Instead of tilting at windmills...

This week I'm inspired by the deliberate ones

There’s a phrase I love because it so accurately describes a phenomenon that all of us are familiar with - “tilting at windmills.”

“Tilting at windmills means fighting imaginary enemies. The idiom tilting at windmills is first seen in the English language in the 1640s as “…fight with the windmills…” The verb tilting was soon substituted for the word fight. The term is taken from the classic Spanish novel, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. In the novel, the main character becomes enamored with the idea of chivalry, and spends his time fighting with windmills that he imagines to be giants. Tilting is the medieval sport of jousting with a lance. Of course, the windmills are not enemies but are simply inanimate objects, and Quixote’s tilting at windmills was an exercise in futility. Read more here at The Grammarist.

Tilting at windmills is the opposite of getting the facts, practicing patience, keeping a cool head, being embodied, assuming positive intent, making deliberate steps.

Analyzing the news this morning, it’s apparent that a lot of us are “tilting at windmills” these days.

In an effort to fight evil we often jump to conclusions that aren’t true. The impulse is right — to make things better, to solve problems, to get what we want that we know to be right and just — but it often plays out in destructive and wacky ways.

Drive and perseverance are great qualities when tackling a real problem, and they’re absolutely useless against a fake one.

Every single second spent fighting a fake problem, or at times, the wrong problem to fight at this particular moment, could be spent building something or being someone that people can get inspired by.

Show an example of what that inspired good looks like, and an army of former windmill tilters with chivalry and perseverance will be on your side.

Love,

Jenna

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