A Truly Profound Statement

I’m in the mood to say something profound. Something you will quote for the rest of your lives. Something you will turn into Facebook posts and share with your friends. Something that will so inspire you, you will print off this blog post and put it on your refrigerator.

You ready? Okay, here goes . . . Hold on . . . It’s coming . . . Wait, it’s almost here . . .  Nope, it’s gone.

There’s desire and then there’s ability. There’s passion and then there’s proficiency. There’s potential and then there’s actuality. There’s urgency and then there’s timing.  Today, I’m high on possibility, but low on originality. I’m channeling Martin Luther King and Maya Angelou and Mark Twain, but I can’t figure out how to turn off the mute button.

A friend once asked me if I’d rather be a one-hit wonder or create a solid but little-known body of work. The answer most days is the latter. And it feels like it should be. No one says the term “one-hit wonder” with anything less than disdain. But what if that one hit became the theme song for a civil rights movement or required reading in an English class or a Broadway play that altered the face of theater? That sort of changes things, right?

It’s fun to think that one of these days I might write a blog post that will go viral, moving millions of people to action or a new way of thinking, even if it’s the only such piece I ever write, but it’s more likely I will keep posting week in and week out and move one or two people who resonate strongly with my message that particular day, and maybe they will move those mountains that just won’t budge for me.

It’s ever so fun and fulfilling to be clever, but more lasting and effective to be consistent. There you go, that’s my profound statement for the day. Do with it what you will!