Here’s a true story from my past that is a bit on the gross side…not too much so. If you can hang in there, it’ll be worth your while!

One night when I was about eight years old we had steak for dinner. I remember chewing on a piece…

…and chewing

…and chewing.

Then I remember going for a ride somewhere with the family. A couple of hours must have elapsed when my father looked in the rear view mirror and saw my sister and I in the back seat. I was chewing…

…and chewing

…and chewing.

“Larry, what is that in your mouth?”

“Steak.”

My mother’s head snapped back at me. Two parents recoiled in horror.

“Open the window and spit that out right now!!!”

I rolled down the window, put the poor piece of gristle in my hand, and flung; happy to be rid of the masticated mess.

Forty years later, my own kids had a good laugh at this tale. My wife had the same horrified reaction as my parents.

It never occurred to me at the time that this whole chewing thing wasn’t working out. How long would I have worked on this thing?

Would my jaw have locked up first?

Thank goodness I had loving parents who looked back.

Like I said, a mild gross-out factor.

But let’s take this gruesome metaphor to another place. How many of us work on something that obviously isn’t producing results? We labor over a nonproductive useless activity with the hope that it will somehow turn into something good.

And it doesn’t occur to us that its time has come and gone.

And it doesn’t occur to us that there are new things we could be working on that would yield better results. Hey, there’s lots of steak in the world!

Look at your own life. What are you doing that is no longer serving the purpose you originally had when you started?

What is the price of this activity? Dental distress? Something worse?

What would happen if you stepped back and tried something new, or at least tried the same thing with new material, or new energy?

Take a good look. Spit out your old habits and move onto bigger and better things!

Photo by bark