How Stuff Gets Done

My younger daughter thought this would make a nice gift for her mom. The concept is similar to fair trade coffee: imported by 10,000 Villages at the Princeton Shopping Center from Indonesia, with apparently sustainably harvested shells of some sort that make a soft, pleasing sound when they collide. It was easy to hang in the bay window where it will catch light in the morning.

It proved to be two gifts in one, because the ease of hanging it up provided the necessary momentum

to finally hang up a stained glass window that had languished nine years on the bookshelf since our last move. Fifteen minutes was all it took to find eye screws, fishing line, and a good place to hang it.

Some small projects that get indefinitely postponed turn out to be more difficult than expected, lending some justification to the procrastination. But others prove disconcertingly easy--progress held up for years because of the tiniest of hurdles.

So much remains undone not for lack of time, energy or resources, but for lack of a catalyst.