For reasons unknown to me (but probably known to my wife), I spied an antique looking book on our kitchen counter while heating some water for tea. It turns out to be a 1904 printing of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Conduct of Life (checked out from the Carlisle library, where it’s probably been since 1904).
I flipped open to a random page, and read the following paragraph:
Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight. And, though a man cannot return into his mother’s womb, and be born with new amounts of vivacity, yet there are two economies, which are the best succedanea which the case admits. The first is, the stopping off decisively our miscellaneous activity, and concentrating our force on one or a few points; as the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it to spindle into a sheaf of twigs.
The essay continues to give the second economy, (but you’ll have to go read it, i found the complete essay online). But, it’s his first economy that stopped me. In today’s internet age, it is *so* easy to find distractions. I open a browser and see my bloglines unread list. Any newspaper on the globe is a click away. Friends and colleagues are launching new startups and products — I want to study them all but can’t find the time. The result is “a spindling of my energy into a sheaf of twigs”. This passage really hit home for me. Now, hmmm, what to do about it.
I’ve got an idea where to start, though. Marilyn, if you’re looking for your book, I have it :).
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