Episode 060 - 99% Easy...

Johnny Wilkinson © Neil Cowmeadow 2017

The Thursday Thesis - 10/08/2017

It is always 99% easy.

Yes, easy: the hard work, day in, day out, that produces the bulk of a project - that is the easy part.

The problem is always that last 1%.

At university the last 1% was submitting the assignments; today it is publishing a finished book or piece of music.

You’d think it would be easy to just press the button and breathe, wouldn’t you?

It isn’t easy - the fear contained in that last 1% can paralyse even the strongest person.

But that last 1% is all that stands between the work and the audience: the people we wrote, composed, worked and dreamed for.

In soccer, it’s the last 1% that makes all the difference. Between a goal and a miss, between winning and losing – that’s the 1%. If the ball never crosses the line – the game ends in a nil-nil draw: that’s all that gets written on the score-sheet.

In life, it’s the 1% that sorts out the wannabes from the gonnabes; those who succeed and complete the job, and those who give up on the one-yard line.

What’s the point in writing the world’s best novel, symphony, pop song or movie script if it sits, forever in your desk drawer or lurks in an obscure folder of your hard drive, unread, unheard, unsung and unseen?

To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes: “the tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still inside him”.

The last 1% is the showdown between hope and fear.

And fear fights to kill.

Game on!
 
© Neil Cowmeadow 2017
 
 
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