MountainWings A MountainWings Moment
#1043 Wings Over The Mountains of Life
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Under the Covers
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Where do you get the time?
Someone came to my house today that receives MountainWings.
They said, "I really enjoy MountainWings but where do you get
the time to write it?"
In the previous MountainWings:
http://www.mountainwings.com/past/1042.htm
I explained that the busier you are, the more probability that
you are the very person that will be given more opportunity.
It's one of life's little rules.
The next rule is this:
"With major things, most of the real work is unseen by the public."
Take a child for example. When people see you in public, they
see a walking, well behaved (well sometimes well behaved) child.
This is what they don't see:
The nights you stayed up all night because your child was sick.
The bruises from falling when they were learning to walk and
balance.
Scrubbing the walls of the future Picasso's drawing on your
freshly painted walls.
The times when quiet time means the interval when you are both
so exhausted that you both fall asleep.
The house note size nursery bills.
And a hundred and one other things. . .
All they see is your neat, well behaved child and they say, "oh
they are so sweet and cute." Yes they are, but there is a lot
that goes before the sweet and cute.
As with all things, the public often sees only the end result.
So it is with MountainWings
The major amount of time that I have spent with MountainWings is
not the writing. That's the part that the public sees but it's
not the major part. When you get an e-mail, that's the neat and
well behaved child.
Most have no idea what it took to begin a daily e-mail. For the
slightly technically inclined, let me give you a brief outline.
First I had to find an e-mail program. This was not that easy.
I had to download and try several programs.
Each had plusses and minuses, strengths and weaknesses.
The major feature that I needed was the ability to automatically
send pre-written e-mails at a selected time. Only one program
that I found did that.
I didn't find that program right away. MountainWings began on
the first day of the new millennium and I hadn't found the
proper program by then but I was determined to get it going.
That's another rule of Life. Very rarely will you have exactly
what you want, or think you need, when you start any project.
I did what we all must do to get started.
I used what I had.
I found a workable program but it didn't have automatic
scheduling. Therefore I was up each night at midnight to send
the next issue of MountainWings. You do what you have to.
I went out of town on the third issue of MountainWings. I took
my notebook computer. It took me several hours to get a dial-up
connection working that would accept the e-mail transmitted from
the program. I was on a vacation retreat with my wife. I was
up at midnight to transmit MountainWings.
Eventually, I found a good program with an automatic scheduler.
It took three days to get the new program working properly. Now
MountainWings transmits automatically each day at Midnight EST.
I had to build the MountainWings website. It has animated
graphics, it took two hours just to get the flying eagle flying
against the yellow background. It has forms to submit
subscriptions, ratings, and articles. I programmed them all.
That took a lot of time.
Then there was the database programming.
That's another long story.
Now when a person subscribes or unsubscribes, everything is done
automatically. I don't have to do anything now but write
MountainWings and spend a few minutes scheduling it to send to
you at midnight. It's like the neat and well-behaved child.
There will be so many things in your life (most things) where
the vast bulk of the work is behind the scenes. Things people
never think about. They will simply see an e-mail and think,
"it probably took about 15 minutes to write that." Maybe it
did, but it took about 15 days of work to get it set up to send
that 15 minutes of writing.
It took 45 years, to get the experience, to do the writing.
Was it worth it?
Of course it was.
That's like asking the mother or father of that child, "was it
worth it?"
Of course it was.
Your projects and dreams are like children.
Most of the work to produce them is done under the covers out
of sight of the public.
Some of your projects are yet unborn but you are pregnant with
them.
Some of your dreams have not even been conceived.
When you do give birth to them people will also ask you,
"where did you get the time to do that?"
You'll smile and think, "if they only knew what it really took?"
~A MountainWings Original~
Laugh of The Day:
A small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to
the stand in a trial -- a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He
approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams. I've
known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you've been a
big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you
manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You
think you're a rising big shot when you haven't the brains to
realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit
paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed
across the room and asked, "Mrs. Williams, do you know the
defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why, yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since
he was a youngster, too. I used to baby sit him for his
parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me.
He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. The man can't
build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is
one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him."
At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and
called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he
said with menace, "If either of you asks her if she knows me,
you'll be jailed for contempt!"
Thank you for inviting MountainWings in your mailbox.
See you tomorrow.
Forward this issue to a friend or send them the link below:
http://www.mountainwings.com/past/1043.htm
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