Back to Work

It's Sunday night and I'm blogging- that doesn't happen very often. So what's new? I had a great weekend and I'm getting things ready for tomorrow. I have to be in Lawrence tomorrow morning doing a donation to the fire department, so I was getting all the boxes ready to go and printing our donation receipt. I was also working on some donation request letters that need to go out- mostly donations from police/fire associations. Then I decided to do cardio exercising because I probably won't have time tomorrow morning- so now it is 1am and I'm feeling totally industrious- which is actually not a good thing because I'm trying to go to bed at a reasonable hour. This week, I have a few donations scheduled and I also really have to work on calendar sales- we have 720 calendars to sell and sales are at turtle speed right now- actually slower than a turtle, but I don't know what's slower than a turtle.

I was listening to ESPN a short time ago while I was working and they were interviewing a NASCAR driver who had just won a race- the reporter said to him that most high achieving athletes are motivated by a fear of failure and he asked the driver if that was true for him. Now, I am not an athlete- neither my 20 mins of almost daily exercise, my occasional tennis playing or my desire to try the trapeze could ever put me in the athlete category- but it did get me thinking about being motivated by fear. When it comes to work, fear is definitely a motivator. Particularly when I first started working on Project Smile and we had no money- I was afraid that things wouldn't work out and I would have to go and get another job, so I did everything I could to avoid that become true and the same goes for today. I am not afraid of waking up tomorrow and having no job- that won't happen. But I am afraid of the donations drying up, the bank account draining and a job that I absolutely love disappearing right in front of me. So in order to avoid that, I fundraise as hard as I can and I spend as little as possible.

However, the fear runs deeper than money issues. I am afraid of dreams unfulfilled. I have seen people that I have loved who are smarter than me, with more natural talents and gifts that I will ever have- people that could have achieved such great things in their life and left the world a little bit better place because of what they offered- but instead died angry and unhappy with their potential never realized, their dreams unfulfilled and no one to blame but themselves. It is painful to watch. I have my own dreams and I've promised myself that I will never be in that position- that I will work as hard as I can, for as long as I can, so that I can accomplish what I already know is achievable.

Anyways, in order to keep working- I need to go to bed so that I'm not a little slug tomorrow. I'm also heading to Newton for the press conference at the mayor's office. I'm off to write my list and pick out a recipe for New Food Monday- every Monday, I make a new recipe. I've been doing it for almost 2 years now and absolutely love it- such a good way to start the week and a good way to find lots of new ways to cook! Wish me happy driving tomorrow....