Finish what you start.
Imagine that Da Vinci felt more fulfilled by a fully swept floor than an incomplete masterpiece. With the floor there is the sense of a job well done, whereas with an unfinished masterpiece there is torment and sleepless nights, longing and hardship.
I simply say imagine because I don’t know if it was true. I’m just making a parable. We all have to acknowledge that a masterpiece is more valuable than a swept floor, and so should ought to take precedence. And we are not all Da Vincis, in fact likely none of us are, yet I know we all have our own masterpieces within us, our own expression from our souls that should speak, our own priorities to complete. When you accomplish the priorities you have set it has the satisfaction and clarity as if you had swept clean the floor of your mind.
But finish the tasks too: the laundry, the dishes, the garden, and make sure to see them to the end. This is a real challenge for me. I get so closed to completing something, but I will leave the dishes out and not put away. Then clutter arises. But I have found when I complete these little tasks, I clear the way to work more clearly on larger goals.
I suppose we all know this. It is certainly no great revelation by me. It is elementary. And so easy to overlook.
Finish what you start, your daily tasks, and your works of art.
Which brings me to the second lesson, embrace imperfection.
I wonder if imperfection is the companion of completion (Gödel would have it so). I do know that all-too-often for myself striving for perfection stifles my ability to complete what I am working towards. I am no artist but I would say that it is the artist who is most familiar with this pairing and its problems. He or she observes in her mind’s eye something far more profound than could ever be reproduced in reality, but not for want of trying.
Also someone focused on tidiness and order may never feel resolved that a project is complete.
Embracing imperfection is an exercise in conscience. It is a deliberate, mental effort to acknowledge limitation, and to see the beauty in a thing as it is. All works of art are imperfect. It is only the entirety of the creation that we do not observe with our eyes that is divinely beautiful.
Which brings me to allude to the third lesson, conscience. How healthy is your conscience? A consideration for another day. For now I leave it unfinished. I embrace the imperfection of this post.
Which leads me to the fourth lesson for well being, nothing ever ends.
Principle Vitality 