Fixin' to be

from Dave Pollard's post on Intentionality:

But there are steps and there are steps, and the important steps, even the small ones, are bold ones, with no turning back. These are the steps that we only take when we must, when we have no alternative, when the pain of going forward is less than the pain of staying where we are. Those who profit from our inaction, our lack of true intentionality, our fear, are counting (with good reason) on the fact that, for most of us, we have not yet reached that tipping point when we must act, must Let-Self-Change. They keep us distracted and addicted and comfortable enough with our prison life that escaping is never urgent enough.

My weblog is, more than anything else, a diary for talking myself into practicing what I preach, for convincing myself that I must act. Help convince me, it says to my readers, who are impatiently hoping for me to convince them. How to be a model, I write. Won't somebody be a model for me, I am asking, to those who want and rightfully expect me, the advocate of Let-Self-Change, to be the model for them. My audience is dwindling as so many get tired of all-talk, no-action. So we sit here, by the exit doors of the prison, talking about possibilities and trying to talk each other into real change, to make each other bold.

We do what we must, then we do what's easy, and then we do what's fun. We are not yet persuaded that we must take that first bold no-turning-back step, and we know that step won't be easy and that it may not be fun.

We will only leave the prison when someone, probably inadvertently, with the best of intentions, or accidentally, sets it on fire. Maybe that's what we're all waiting for.

Worth a look. I love how honest he is about himself.