Finish Strong
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” ~Jim Rohn
The earth shook beside me as the enemy missiles exploded just a few yards away from me. I leaped for cover, only to discover that I was hiding in plain sight. It took everything I had to get to this point, and now I found myself struggling just to survive.
This sounds like my own little version of World War III, except instead of missiles their weapon of choice was Midterms, and instead of digging trenches, I was digging my way out of piles of books by studying 16 hours a day. ‘Welcome to first semester of Dental School, please fasten your seat belts — you’re going to need them.’
If I was to make it out of WWIII alive (or see the end of this semester, let alone graduate NYU Dental School), I knew I needed to have the right soldiers fighting with me by my side. I pick my friends using a very scientific technique that I have formulated after 25 years of experimentation. I pick friends based on who I respect and admire.
One such friend that I respect and admire is Nick Levintov, and I found his continuous encouragement during all the trials and tribulations of semester-one to be a mantra for the way I focused my brain to study, which of course metastasized into other areas of my life.
When I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and didn’t care which artery supplies which body part, or which enzyme catalyzes which reaction, Nick was there to say “Finish Strong!” I think he must have gotten this philosophy from his days as a disciplined competitive swimmer, but it’s easy to see that these two simple words can change the paradigm of any activity.
For me it was crunching out another 6 hours of mental repetition at the end of a long day. For you it might be doing those extra 15 minutes on the treadmill, another few reps of your weight set, or perhaps just going through your ordinary day in an extraordinary way.
The main lesson that I took out of ‘Finish Strong’ is that we should consistently give our 100% in every thought and action that we undertake, so that tomorrow our capacity to think, move, and love is larger than it is today. Our capacity to receive self-satisfaction and enjoyment in life will also increase if we just remember that whatever task we thought was worth undertaking is worth finishing strong.
Posted by Alex Shalman in Personal Development | December 27, 2009 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 11 comments
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http://tomaszgorecki.com/blog/2010/01/12/the-easy-way-out/ The easy way out
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