What Are You Going to Do?

For years, I wanted to write a book. One day, I sat down in my big comfy chair with a legal pad because that’s how I used to write in those days. I had a pen in my hand I really liked and started to write.

Four paragraphs later I stopped unhappy with what I did. I put it aside and said to myself, “I’ll come back to it tomorrow.” Surprisingly, I did but I didn’t do it for many more days. The pad set a coffee table for weeks before I eventually shifted to using it for scrap.

I did the same thing a few years later with my second cut at writing a book. I don’t remember how many times I came back to the pad but it wasn’t enough to actually write it. Again, after a week or so, the pad became lonely waiting for me to return to it.

A few years later, I decided to do it again. This time, I was armed with some additional information — the name of the coach and how to reach him. He responded to my email, we set up a time to speak and discussed how he would help me. Then the hammer dropped — it would cost $5000.

In retrospect, it is not a large price to pay but for me, at the time it felt that way. I remember walking into a group I would meet with regularly and started to talk about it.

We talked and talked and one of them asked, “What’s keeping you from doing it?” I realized it was the memory of my mother’s…