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There comes to mind a subject which, for want of better words, could be called the habit of rearranging -- that is, rearranging without really resolving -- such as papers on our desks, clutter in our cupboards and closets, and problems on our minds that we turn over and over again without actually settling or disposing of, or coming to any acceptable conclusion.
It isn't enough simply to shift papers, or to move things, or to handle them, or to dust them off, or repeatedly and inconclusively to review the same problems. It isn't enough simply to rearrange the pile. Someone has to settle; someone has to dispose of; someone has to decide something sometime, to bring things to some kind of satisfactory conclusion.
There isn't much virtue merely in re-looking at letters. Sometime we have to answer them (or, decide that they need no answer). There isn't much virtue simply in rearranging debts. Sometime we have to pay them. There isn't much virtue in the overlong repeating and postponing of problems. Sometime we have to solve them.
Almost anyone can half do things. Almost anyone can bring an assignment back partly finished, partly fulfilled, partly followed through. But one of the marks of the executive is the ability to decide. One of the obligations of free men is the willingness to decide. One of the qualities of effective people is the courage to decide -- with, of course, the standards and judgment to know what to do with certain situations, and to see things through to a satisfactory conclusion.
And if we find a person shifting the same set of papers on his desk month after month, or with the same set of unsolved problems on his mind, inconclusively turning them over day after day, or night after night, we may know that be is letting a lot of life waste away. (It is somewhat like listening to someone give the same account of the same occurrence time after time. Well may we listen once, but not too willingly to a repetitious retelling too many times.)
We have to get things done; we have to get them finished and behind us, in order to go on effectively to the next problem, to the next project. Emerson summarized the subject for us somewhat when he paid his respects to the "finishers" in life -- to those who start and go and see things through.
Surely the Lord God who gave us life didn't intend that we should live it like the winds that shift leaves and litter back and forth, aimlessly rearranging the piles from place to place. One of the great qualities of character is the ability, the willingness, the purpose. to see things through.
Page Modified November 4, 1999