THE WINNER'S WAY

 

Courage is never given except in a crisis. Otherwise it's unnecesary.

People admire courage but despise crisis. They want to be accomplished but hate to be challenged. Most of them don't understand the law of opposites. So, they think that courage and acclaim are coincidental. But those with both understand their essence. They also grasp the importance of paradox. Thus, while the whimsical wonder what it's like to win, winners lose until they win. They aren't broken by defeats or conquered by crowns because they realize that both are fleeting. They also understand that loss isn't lessened by regret. Neither is victory sweeter by being over-blown. From without, however, the imagination always embellishes.

THE FEW

The road to succes is narrow and long

Many begin the journey but few press on,

Along its paths are many who have fallen

Whose goal slipped away along with their calling.

 

Yet for those small few who are willing to plod

Who believe in the dream because they believe in God,

Those who will persist when the outcome appears bleak,

Remaining calm even amid adversity's heat,

These are they who are destined to reach

Life's highest mountain and scale its peak.

SILENCE PLEASE!

     Who do you call when desire gnaws and time stalls, indifferent to your desire despite the fire that inflames? What do you do when you’ve said your prayers (and a few swears) yet things remain and desire pains beyond expression? Have you ever experienced this depression, the kind that cuts, carves and consumes leaving nothing but more room for itself? Do you know what it’s like to spend your life waiting for the knife to be pulled from your back or trying to find a way to extract the desire that drives you on? If not, you can’t understand when greatness groans. On the contrary, you are apt to confuse its angst with an unwillingness to give thanks for all things. Perhaps this is true of some people. But there are those that, after they’ve exhausted gratitude, they still remain undone and prone to brood. What do you tell these? Do you have the words to ease what aches? If not, be thou silent in the presence of the great though they have yet to make their appearance or gain clearance to ascend as they intend.

A NORMAL LIFE

          A normal life isn’t the type that leads to greatness. Normal in fact is its nemesis, especially during the genesis when Destiny decides who will ride success’ heights. Then while others sleep, we work through the night, often against our wills because of what Destiny wants to reveal to others to help them discover their own potential.

          The task is compounded because we lack credentials other than uncommon courage and desire indomitable, the combination of which makes us formidable. Characteristically formidable is fundamental to success. Without this we will wish rather than work as we should, especially when circumstances stifle. But that’s when we should reload our rifles, metaphorically speaking, and become even more determined to obtain what we are seeking.

          So many people, though, let circumstances make them fold. Yet these same souls will watch the Olympics and ignore the template for success that they illustrate because every contestant endured something adverse solely for the opportunity to become great. In failing, however, the passive enthrone normal and berate the banal; indifferent to how their indifference controls both the channel and the flow of their lives.

         Others assert that it’s too late because they don’t know how to become vicariously great by supporting others in their dreams. Even so, life has innumerable schemes and designs that can help us achieve what we have in mind. Yet the character of a normal life we must first be willing to decline. If we do this and diligently persist, our gifts will grow and our talents will eventually show themselves, taking us we know not wheres!

If we don't fulfill our promise we owe others an apology.

        If we thought the impossible were so, life would cease. Yet none of us believes in the impossible.  We acknowledge it but we don’t believe in it. To believe in the impossible is to reject our passion. Yet our passion stirs us nightly and sustains us daily. The moment we believe in the impossible life passes. Only by rejecting its myth do we master.

A TIME

Where we end up doesn't always depend upon how we stand up to pressure, though it helps.

There is a time when we should listen to none. There is a time when wisdom fails and what follows should. There is a time when neither speech nor silence serves. There is a time when all that we know must be forgotten or at least foregone. When this is, however, is hard to say and foolish to force. Even so, it exists.

NO HELP

Those who would help must not be heaped with too much ease.

People praise courage but won't support it. They'll nod their heads and nudge you on but won't give a dollar to support your dream. Those who do often have only a dollar to give. But those with the goods sit and grin, seeing if you'll fold before favor falls. This, unfortunately, is the antagonism of greatness. It must endure the scorner's scoff and the dreamer's doubt before flourishing.

EXPOSED

Only the exposed can expound the excellence of greatness.

Exposure is crucial to success. Some people never succeed because of being sheltered. Often, average isn't the result of inadequate talent or even timidity. On the contrary, all of us are talented and most of us are determined. But many of us lack goals definite and endearing, the kind that self-compel. So we read carelesly and wander casually, doing little to enlarge our lives. Hence, no goals. We have no great thing to do.

By the time we do find something compelling to accomplish indifference devours. Thus, we muse but aren't mandated. We can do without it because we haven't been done adequately from within. Yet success requires exposure, and exposure requires involvement. True exposure means seething, soaking in the object to understand its quality. Otherwise we will live and die discretely, though having lived isn't enough. Life demands a commitment to excellence, moral or otherwise. Only mutants shun mastery.