I Am Allowed To Delete One

There is one you would stop if you were allowed to.

You know which one. It came to mind before the end of that sentence, and it has been on the list for years, and some part of you gave up on it a long time ago without ever being permitted to say so.

And here is the thing about that item. Nobody is keeping it there. There is no authority requiring it to stay on the list.

But there is a rule, and it has never been written down or examined, and it goes roughly like this: things come off a list by being done. That is the only recognized exit. Anything else is quitting, and quitting is not a thing a person does on purpose.

So the item stays. It has been mentally abandoned for four years and is administratively still live, and that gap is where the whole of the cost is.

You are a man who is allowed to stop something, and a project ended on purpose has never once been the same as a project abandoned.

A time to cast away

There is a list in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, and one of the pairs in it is the one this article needs.

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. (Ecclesiastes 3:6, King James Version)

A time to cast away.

It is on the list. That is the whole of what needs saying about it. Casting away is in the inventory of ordinary seasons alongside getting and keeping, and no note of disapproval is attached to it anywhere.

And the chapter does not rank the pairs. There is no suggestion that keeping is the good half and casting away is the failure half, or that a person who casts away has fallen short of somebody who kept.

You have casting away listed as an ordinary season, and letting something go has never once been marked in that chapter as the lesser half of anything. Ecclesiastes 3:6 puts it beside keeping without comment, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that permission real rather than theoretical.

And there is a time for it. That phrasing matters. A time means an occasion when it is the right thing, which means there are circumstances in which casting away is not a compromise or a second best. It is simply what the season calls for.

You were never being told to keep everything, and a season for casting away has never once arrived as a defeat. The Spirit of God is the one who gives the seasons their times, and the written word lists the casting away without one word of qualification.

Abandoned and ended are not the same thing

So here is the practical claim, and the distinction is the whole of what this article has.

A project that has been mentally given up on and left on the list is abandoned. It sits there, unresolved, drawing weight, and it goes on doing that indefinitely because nothing ever closes it.

A project that has been stopped on purpose is ended. It is closed. It is off the list and it is not drawing anything, and the man who stopped it made a decision rather than suffering a failure.

You have a project that has been abandoned for four years and never once ended, and an unresolved thing has never once stopped costing anybody. Ecclesiastes 3:6 names a time to cast away, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns an abandonment into an ending.

And here is what makes the difference, which is smaller than it should be.

The difference is that one of them was said. That is all. The mental giving up happened years ago and nothing changed, because nothing was spoken, and an unspoken conclusion does not close anything.

You have a conclusion that was reached four years ago and has never once been said, and a decision that stays inside a man has never once been able to end anything. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a plain sentence possible, and Ecclesiastes 3:6 lists the casting away as an act rather than as a feeling.

And one more, and this is the specific mercy in this row, and this site would be dishonest without it.

You have permission to stop something, and a project released on purpose has never once been evidence about the man who released it. Ecclesiastes 3:6 sets the casting away beside the keeping without ranking them, and the Holy Spirit is the one present while a man closes something that was never going to happen.

Say it, and cross it off in front of somebody

Here is the assignment and the witness is the part that does the work.

Say out loud that one project is not happening, and cross it off in front of somebody.

Say it plainly. The thing in the back room is not happening. I am not doing it. Not this year, not next year, not at all.

You have a sentence available tonight that ends a four year thing, and saying a project is over has never once been the same as failing at it. Ecclesiastes 3:6 lists the casting away among the ordinary seasons, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing there while a man says a decision out loud.

And do it in front of somebody. Your wife, a friend, whoever is in the house.

Here is why the witness matters, because it is not about accountability in the usual sense. A decision said to nobody can be quietly reopened, and reopening it is how four years happened. A decision said to another person is a fact in the world, and facts in the world are much harder to reopen.

You have somebody in this house who only has to have heard it, and a witness has never once been asked to approve of anything. They do not have to say a word. Ecclesiastes 3:6 names a time to cast away among the ordinary seasons, and the Spirit of God is the one present while it gets heard.

Then cross it off the list while they are standing there. Actual pen, actual line.

And then it is over, and you did that on purpose, and that is a different thing from the four years.