So Near the Shore
The story
This comes near the end of a sermon Mahavira gives to his chief disciple, Gautama. Every verse holds up a picture of how short life is, a falling leaf or a dewdrop on grass, and tells him not to waste a moment. Here he tells Gautama he has already done the hard part and asks why he is stopping now. Tradition says what held Gautama back was his love for his own teacher.
Uttarādhyayana Sūtra, Lecture 10 ("The Leaf of the Tree"), verse 34; tr. Hermann Jacobi, Sacred Books of the East 45 (1895), p. 45
The same moment, today
Someone paints three walls of a bedroom on a Saturday, washes the rollers, and leaves the fourth wall bare for three months. The hardest part is already done. The drop cloths were spread out, the furniture was moved, and the primer dried hours ago. Once the biggest effort is over, it's very easy to stand back, call it good enough, and never pick up the brush again.
Mahavira asks his oldest student why he's resting when the far bank is right in front of him. Gautama had already given up his wealth, his family, and decades of comforts. What kept him from crossing wasn't greed or anger. It was his deep affection for Mahavira himself. It's easy to see how bad habits hold people back, but good feelings can do it too. When you get fond of the journey, or fond of the person guiding you, you can easily stall right before the finish.
The lesson
Notice where you've done almost all the work and then stopped just short of the end. Don't let comfort with the routine keep you from actually finishing it.
Where this comes from
A final plea in the Svetambara canon
This verse comes from Lecture 10 of the Uttaradhyayana Sutra, titled 'The Leaf of the Tree.' Every verse in the chapter ends by telling Gautama not to be careless for even a moment. Svetambara Jains count this book as part of their scripture, while Digambara Jains don't, though both traditions share this lesson. The English here is Hermann Jacobi's 1895 translation for the Sacred Books of the East. Tradition says Gautama couldn't reach full enlightenment because he loved his teacher too much. He only crossed over on the night Mahavira died at Pava, which Jains mark during Diwali.
A small reminder, on the desk or the notebook, that the hardest part of any crossing is often the very last step.
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