their lives too. They knew he "thought" he was just passing through with this teaching gig...but he had become a wonderful teacher who took the time to pour into their lives and change them...laying music over their dreams. His returning students were doctors, attorneys, teachers, parents and the mayor. So, they were a huge part of the Opus of his life. However, I never wanted that to be my life. I never wanted my Opus to lay un-played for the bulk of my life...only to be played at a High School reunion. As I write, and think about this story line 13 years after I first saw it, I think I cried for the wrong reasons. I cried because I saw Mr. Holland as a failure and I feared I would fail as well. I should have cried for the beauty of the moment where his life's work culminated in a fantastic display of work, creativity and the beauty of human connections.

The point that stands out to me now is that Mr. Holland had written his Opus. It was complete. He had laboured throughout the years tweaking it and making it exactly what he wanted it to be. He had taken every life experience and jotted it down in tune. When the gust of wind stopped blowing, Mr. Holland didn't stop writing. He pushed through ("break on through to the other side"...I hear Jim Morrison singing in my head) until it was finished. He didn't stop writing because he feared that it would never be heard. He didn't not write it in order to stay in the comfort world of what could have been had he...(you fill it in). So what is my problem? My problem is that I have stayed in that space of fear for so long I didn't even realize that is where I lived...that fear had become comfortable for me. My problem is that I have been too afraid to fail, that I care too damn much of how I am perceived, that I haven't even really tried to write my "Opus". Sure I have written bits and pieces, but safe enough pieces that haven't taken all that much out of me so that I could safely say, "I could do better". But where is the better? It lives where where fear is NOT. The better lives where I commit to it, fully, releasing the expectations of what I think you should say or perceive it to be. My best exist where I push past the gust of wind that inspires me and I jump... I jump into the unknown territory of being my best!

To finish what I start. To start with the intention of being my best. To be my best with out fear of failing. And if I fail...at least I failed giving it everything I have. To live my life like this, is my hope. Hope...don't let me down