. . . the small things.
I know. I’ve written on this subject before. And I hope this particular story doesn’t come across as trivial. It struck me as an interesting object lesson, so I’m passing it on.
The picture is of the diamond stud earrings that Jim bought me for our 12th anniversary. (Diamonds for the dozenth, you see.) [Please note: When we moved this site to a new platform I lost a lot of images, including this one–and I’m too lazy to take a new one!] I must admit that I did sort of tell him that I wanted these. Anyway, they’re very beautiful, and I wanted to wear them all the time, but I also wanted to be able to wear my regular earrings, so the only solution was to get another set of piercings on my ears, which I did. It took quite awhile for the new holes to heal, but I persisted.
The posts are threaded so that they attach very securely. Putting on these earrings isn’t a quick process; you have to patiently and carefully screw on the backs. And when I’m running late, as I tend to be, I think, Oh well, I just won’t bother with the diamonds today. But the problem is that if I don’t wear them pretty regularly those secondary holes start growing back together. So once I start wearing them again I have to sort of force the earrings through the partly-closed holes (which takes some determination) and then go through a new healing process. As I write this I’ve just gone through this whole thing yet again. (How I suffer!)
Here’s the thing, though: If I want to wear these earrings (which I do) without pain (which I do), then I have to take the time every day to put them in. It struck me that this situation applies to so many other areas of life. It’s not enough to reach a certain goal, whether it be health- or skill-related. Once you’ve reached success, you have to keep doing whatever it was that got you to your goal in the first place. (Interesting story: I just read a book by the great opera singer Debbie Voight, and she describes winning a competition at the Met very early in her career. As she went offstage after her triumph, one of the directors said to her, “Now you have to decide how you’re going to keep this up for the next twenty-five years.”)
So if I meet my goals for this week, whether for exercise, or housework, or rehearsing, or writing (which, sad to say, I haven’t so far), that success really means nothing when I start up again next week. I may have helped strengthen the habit of doing the right thing, but I still have to discipline myself to do it. It must be part of our fallen human nature always to want to rest on our laurels. Maybe the small act every morning of making sure I wear this beautiful gift from my husband will remind me to be consistent in other endeavors. How about you? Is there a small symbolic act you could do regularly that would nudge you to do other good things?