Thought For The Day: Well Begun is Half Done

Here is today’s thought: Well-begun is half-done!

Mary Poppins dropped a simple truth bomb on the Banks children: “Well begun is half done.” She was, as she often is, quoting someone else. The original quote is discovered in Aristotle, who was quoting an established Greek proverb.  The Greek proverb was probably translated from Proto-Indo-European, and had earlier entered human language after being heard spoken by Australopithecus several hundred millennia earlier. It is, I assert with whimsy and accuracy, a core concept in civilization.

And, I started with Mary Poppins because she stands out as a great champion of whimsy and a surprising vanguard in accuracy and truth.  That is beginning well.

There are two routes to approach this truth: preparation and execution.

The first is obvious:  a beginning requires some preparation, forethought, and delicacy because the it forms the foundation. Buildings, plans, and the universe rests on their respective foundations.  A bad foundation limits growth, invites inherent issues, has been the downfall of many schemes and construction projects. A good foundation doesn’t solve every problem, but it eliminates and prevents a multitude of problems.

Aristotle’s original comment was that early problems grow larger over time. “The mistake lies in the beginning; as the proverb says, ‘Well begun is half done;’ so an error at the beginning, though quite small, bears the same ratio to the errors in the other parts.”   Today his statement is bore out in the work of Chaos study which relies on the belief in “hypersensitivity to initial conditions.”

Other related statements include “Penny for prevention; pound for cure” and “A dollar for design is worth a thousand in development.”

We can talk for hours about the number of times the lack of preparation brought down dynasties, but there is also the idea, that nagging, doubt-filled, annoying idea, that too much preparation kills opportunity.

So, with respect to Nietzsche’s oft quoted motto, “Thought is the Death of Action,”  the second part of “Well Begun” that interests me is EXECUTION, or actually doing something. A paradoxical complement to the first, just beginning ANYTHING is  also well done. You can’t complete anything you don’t start, so starting is half done for so many projects and experiences.  Too many of us could accomplish so much more than we do, but we don’t even start acting.

Unless you are fictional ladies-man Barney Stinson, you are not going to run a marathon without first running three miles, then six miles, then ten miles, then fifteen and working your way up. A journey of 1000 miles, it is often said, starts with the first step.  It is so cliche, so goofy, but so true.

This is lots of good stuff here folks, hope you are keeping track. We will touch on it again this week.

So in 2017, as we look to figure out where we are going and how we are getting there, remember that Mary Poppins says that if you prepare a little and ACTUALLY START, you are half-way to your goals.

This short clip is interesting because it leaves out the quote we have been discussing but induces a number of other pity aphorisms that carry loads of wisdom:

• The place to hang a hat is a hat stand
• Never judge things by their appearances
• ” A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever” Quoting Keats
• A little more light, perhaps
• We better keep an eye on this one: she’s tricky/she’s wonderful