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According
to the study cited in the article above, this isn’t a universal problem. “Type A” personalities, it seems, are less
likely to finish a book or some other project and also less likely to feel
guilty about it. They get their kicks
just starting things and getting whatever they can from the effort as quickly
as possible. I can attest to that, as I
am a prime example. My stack of unread
books stares mutely at me without evoking any inkling of guilt or remorse. I feel annoyance that I have to keep moving
the stack to clean around it, but no remorse.
Type
B’s, according to the report, are less likely to even start a project they know they can't (or won't) finish. They feel guilty if they stop mid-stream, so they try not to be in that position. I’ve got a little of that in my psyche too,
but not nearly as much. I’m a born
quitter.
Okay,
that’s not true. It’s not that Type A’s quit so much as that they think they see
the endpoint somewhere around the middle, and don’t bother wasting time getting
there via the circuitous route that includes actual completion. The study doesn’t specify, but I’m going to
posit without any research to support my supposition that people who tend to do
that also tend to be quicker to make decisions and lean heavily on
instinct. We’re the folks Click! describes so well. We don’t need to see all the pieces to
believe we’ve solved the puzzle.
Does
that translate into bad business with our horses? It certainly can. If there’s anything in the world that cries
out for an organized, step-by-step-to-mastery approach, it’s horse
training. While I’m jumping to
conclusions and pretending that we’re already at X, Zip is hovering somewhere around C wondering where in the hell I went and why he isn’t there with
me.
Above is the same scene as the first photo, but on the second try I was more careful not to let the camera self-focus on the window screen. See how different it looks? See how you can tell what's in the picture? See how your horse is standing behind you nodding in agreement? Once again, we're zooming in...out...in...out, but we're also avoiding jumping to closure. Are you tired yet? This horse life is no place for pussies!
I intend to aim for more B and less A in my approach to life in the future. Not starting something I can't finish is anathema to me, so it's not going to be an easy swap. I've already made some changes in the right direction in checking in with my horse before I decide to launch a workout. Next step is to try better to analyze which parts of the workout are valuable, which I can actually accomplish, and which are going to die on the vine because I'll jump to the end of the book while I'm only halfway through the table of contents.
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