Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Excuses

This morning I was having this debate with "self" on whether to exercise or not. I always feel so much better when I start my day with some stretching and yoga.  But this morning I felt I didn't have time.  I was running behind on stuff I wanted to get done for the day and figured I'd just workout later. 

But who was I kidding.  I KNEW I wouldn't do it later.  But my ole' companion, 'Excuse', took over: I don't have enough time.

ex•cuse
n. ik-skyoos
An explanation offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or for release from an obligation, promise, etc.

Some of these sound familiar?
 
I don’t have enough money.
It’s too hard.
I don’t have enough time.
I don’t have the talent.
I started too late.
I don’t have a place to work.
I’m tired.
Nobody will work with me.

But Really?

Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace while living in a small house with his wife and 13 children.

Greta Garbo held steady through seven months of hardball silence after negotiating a new (fair) contract with Louis B. Mayer. Mayer eventually caved and she got her price. 

Walt Disney was a failed, bankrupt, small-time ad man before that whole mouse thing happened. 

J.K. Rowling was on the dole. Her first Harry Potter book was rejected by twelve publishers. It was eventually purchased by the relatively small Bloomsbury in London, and that only because the CEO’s daughter begged him to print it. 

Mark Twain sunk $300,000 of his own money (and much of his wife’s) into a typesetting machine that was eventually, brutally, made obsolete. 

e.e. cumming’s first book of poetry was rejected by fifteen publishers. He self-published it, dedicated it to the fifteen rejectors, and became one of America’s greatest poets. 

Crippled by depression, self-doubt, and living in a cruelly sexist era, Mary Anne Evans changed her identity to George Eliot and became one of the most beloved English novelists of all time. 

Abraham Lincoln lost multiple jobs, went bankrupt, and failed in numerous bids for public office before being sworn in as the 16th President of the United States

Georges Simenon completed each of his legendary Maigret detective novels in an undisturbed, 11-day sprint. 

Isaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books in his lifetime. Oh, and that’s in addition to being a professor of biochemistry at Boston University


After I read these this morning, I decided to do my workout.  



How about you?  What excuses hold you back from being the best that you can be?


Yours truly,
missing the mom gene