I tripped across a pretty unique quote that seems to make dust heavy during a windy day of assumption: a typically boring collection of word dumping that screams, “Look at me!” only to find yourself reaching for the DVR remote control to spin back life.
Don’t stop faster than you start…
I’d love to finish penning out this blog but…oh well…I stopped faster than I started.
I not only see it every day but deal with it in radio and in Tae Kwon Do.
Although nobody’s admitted to hearing one loosely being let go in places we don’t throw….somewhere out there amongst the shapes of warped Eagles Albums and sunburned Madonna cassette and Bay City Roller 8-track tapes is the larger than life voice of long distance dedications popping up a need for more speed, “If you build it, they will come.”
“Build what?” The receiver’s mumble questions.
“Just fricken do it!”
Unmet is the soul that didn’t kick up a storm somewhere in their teens wanting to accomplish an idea. To act out, play out, build upon or set free is the very reason why the human race has outpaced the monkey. We find success as being the best damn drug on earth. Locate it and the high remains immeasurable until challenged.
In the movie Wall Street Michael Douglas found value in Charlie Sheen believing his talents as a leader, spender and chance taker was worth the company’s investment. A single solo performer had the Rocky Mountain Oysters to make productive waves.
That wouldn’t work today. Decision makers and those in charge of writing business checks have set up an economic take over in the center of two American fads; locate every intern that’s willing to work free and find anyone suffering from bad confidence and lets shape them into believing that our little pay and wealth of knowledge guarantees nothing more than a reason not to apply for unemployment.
Don’t stop faster than you start…
What?
Hit any street on the beat and they’re everywhere! Big, little and somewhere in the middle entrepreneurs bitten by the dream daddy of all vision quests set out to conquer a corner and end up closing the doors.
Twenty seven years ago before every radio show I walked several times around the block never figuring out why the corner of Kings and old Independence Blvd in Charlotte remained empty. Across the street was the state’s first indoor mall, a giant movie complex and a Chinese restaurant that’s been around before Jesse Helms was born. But this corner had nothing, except a big ole tree with branches that reminded me of witch’s teeth.
Four months ago in the freaking core of this nation’s second largest money crisis up goes a building that’s left me begging the God’s of business for a single drop of the juice someone must have swiped from the pulpit.
The building looks awesome! It’s bright! It’s sexy as hell on the corner but why did it take 27 years or longer to plant the seeds to a rooting system that obviously has failed in the chapters before Mom kissed Dad.
So…what’s the first thing my pessimistic imagination latches onto? Don’t stop faster than you start…
Like a toy you get from the dentist that grows when you add water…poof! There’s this unforgettably beautiful building and I’m stuck wondering what it’s gonna look like when stopping faster than they started is put into motion. It’s as if banks and money holders rely on bad decisions to feed their dynamic egos. Or is it that we reward business failure?
I’m constantly questioned why at 40 these size elevens carried me through the hometown gym door toward an art form that’s never inspired me. Yet being part of it has made the path visually more spectacular than catching KISS for the first time at The Metra in Billings, Montana in 1977.
The journey has been mind blowing. If I had walked into my parent’s house fresh from that KISS concert with broken ribs, shredded fingers, bruises larger than I-Hop pancakes laced with crater sized amounts of inner peace, Dad would’ve hauled me to the hospital to check my blood for drug abuse.
The voice said, “What have you invested in your life today that’ll pay off years after tomorrow sets on the horizon?”
I haven’t located that answer yet…mainly because its blocked by a couple of simple commitments that burp themselves up around numbers nine and ten: never retreat in battle and always finish what you start.
Don’t stop faster than you start can’t find air to breathe if you believe.
Clint Brown writes, “The world will always give you the opportunity to quit. But only the world would call quitting an opportunity.”
Richard Nixon said, “A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.”
Clare Booth Luce, “There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.”
I can’t wait until the stores open on the corner of Kings and the recently renamed Charlottetown. It’s my job to help make sure the owners don’t stop faster than they started… The journey begins with becoming a consumer then a customer.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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