Here we are at the beginning of another New Year.
Why, you can take a stick of firewood and do most anything you want to with it — and it’ll still burn when you’re finished.
This is the time of year that I toy with the idea of resolutions — a least for a few days before I move on to something else.
Usually, New Year resolutions center around some kind of self-improvement. I resolve to read the Bible through this year; I resolve to lose weight (again); I resolve to quit smoking. Although, there aren’t as many smokers today as there used to be. When I was a kid, people smoked in movie theatres. There was a smoking section on airplanes. That was a long time ago. A friend of mine told me quitting smoking was easy. He did it every New Year for years. A few weeks ago, I visited with Clinton artist Wyatt Waters in his newly remodeled studio on the brick streets in downtown Clinton. I bring up Wyatt and his studio because he is an example of “resolve” personified.
Wyatt knew that he wanted to be an artist when his kindergarten teacher complimented him on a picture he colored. He said if she had never praised him, he may never have pursued art as a career. Years later, Wyatt majored in art at Mississippi College in Clinton and often walked the few blocks to the downtown area and pictured in his mind that he would have a studio there. It is years and years later now, but inside that newly remodeled and enlarged studio is where we were talking.
He admitted there were times when things got tough through the years. But he never quit. And by sticking with it (isn’t that more or less the definition of resolve? Sticking with it?) his dreams from years ago have more than come true.
Feature filmmaker Tate Taylor of Church Hill in Jefferson County told me the story of how he went from being a jet fuel salesman to making movies. He had a dream and stuck with it.
Some people’s dreams don’t come true because they’re afraid to try. They are scared it might not work out. Years ago, I did a story with Neshoba County whittler Jerome Ferguson. He could come up with the most interesting and intricate figures from little sticks of wood. I still have one of his roosters, with tail feathers and all. I told to him that I’d be afraid to even try such delicate work. He gave me a great piece of advice that I have used more than once when facing a daunting project. He said, “Why, you can take a stick of firewood and do most anything you want to with it — and it’ll still burn when you’re finished.”
So, let’s go boldly into the new year and face challenges with resolve and the assurance that it will still burn when we’re finished if it doesn’t work out. But it will NEVER work out if we don’t at least give it a shot.
