Napoleon Hill, motivational author of Think And Grow Rich, has said that, "A dream is a goal with a deadline." I ruminated on this for quite a while, but it felt somewhat inverted, and I happily let it go.
Then I came upon, Harvey MacKay, a businessman who gives career and inspirational advice in his syndicated column said, “A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.”
Thank you, Mr MacKay. I can wrap my head around that. There is a sense of the poetic in this latter phrase, which more easily lends itself to meandering round and round among my other thoughts.
That one of my own lines might do as much in the reader’s mind is more of a wish than a goal for me. As many a song writer can attest, one never knows which lyrics will resonate best to a listener.
As a poet, I don’t have set goals in mind. Sure, sometimes I begin a piece with an idea and strong inclinations of how it will progress, until I find it going off on a much better trajectory, and I follow it.
I know of writers who plan out their plots to the nth degree, diagramming and controlling their work all the way to the end of the story, but poetry, my poetry, has to breathe more freely than that.
I rather enjoy fluid dialogues with my muse, and the surprising journeys that we take together; surprising to me, at any rate. The murmurings of my poet mind will simply not abide the leash of a deadline.
Image: careerminer.infomine.com
Then I came upon, Harvey MacKay, a businessman who gives career and inspirational advice in his syndicated column said, “A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.”
Thank you, Mr MacKay. I can wrap my head around that. There is a sense of the poetic in this latter phrase, which more easily lends itself to meandering round and round among my other thoughts.
That one of my own lines might do as much in the reader’s mind is more of a wish than a goal for me. As many a song writer can attest, one never knows which lyrics will resonate best to a listener.
As a poet, I don’t have set goals in mind. Sure, sometimes I begin a piece with an idea and strong inclinations of how it will progress, until I find it going off on a much better trajectory, and I follow it.
I know of writers who plan out their plots to the nth degree, diagramming and controlling their work all the way to the end of the story, but poetry, my poetry, has to breathe more freely than that.
I rather enjoy fluid dialogues with my muse, and the surprising journeys that we take together; surprising to me, at any rate. The murmurings of my poet mind will simply not abide the leash of a deadline.
Image: careerminer.infomine.com
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