JUST ONE THING!

I love watching old & new movies on StarHub cable television.

For me, they are often excellent ways for doing a time-out, or just for passing time, or more specifically, "mental downtime", especially in between heavy intellectual processing endeavours, e.g. reading, reviewing a book or writing a blogpost.

When it comes to movies, my preferences are often those in the action genre: wild wild west [unfortunately they don't make them anymore nowadays], war, crime, horror, espionage, sci-fi, outer-space, paranormal & cartoon animations. I can't stand melodramas or movies based on literary works.

Besides entertaining myself for two hours in one stretch, my purpose is also to pick out some interesting lessons wherever possible.

Recently, I rewatched an old movie, 'City Slickers', starring Billy Crystal & Jack Palance.


The story revolved around 3 good friends, all big city boys, on a "mid-life crisis" journey with the opportunity to join a cattle drive through the old wild wild west. There they met the trail boss, Curly (played by Jack Palance) who not only taught them how to become real cowboys, but also one or two other things about life.

In one particular memorable scene, Curly was asking one of the big city boys, Mitch (played by Billy Crystal), whether he knew the secret of life.

Mitch was dumbfounded, & Curly proceeded to say, holding one finger:

"One thing. Just One Thing. You stick to that & the rest don't mean shit."

Mitch pressed for an elaboration, but Curly just said: " That's what you have to find out."

My takeaway from that particular scene is always this:

When you find something that interests you, go for it. Be bold. Just do it. You can try as many things as you can, but pursue only the one about which you are passionate.

Put it in another way, pursue only the one about which you feel most important to you.

The quickest way to success is to do what you love - & love what you do - & then, give it your best shot.

Drawing on my own personal experience, while embarking on the second-half journey of my life after my planned departure from the corporate world during the early nineties, I decided to pursue my passion for just one thing: reading. All my small entrepreneurial ventures - 'The Brain Resource' (retail outlet), 'Left-Brain/Right-Brain Newsletter' (publishing), 'Optimum Performance Technologies' (strategy consulting, training) - then started to revolve around it.

More importantly, to share with readers, once you have embarked on your passionate pursuit, you should always stay focused - with single focus, so to speak - & try not to get distracted. Naturally, you can remain flexible in your approach!