Finish Him

Bad habits. I got lots of 'em. I got bad habits like a squadron of poorly dressed nuns. I have as many bad habits as a dog has fleas. As a fish has scales. As Arizona Cardinals cornerback Antonio Cromartie has kids.

Using lazy metaphors in my writing is one of them, but there are others. I burp audibly during inappropriate situations. I wait days before doing dishes or taking out the trash. I drink too much and sleep too little. I'm late to appointments, to meetings, to everything. I pick at scabs and leave hardened flakes of keratinocytes on desks and countertops, little pieces of Alf confetti strewn about.

Alf-fetti.

Chief among these bad habits is my inability to complete things. I start with mucho gusto, but I can't ever seem to finish. I don't follow through. It's why I suck at basketball.

A variety of half-completed projects adorn my room. Video games, books, even movies. I don't think I've ever finished a Zelda game. I get to the last dungeon and just... Stop. Ganon yet to be defeated, the princess still in need of rescuing.

I never did any fatalities when playing Mortal Kombat.

I also noticed it when swimming last week. I'll push hard for 95% of each lap, catching and pulling water with each stroke, flutter kicking like Yoshi. But the second I see the striped line at the bottom of the pool that indicates I'm about a foot from the wall, I quit trying and lazily float the last few inches.

It's especially prevalent with my writing. I've written nearly a hundred posts on this blog, but there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of unfinished drafts that clutter my dashboard. Every time I start a new post, I see the number of drafts rise and I'm reminded of my failures.

Part of it might be that I don't want things to end. If I'm reading a good book or enjoying a fun video game, I want the fun to last forever. At least this way, I have it in the back of my mind that I still have that fun thing to go back to.

Mainly though, at least when it comes to writing, by leaving something unfinished I don't run the risk of failure. Those hundreds and hundreds of drafts never saw the light of day and thus no one knows if they were good or bad. It's kinda like Schrödinger's cat. Is it dead? Is it alive? It's both.

All of my unfinished pieces are unfinished because I'm scared. I'm scared that they won't be good enough, that they'll suck, that people will judge me for being a shitty writer. At least this way, no one will ever know how bad I am. But on the other hand, if those pieces have even a morsel of goodness in them, no one will know that either.

It's the chance I willingly take to stay safe and comfortable. No risk, no reward.

Sometimes though, I'll go into the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror and just