I Just Ran Out of Ways to do it Wrong by Warren Bull

I Just Ran Out of Ways to do it Wrong

Image from public domain pictures dot net

With time on my hands recently I managed, finally, to put up a little musical on a YouTube channel that I had written the lyrics for. I am not computer savvy to say the least. After many attempts and repeatedly learning what would not work, I got the songs up.  If you like political humor and you are not fond of the current administration, you could check out my offerings at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiuQDd_7cHhEgRTcnvzinHA

But besides making a blatant attempt to get attention, my point is that I succeeded once after hours of work and dozens of failures. To my way of thinking, I did not so much figure out how to do it as run out of ways to fail.  I remember that when writing my first published short story it took me about as long to get the first paragraph right as to write the rest of the story. I kept getting closer and closer to what I needed it to say. At last I had a paragraph that had nothing essentially wrong about it. 

Although people sometimes describe me as smart, I believe the characteristic that has served me best during my life is my persistence. I kind of like that. I am not responsible for my genetics or the household that I grew up in that fostered reading and curiosity. I am responsible for trudging through tasks I do not understand and searching for ways to get the outcome I want.

I don’t discount the many advantages of being a white male born into a rising middle-class family. I was, as the saying goes, born on third base. I wasn’t even aware of the privileges built into the way things were until fairly recently.

Still, it is the quality of refusing to stay with the obvious failures when the safer and saner route would be to spend time and energy in a different direction that I believe sets the professional apart from the amateur. Better writers than I am have given up before they succeeded.  The same with YouTube.

In a much greater and more important event, Winston Churchill said,

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never–in nothing great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”