Answer: Self-Discipline

Question: What doesn't Sara have?

There are those people - those annoying, annoying people - who are single-minded, focused, determined. They do anything they decide to do. They change their lives on a daily basis because they believe it can be done. They are the movers and shakers, the world-changers, the optimism and the realism, the hand-shakers and networkers, the few, the strong, the brave. They are the disciplined.

I am not one of them.

I firmly believe that some folks are wired to be marathon runners and best-selling authors, so solely focused that they have no other version of life. And I believe that a lesser type of their discipline can be grown in those who are not. And I know that discipline is good. It's a virtue. It's a way of displaying that you have things under control.

Here's the problem I'm running into: I don't have things under control. I can't keep all plates in the air. If I'm actually spinning the "going to the gym" plate, the "seeing friends" plate falls to the floor. Or the "eating healthily" plate. Or if the "reading books" plate is up, the "writing" plate is down, as well as the "spending time with God" plate. I can't spin them all, and I can't possibly choose, so I take turns.

Right now, I've got the plates of "gym," "reading," and "clean house/errands" up in the air. The rest are somewhere between the air and the ground. I'm trying to figure out how to do all of these really good things. And my life is so simple - I don't see how people who have to care for people other than themselves can keep all of those plates up. I really don't.

All this to say, the "writing" plate is going to go back up. We'll give it another shot. Discipline needs to be developed in me, because I'm not a focused one.

In other news, I hate the gym.