Happy Friday! Time for this week’s installment of Five Minute Friday.

I cherish this exercise. It gives me a chance to shut off the world and focus on a specific word prompt. It gives my mind a chance to ponder the word and send the thoughts cascading through my fingers onto the screen for all to see. But the best part is visiting Kate’s place on Facebook at fiveminutefriday.com by our special community of writers. It’s always exciting — and often informative — to see how my fellow FMF friends develop their thoughts in a variety of different genres. If you get a chance, stop by.

I’ve been sharing snippets taken from Five Minute Friday: A Collection of Stories Written in Five Minutes Flat. They are a testament to the value of the exercise. This week, I’ll share some perspective from an anonymous writer who I hope inspires you to check us out … and maybe join in?

“I love Five Minute Friday! It stretches me beyond my comfort zone … makes me think quickly and with great focus …  no daydreaming while writing for five minutes. It’s all out. Wide open. Challenging!”

This week’s challenge is PACE. The timer is set for five minutes so let’s GO …

You remember the story of the tortoise and the hare, right? Well, our rabbit exploded off the starting line, looked around and noticed he was so far ahead, he could just rest a little. Meanwhile, our turtle was pacing himself … methodically moving forward until he eventually caught up to the sleeping hare, passed him and crossed the finish line.

That’s what pace means … methodically moving forward.

I’m sure Mr. Tortoise had to go around a rock or two along the path, maybe make a decision or two when he came across a fork in the road. But he paced himself. He methodically moved forward.

There’s a lesson in the story for all of us. Unfortunately, often we enter our race with vim and vigor like the hare, be it a personal or spiritual journey. We explode out of the gate. But that exuberance wanes. We slow down. We look around and see we’ve left others in the dust. Eventually, we may even make the fatal mistake of getting too confident in our self and our abilities and make … STOP

… a rest stop. Once we stop, it’s hard to get started again. Next thing you know, we’ve lost our edge, our excitement, our drive.

I’ll try to take my cue from the tortoise. Put one foot in front of the other. Keep my eye on the goal. And methodically move forward.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: Success is on the same road as failure; success is just a little further down the road. — Dr. Jack Hyles