DESIRE, WILLINGNESS AND ACTION
DESIRE, WILLINGNESS, ACTION
Many people get these things confused. They are three very distinct issues. And nothing gets done without all three. For a long period of my life I, like anyone else, was filled with desires. When I was young, I wanted to be a famous baseball player. I loved baseball. I collected cards, watched a million games and even played right up until I was twelve or thirteen. It was then that my coach informed me, and the rest of the team, that smoking pot was counterproductive to playing baseball. It was impossible to do both effectively. I agreed. So, I quit baseball.
I wanted to be a famous writer and push the names of Steinbeck and Faulkner off the tongues of mere mortals when they mentioned the pantheon of American writers and replace it with Gillespie. If you haven’t heard the name, look closer at the blog you’re reading.
At thirty-eight I was going to begin training and become a great marathon runner. I was going to have the fastest time for anyone over forty. I mean, I knew it would take a couple of years to get there.
My desires could go on and on like this. Now, I want the number one blog and YouTube channel. Whatever. Hit the like button and subscribe, you know the drill. Point is, I, like everyone who ever existed from the dawn of mankind, have had desires my entire life. Sometimes they’re basic, I want to eat today, stay alive etc. Sometimes they’re grand, make a ton of money travel the world. But no matter what they are, they are nothing but desires. The trick, which I am loath to admit, in making a desire a reality lies in what comes next.
The fact is, you can desire anything in the world. If it isn’t followed up by willingness, it will go nowhere. Willingness is that thing that separates those who succeed from those who dream of success. You know the cell phone, yeah, that was my idea. I mean, I remember as a kid saying, “wouldn’t it be cool to have a phone in your pocket so you could call people and get calls no matter where you were.” Obviously, someone stole my idea and put some willingness behind it. Come to think of it, at thirteen I thought pot dispensaries would be a really cool thing too. Some want to draw a correlation between my desire for these dispensaries and my lack of willingness and action. I don’t see it. But it did turn out to be a billion-dollar idea.
Willingness turns to action. Do you have any idea how much work goes into becoming a professional baseball player? Me either. I know I wasn’t willing to find out, because I knew the action required would be enormous.
Being a world renown author would require actually finishing a book (something I finally did in my fifties) then going through the process to get it published and then, hopefully getting someone to read it.
Today we live in a society of people who want success yet they don’t want to put willingness and action behind it. Instead, we find reasons we can’t be successful. It isn’t because we’re unwilling to put in the hard work in and take the risks necessary for it (like risking failure and having to start over). No, it’s because of who we are or how we speak or where we’re from or our sexual preference, or our religion or our lack of religion, or our gender or our race or blah blah blah.
The fact is this. Anything you desire in life, you must put the willingness into it. That willingness must include the ability to try and fail and try again. It must be a willingness to put in the long hours and deal with the detractors. It must be the willingness to overcome the obstacles life (and that includes other people) throws in your way. While all the things you imagine to be impediments to your success may in fact be real, willingness and repeated action will overcome them. The trick is to start. Stumble, get up and start again. You can whine your life away complaining how everything is against you, but the fact is- if you never got past the desire of your dreams you will never accomplish anything. Remember, a dream (desire) written down, becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan (willingness). A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.