I have often come across persons who had spent many years studying at university and in the final term quit. The feeling was so intense that it took the years of discipline that I had cultivated to overcome it. It was the first time that I was experiencing such a feeling and I wondered what was happening to me. Recently I had two chapters to write to complete the first draft of a book and I was overcome by a feeling of wanting to throw away the manuscript and not bother. There are those persons who are waiting on the ideal conditions to begin and those persons who allowed others to hinder their ever making a start. I encounter so many persons in life that should have been far ahead in life but for some reason they failed to start. You could easily ask me what has racehorses, blinkers and non-starters has to do with my life and my answer will be that they serve as analogies. This allowed the racehorse to only see to the front. The dictionary describes this as a piece of horse tack that prevent the horse from seeing to the rear and sometimes to the sides. The other term which I remember is that the racehorse would be wearing blinkers. It is only now that I understand that there were a number of reasons why a horse did not start as scheduled in a race. The non-starter is the horse that was listed to start in the race but for some reason did not run in the race.
The two terms are non-starters and blinkers. There were many other terms that were used but these two terms stand out and it took me some time to understand the meaning of the two terms. There are two terms that comes to mind when I reflect on those days and these terms are non starters and blinkers. There was no getting away from listening to live racehorse commentary on a Saturday afternoon.
The closest that I have been to a race horse is when I am walking on the streets and one passes that is being transported in a truck). On the hour and every half hour there were live commentary from the race track. On Saturdays between 12:00 noon and 5:00 pm there was live horse racing commentary from the race track. The old transistor radio broadcasted on the AM band and there were only two radio stations. In those days the avenues for entertainment was very limited. On many Friday evenings whether he was at home or not I had to sit by the old transistor radio, listen and write down the tipsters take on which racehorse would win each race and also the racehorse that could likely cause an upset. There was a time when my father gambled on racehorses. It is not easy to stay focused and not get distracted by events, circumstances and a host of incidentals, occasions and things which are outside of our control. My wish for you is for you to have a Happy Monday.