Holding On

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Perfect is the enemy of the good. – Voltaire

I have struggled with the paralysis of analysis. I have struggled with an inability to recognize good enough. I have struggled to find the golden median. I have used each of these excuses to disengage, refuse to start, or quit.

What happens when the perfect becomes the enemy of the good?

We wait.

Waiting can be an incurable disease. We wait to dream. We wait to act. We wait to reach out. We wait so long that we forget what our original desire ever was, if we ever knew it. We wait and we live the dreams of others rather than our own. We wait and then reconcile ourselves to something other than our greatest good.

We dread.

Dread has quite a cost. Dread robs us of enthusiasm, focus, and motivation before we even start a task. It robs us of energy, momentum, and power while we act. It robs us of joy, satisfaction, and understanding after we act, too. Dread is a choice we don’t have to make.

We miss opportunities.

The need for perfection makes us reluctant to say yes, to go for it, to jump in with both feet. Saying no rather than failing. Backing up rather than going forward. Fear as default. Regret as our theme song.

We stop.

When we stop, we never know. We never know if we could finish. We never know what the product could be. We never know how it feels to see a process through. We never know We never know our strength.

We don’t reach our full potential.

Perhaps the biggest loss at the hands of the perfect is the what-might-have-been. What-might-have-been is about our calling or purpose. What-might-have-been is about our work and our song. What-might-have-been is about holding on and not letting go.

https://kitt.global/june-4-holding-on-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/