Say Things That Matter

I've been challenged by Everett Bogue (not personally, of course, but through his blog) to say something that matters today.

Years ago, I kept an online journal. At some point, I made a promise to myself. I decided to stop talking about what I was going to do and instead, talk about what I'd done.

For example, I used to write "this weekend I'm going to clean the house and go to a museum and see a play and finish a painting and save the world!" Pretty sweet, right? Except that I never got around to doing any of those things. It sounded like I did them and soon I started to fool myself into thinking I was busy doing all sorts of fabulously important things all the time.

But deep down I knew I wasn't. I finally got fed up with dedicating so much effort to talking about things I'd never do, with wasting time dreaming of the life I wanted to lead but never leading it. When I made the switch to talking about the things I'd actually done, things I'd actually accomplished, my journal became strangely silent.

But only for a while. Soon I started doing cool things so I could write about them. Then I was doing cool things just because they were fun and rewarding. Then I gave up the journal and started my very own blog so I could show off all the cool stuff I was creating.

I'm not perfect, I still think about doing things more often than I actually do them. But I'm learning to sort out the important stuff from the busy-work and that's helping.

So, what have you been "going to do" for a while? Can you change that into something you "have accomplished"? Can you do it today?