56 Days

by Catherine Ryan Howard

Abraham Lincoln: Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want the most. Maybe that’s true, but discipline has never been her problem. It’s fear she struggles with. She thinks courage might be choosing between what you want now and what you want the most, because what she wants now is to walk away, to shut this down, to close the doors. To retreat. To stay in the place where she feels safe and secure. But what she wants the most is to be able to live a full life, even if the expansion comes with pain and risk and fear, even if it means crossing a minefield first.

‘Most people who do bad things do so because a confluence of events has manoeuvred them into that position and then pushed them to act, to do something out of character. How many times have we heard, “Oh, my Johnnie would never do that, he doesn’t have it in him, you must have the wrong house” or, “I’ve been best friends with this guy for years, I know he’s not a killer”? Yeah, he didn’t have it in him and he wasn’t a killer – until he did and he was. None of us know what we’re capable of, if the circumstances were right. Or wrong.’ Karl

People think the decisions you make that change the course of your life are the big ones. Marriage proposals. House moves. Job applications. But she knows it’s the little ones, the tiny moments, that really plot the course.

Abraham Lincoln: Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want the most.