As good as it gets....

I wonder if this is as good as it gets.

Sustaining one's enthusiasm for one thing or another isn't always easy, especially for things that are long term.

It's like being excited about paying premiums for your insurance policy the first few quarters. Then you realize you'll be doing the same thing for more than twenty years until the policy matures, and the enthusiasm is replaced by the grind of the routine of making payments for what is almost the rest of your natural life.

Or like one of those biology experiments from when you were in high school, you plant a seed, and wait days before any signs of life appear, if at all, and wait weeks before you get a healthy plant.

It's not that I'm complaining. Patience, as they say, is a virtue. And I'm a very patient person. It's just that an emotional high cannot be sustained for indefinite lengths of time, as it can be emotionally draining. It takes a lot of energy to maintain an emotional high, and I'd like to get that energy from somewhere...I don't know, maybe from sleep, from relaxation, from meditation, from prayers...from red wine, dark chocolate, potato chips or spearmint-flavored cigarettes.

I just don't want it to settle to being a mere routine. I want it to be exciting, to be something I'm enthused about, to be something I look forward to.

I know it can't be helped. Watching paint dry doesn't make it dry any faster, and as they say, a watched pot never boils (actually they do, as I've learned from my extensive experience in cooking instant noodles, but I don't recommend you try it, it's very boring). Things move at their natural pace, things resonate at their own natural frequencies, and there are some things that just can't be sped up, nor is it advisable that they be sped up.

So we dig our trenches, fill up our sandbags, and set up our machine guns, and settle down for the long haul...at least until the enemy comes charging with bayonets fixed shouting "Banzai!"

In the meantime, I suppose I should keep busy...but it leads to another situation, my poor ability to multitask. I can only focus on one major thing at a time. If I focus on something else, I may neglect something or other. Well, it's not really that bad I suppose. It's not as if I'm a horse with blinders on my eyes, nor am I just a one-trick pony. It's just a matter of setting one's priorities, and managing one's self.

I can do this. I know I can. I want to do this. I know I want to do this.

I shouldn't hope for, wait for, or even expect miracles. Yes, sometimes they happen...but most of the time they don't. If they happen all the time they wouldn't be miracles anymore. I just have to pace myself. You can't run a marathon by sprinting the first 100 meters. You won't have anything left for the rest of the race.

So I guess it's just a matter of pacing. I think I can handle that. I'm not an idiot, nor am I a spoiled brat. I don't have to have everything I want right now. I don't even have to have what I want ever, because we don't always get what we want. That's just how the world works.

There are a lot of things...like fine wines, cheeses (sorry for the metaphors, only food comes to mind at this time), that only show their true potential if they are given just the right amount of time to mature. To rush would only spoil it.

I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I won't even hope anymore as shattered hopes can be truly depressing...and that's always a real possibility that my mind has often considered. I'll just keep at it, as I've always been doing, not because I'm expecting anything to happen in return, but because I enjoy doing what I'm doing. And indeed I do.

So if this is as good as it gets...so what? I like what I'm doing. And if I don't get anything out of it, again...so what? I'm not in this only for myself anyway. If someone else gets something out of this...as long as that something is good, then it's okay. It means that regardless of how things end up...my efforts weren't in vain.