Have you ever started up a project and poured tons of your life’s precious resources into and then, when your project does not perform the way you thought it would, you just dropped it like a worn out pair of shoes? Yeah, me, too. Like this blog for example.
I posted my first blog here, You Can Be Great! All the Time!, November 1, 2015, soon after my wife, Susan, and I decamped from Memphis to live nearer more of our children and grandchildren in Maryland. I posted almost daily. Sometimes, two or three posts a day. I was lonely on Maryland’s eastern shore and my friend, R. Linley Richter, was nagging me to continue plugging away to compete with his blog on Memphis family law.
And then something happened after four months of posting like a wild man. I know now what i think it was, but I can’t discuss the details. Suffice it to say, I partnered with someone on a different project and then my partner petered out on that project and dealing with that falling out so sapped my desire for social media and blogging that my posting frequency went right through the floor.
It’s interesting how the failure in one relationship in our lives can so dreadfully effect another relationship. Sometimes, a relationship with a project or a job can ruin a relationship with a person. (I’ve helped plenty of clients work through divorces from spouses more married to their practices than their mates.) Sometimes, a relationship with a partner on a project can ruin your relationship with the entire project.
Regardless, I let an abandoning partner in one project hurt the project, hurt me, hurt my relationship with the project, and hurt my relationship with many other projects as well. Instead of saying, “That’s okay, friend. I can either do this alone or recruit someone to handle your part,” I essentially said, “Piffle. If my partner doesn’t want to do this anymore, then neither do I. And, while I’m at it, I’ll just let a lot of other things slide as well.”
I’ve learned many lessons over the past year and a half. Suffered through some illnesses, both attitudinal and physical. And that which has not killed me has made me stronger, so. As Isaiah said in last Shabbat’s Haftorah, “Here I am. How can I help you?”
To all whom I’ve missed while digging down into and walking out of the trough, to borrow from that song of the sixties…
Starting all over again is gonna be rough, so rough
But we’re gonna make it
Starting all over as friends is gonna be rough, on us
But we gotta face it
See you next post.