The Discipline of Finishing

Beginnings are exciting and endings are satisfying; almost everything difficult happens in the middle, where nothing is new and nothing is finished.

Most worthwhile things are abandoned in that middle — not defeated, just uninteresting before they were unnecessary. Finishing is therefore less a matter of inspiration than of pre-decision: the work happens whether or not you feel like it.

The middle is where you find out what you are actually made of. Stay there.