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Sanding Down

We found a wooden rocking chair discarded by someone on the sidewalk and decided to bring it home. It looked old, well-worn and dusty. It reminded me of my grandfather's easy chair that was his favorite place to lounge in the verandah. He would take naps through the day on that chair the very epitome of well-deserved retired life. He had never had chance for leisure until his seventies and he made the most of it. Over the weekend, I sanded down the wooden chair and gave it a fresh coat of stain. It was hard work and took up most of my day and yet the results were not spectacular. 

This was not the kind of project you take before and after pictures of and wow people. The chair just looked a lot cleaner and was unlikely to impress anyone. So it stood there on the floor unabashedly unimproved and left me wondering about things in life we put effort into - how we start with enthusiasm and when after after a while, there are no visible results to show for it, our eagerness to do more diminishes. 

It's only a select few things in a person's life where they can continue to preserve against the odds. If those happen to align with what brings them happiness that is simply amazing. More often that not, we figuratively sand down projects because we believe it will turn things as good as new. One of two things happens in the end - we realize good as new is not all that it is cracked up to be, or worse - we realize somewhere along the line that the effort is mis-spent and take a different direction wasting our reserves in vain.

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