Do you aim high when writing? Or do you let a lack of self-confidence get in the way?
Have you ever noticed how dogs don’t seem to doubt themselves?
Give a pup a choice between a stick and a log, and the latter almost always wins out regardless of the pup’s size.
Leave a hunk of steak out on the counter, and most dogs will figure out a way to get it even though the counter is anywhere from two to ten times taller than they are.
The day I brought my puppy home in 2018, I put him in the wire enclosure I had set up in the living room. Relieved to have a moment to myself, I headed upstairs to take care of a couple of household tasks. By the time I got back down less than ten minutes later, my five-pound Australian-mix puppy greeted me with bouncing licks. The only problem was that although the door to the dog den was still shut, he had managed to escape.
It took me a couple of days to finally catch him in the act. He’d stand on his toes and reach his front paws up as far as he possibly could. Once he had managed to curl them around the highest crossbar, he would pull himself up to the point where his bottom paws hit the lowest crossbar. At that point he could quickly wriggle his way up and over.
Now mind you, the den was three feet tall and he couldn’t have measured more than five or six inches in height and length. Until he got on those tiptoes, that is. Suddenly, he was a whole lot longer. Couple that with fierce determination to reach his goal, strength and a clear propensity for levitating off the ground, and there was no stopping him.
Right then and there all the debates about what to call my puppy ended. His name would be Misha, the nickname of Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the greatest male ballet dancers in history who seemingly hung suspended in air every time he leaped.
Imagine what you could accomplish if you were Misha. Maybe it’s time to borrow the nickname and aim high when writing, with the same fearless conviction and unrelenting resolve.
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