4 Keys to Going for the Gold

I bought a car recently. Since then I’ve been periodically preoccupied by what appeared to be a coin lodged between the driver’s seat and the center console. That thing bugged me to no end because I couldn’t reach it. Occasionally, while sitting in traffic or at a red light, I’d pass the time away by trying to retrieve this poor lonely coin, but to no avail. I tried hard, too, but I could never seem to find the right tool to reach it. Since I don’t like for things to beat me, reaching this coin became my mission.

Last week, while on my lunch break, I did it! I finally freed the coin. I can’t even recall what I used to reach the coin. I just used whatever pen or pencil was in my hand at the time. To my surprise, what I previously suspected was probably just a quarter was actually a gold, United States dollar.

WOO HOO! Who knows how long the dollar had been lost down there.

Later, I chuckled to and AT myself as I reflected on my borderline frantic fishing expedition for one coin. I thought to myself, “There’s a message in here somewhere.” The gold dollar I retrieved is symbolic of my goals and dreams. They are within my view. Oh yes I can see them clearly, but determining a strategy for accomplishing them sometimes feels like yet another haphazard fishing expedition for a trapped coin.

From this one little exercise I was reminded of four things:

1. Keep your eyes on the prize. So cliché, right? We hear it all the time, but it’s true. I kept checking to see whether the coin was still down there or if maybe it had rolled from within my reach. A ripple of joy flowed through me each time I saw it, because being able to see it meant it was still within my power to reach it. I knew that one day – someway, somehow – I was going to grab hold of that coin stuck on the side of my seat.
2. Use the tool(s) in your hand. I’ve tried to use a pen or pencil in the past to try to reach this coin, but either it was too short or too wide. I just kept trying until alas I found the perfect fit. As I pondered the moral to this simple story I thought it quite ironic that my tool was a writing utensil. Coincidence? I think not. 🙂
3. What you see may be larger than you think. Let’s not forget, the lonely little coin I assumed was a quarter trapped down there turned out to be quite a bit more – a gold dollar. Now that’s a message by itself.
   
4. Never.  EVER.  give up. Enough said.

Completely ME!