The chime of her delicate Georgian clock frees Melissa from the night’s grasp. One relieving yawn accompanied by a thorough stretch signal her readiness for the day. “Ok, day one. You’ve got this!” A soothing glow from the Tiffany lamp illuminates the top of the writer’s ancient bureau: a note pad befriends her sleek fountain pen, ready for its ultimate task of bearing inspirations from a creative mind. Above them an onlooker-a printed inspirational quote pinned to the wall, tries to grab its master’s attention. Everything is designed to craft a perfect, productive day. Tea by the side, arms raised and a blank document opened, she readies herself for the composition of her first masterpiece. However, as the steam from her camomile tea gradually rises up into the air, Melissa’s confidence evaporates too. Staring at the monitor, expression blank-the reality clashes with her imagination. Arms crossed and brows knitted, the millionth heavy sigh escaped her still lips, “What am I doing? I am literally useless.” Appalled by the garishly white document, she tosses herself into the embrace of her cosy sheets. Gone is her desire for accomplishment today, followed only by a petty consolation, “Tomorrow will be my day one.”
How many times have we gone back to bed like Melissa and declare tomorrow to be “day one”, over and over again? As humans, we are bestowed the gift of ambition, driving endless imagination of what the final product should appear to be: beautiful, elegant, accomplished and perfect. The mere thought of this is capable of pumping adrenaline all around our body. So, we cannot wait any longer to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Unfortunately, it oftentimes ends up being a total catastrophe, a complete deviation from our expectations. Sitting down at a bench, we are forced to contemplate on our mediocrity and think that our ability can never quite catch up with our taste. Withdrawing back beneath the warm sheets and weep seem like an understandable response. The problem is, this is too easy and despair is chief. Real achievement is only initiated once we forgive ourselves of the horror of the first rounds. Then, work without hurry and one bit at a time. Keep a timetable and stick to it. Work without hope or despair. After days, weeks, months and even years, we may one day take a step back and realise that our talents will catch up with our taste and we will have done something in line with our initial expectations, we have become what we dreamt ourselves to be ages ago. All there is to do at the moment-is to keep going.
“Just keep going” is one of the simplest, yet powerful lesson my mother has taught me. During high school, my perfectionistic tendency led to an obsession with achieving impressive-sounding goals, one of which was to read 48 books in a year. Filled with excitement, I jot this goal down as a new year’s resolution, confident in my ability to tick it off as the year concludes. The first month was not too difficult, but the pressure of HSC intensified during the second month. By the third month, I was so discouraged by my lack of progress and how many more books needed to be read that I gave up. I was overcome with a sense of incapability. Feeling concerned, my mother embarked on a nightly group reading activity for the family. It does not matter what was on, this daily gathering needs to happen. Sometimes I could not be bothered, other times I felt that there are other more important matters to attend to. Nonetheless, we marched on. 1 book slowly grew into 10, and before we can realise it, 40 books were completed that year. Turning to the last page of our last book, I found a quote that she has written earlier, “Every drop of water makes an ocean”.
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