Wednesday, December 31, 2008

ON BEING CAREFUL

Fear throws its voice that it might frustrate our choice once we make it.

We give ourselves most of the warnings that others give us ("Be careful," for example). So much, that by the time we embrace our dream we are careful in ways that cripple. Their reminders reinforce our reluctance. So, we bet timidly and chew bitterly the sour while savoring sweets. We should, of course, be careful but we shouldn't let it cripple. Otherwise we are being foolish instead.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

UNMASKING GREATNESS

People who do what they do, that's all they do. That's why they do it better than anyone else.

People gaze at greatness as if it's mysterious. Yet greatness is simply the result of finding something that you enjoy above everything else. Omitting these, pursue it. If you excel others will notice. Then they will celebrate you for doing for them what you've done freely for yourself. How mysterious is that?

Monday, December 29, 2008

THE ANATOMY OF GREATNESS (II)

Models are idols unless we are engaged.

What does greatness do while becoming? That's what I've wondered and intend to reveal just in case I accomplish. What drives its days? How dark are its nights? Does the sun shine as brightly as it unfolds or only after success falls? Knowing its pattern is important, especially if we are aspirants, because it enables us to compare ourselves with others. Comparisons, however, are no guarantee. But rightly used they can encourage.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

THE ROTATION OF GREATNESS

Turns take us before we take them.

Every soul has its season, and every season has its soul. Regardless of appearances, no one's life blooms perennially. Even the person of matchless achievements must endure days of drought. During these times the clouds threaten but bring no rain. Each day the horizon is pregnant with precipitation. But the advent of eve leaves him shaking his head, mumbling, "Maybe tomorrow."
Just over the hill, however, his neighbor is busy gathering a bountiful harvest. This year's rains have left him plenty with which to fill his once bare barns. Last year this time he had considered quitting and starting over elsewhere. What a difference a season makes. In this regard, life is forever instructing us and one of its largest lessons is this: We must never let the harvest of a few or the drought suffered by many to deter our diligence. If we but endure and adjust accordingly, we will have our time. We will be made beautiful in our season.
Difficulties arise, however, when we desire to flourish in someone else's season. When we indulge this folly we compare the bounty of our neighbor's field with the barrenness of our own. After awhile we resent their abundance. If we aren't careful we will curse our once cherished soil. All of this happens when we fail to realize that every soul has its season, and every season has its soul.
Time and seasons protect our potential. They teach us to reverence our ground not just the harvest it produces. They compel us to remove our shoes and recognize that the ground we stand upon is holy. Then we can applaud the bounty bestowed upon others because their ground is holy too. Realizing this, envy no longer torments and delay ceases to discourage. Instead we become persuaded that the time is coming when we will accomplish. Until then, we wait and hope quietly for rain. Despite the richness of our soil no one escapes this rotation. Only through it do we avoid the vanity of blooming too fast, too often.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

THE ANATOMY OF GREATNESS (I)

What's cute in print is painful in practice.

Have you ever seen greatness stripped of its grandeur? I have. Were you shocked or still assured that it was for you? Were you still willing to suffer and censor yourself lest by disappointment you damn your hope? Isn't the angst amazing --how it condemns and encourages? That's what MTV omits. They would rather show the cribs than the crawls achievers endured. Even when they do it's not as dynamic. How can it be when years of frustration are framed by soothing voice-overs?

Friday, December 26, 2008

EXHORTATION TO GREATNESS

When we desire life designs accordingly, and supports appropriately our efforts.


No one exhorted Rembrandt as he labored to master the strokes of the brush. Thomas Edison had few fans in his efforts to develop the electric light. When Mary Wollstonecraft published "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" she was ridiculed. These achievers spent much of their lives in obscurity. While others played, they persevered.


Each failure nurtured success. Desire is the catalyst propelling ordinary souls toward extraordinary success. When combined with persistence, success is inevitable. In fact success is seldom realized without persistence. No amount of talent can replace it. If you aren't willing to persist success won't be yours. Ironically, persistence and obscurity overlap.


Today in some dark laboratory or on a dusty schoolyard tomorrow's champions are being chiseled, unknown today yet soon to explode on the scene of success. Know that the years you spend sacrificing will payoff. In life there are no wasted efforts. No one else needs to be aware of the time you spend improving your skills --God knows. He's there with you, applauding your determination. He knows that obscurity is the dressing room in which all achievers must change.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

LUCK

Luck lurks daily seeking someone to favor.


Luck is the domain of the unseen. Upon falling, it grants what effort can’t. Some call it favor, others fortune. Some are oblivious; others disheartened, especially when it denies their aims. All effort is an attempt to entice whether or not we admit it. That’s why we disdain those who gain it without sufficient labor, condemning what luck condones in their behalf. They meanwhile weren’t concerned with the laws of attraction or any other treatise that promised to parley success’ secrets. Instead they pursued what passion imagined. Luck thus lent its help. Laws are deduced by those whose tendency it is to measure. They are obeyed by those who have yet to master. ‘Tis this failure that sells books and inflates boasts.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

BEING ALONE

Some moments make us measure the worth of our lives. Hence, our tendency to avoid.


We are seldom alone. We strive in fact never to be so. Something about it gouges and creates a gulf where none exists. Even so, we feel it deeply when it descends, especially when it prolongs. Hence, the value of friends. By these we are saved from ourselves. Those without are prone to endure without complaining (or pretending), as many of these require. Even when befriended they refuse to be severed from themselves.

HOW TIRED

Energy recycles when we resist temptations to quit.

How tired can we get? Does exhausted mean unable or simply unwilling? How can we know unless we go beyond ourselves? How heartless, perhaps, to demand such. Yet that's what success requires and happiness reveals. Still, most of us quit too early; others of us quit too often. In doing so, we forfeit momentum and feign motion. If, however, we were as serious as we say obstacles would move out of the way from respect for our passion. How many of us are acquainted thus?

EVALUATING AVERAGE

How we respond reveals how we feel about ourselves.


I hate average and all the factors that support. This median is the region of the passive. I despise complacency, a form of insolvency, which when indulged denies destiny. How easily twenty-four hours erects insuperable obstacles. All things considered, how many lives are embittered because they refuse to confront themselves.

Monday, December 22, 2008

ENDURING GREATNESS

"You must be porous to hear the chorus that calls some to greatness. Those who can't ignore its chant, being deaf to music."


Greatness is so easy that everyone desires it. At least that's what we are often made to think. Yet few things are harder, save failure, which is why endurance matters. Without it, we are out-witted by some and out-waited by others. Of course, it requires more than wit or waiting to win; but without these we clip our wings. With them, however, we can adjust as go until we know for cetain how to accomplish. Otherwise, I would be famous by now. That's what I've said after having written fourteen books. Even so, I've chosen to ignore failure and endure greatness until it comes. For me, that means becoming a bestselling author and speaker. Anything less is unacceptable.