You Are A Soldier: Failure and Success

Some people spend their entire lives inside of a shell of fear. There are many things they desire but don't seek simply because the idea of failure looms so heavily that the reward of success seems impossible. While this may be safe and predictable it sure doesn't help anybody acheive their goals. Reaching for things may end with burnt fingertips but not reaching for them always ends with nothing. Even when you don't win whatever prize you are after you must remember that it is our wounds that teach us how to be better fighters, how to build stronger armour, how to swim faster and jump higher. Those failures aren't actually failures at all. Failures are what we use to sharpen our blade so that when that same foe presents itself again we are more prepared.  After all, how can we ever know what we are capable of if we never go for it?


If you look into the mirror everyday and see the same person staring back at you then you are not taking enough risks. We are all soldiers on the battlefield of life. Each lesson learned, each new piece of information retained, every victory, every failure is another badge added to the very fabric of us. No great thing was ever accomplished accidentally. You must learn to be proactive and seek with as much fervency as you yearn with. When you look at yourself in the mirror stand proud of the badges you've earned...every single one of them. With everyday and every chance you take you are building an even better version of yourself. You must make the choice as a soldier on life's battlefield, to never stop pursuing your best because if you don't then your best will never find you. And if you fall short of your goals, use the experience to build a taller ladder.  You are the answer to your own questions. You are the secret to your own success.  Let life in, it is not a spectator sport.  Nobody ever scored a touchdown from the bleachers.  Now go take some chances. Don't be just a private...be a lieutenant, be a five star general.

Life Is An Ocean: Float or Splash?

    A human life is a timeline which, even in it's most basic form, cannot be defined with any certainty.  Any person cannot know where the ripples of their existence begin or end.  The choices we make directly correlate to the size of those ripples so, removing any spirituality from the equation, a person has the ability to create ripples that linger on for many, many years after their passing.  People in history, like Martin Luther King Jr. for instance, created such enormous ripples, waves really, that they may have very well earned themselves immortality.  An abusive parent may die but the ripples of their choices and actions may live on in their children for substantial amounts of time and may even be passed down generations.

    If you consider life in this way, as though it is an ocean, you can begin to miagine the ripple as you dip your toe in and the increase in size as you flail about in the midst of some unexpected calamity.  On the other end of the spectrum, ripples created as a measure of compassion may be what it takes to push a plank of wood towards a stranger who would have otherwise drown.
    For some, there are no ripples made.  They float comfortably along on sailboats, moved only by brisk and uncontrollable winds.  They never learn how to swim life's ocean.  Their bodies never feel the cold surprise of the water that surrounds them.  There are others whomake small ripples.  The kind which reach out tiny, metphorical arms to grab at things that exist just barely beyond their reach.
    And then there are the splashers, the ones whose movements can be felt from miles away.  Every splash made with the knowledge that at any moment a shark may pull them under or they may swallow too much water.  The splashers have courage.  They choose to participate in their lives, even if at times it is to their own detriment.  Splashers may not always wind up in the history books but generally live lives full of excitement, passion, and ambition.  They always know their capabilities because they do not harbor questions, they seek out answers. 
    So as you drift along on the ocean of life, ask yourself...have you ever welcomed the icy fingers of the water?  What size are the ripples you're making?

The Risk in Dreaming and The Success in Effort

Ambition. Ambition, I believe, is the single most important possession one can grasp. Defined, it is an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment. Ambition is what seperates success from complacency. Now, in the interest of clarification, success in my opinion is not necessarily the obtaining of all of one's dreams. It is not wealth or even happiness. I am a person who sees the success in effort. Effort is a beautiful thing, one that seems to be lost in today's society and without it we lose our ability to acheive our aspirations. It may sound painfully obvious but think about it. How much effort does it take to continue doing the same things day in and out, over and over again? It may be tedious, granted. It may be boring, but being bored doesn't expend a very impeding degree of effort. As was said by Ortega y Gasset, "Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt."

We have been placed in a room full of questions without answers. And though we possess an interest in knowing the answers to those questions we do not possess the ambition to seek them. They say that youth is wasted on the young but, in turn, couldn't it be said that wisdom is wasted on the old? It seems that a lot of times once we are blindingly aware of our own potential, of all of the things we "could have" done, we assume that the opportunity is gone and that we must now settle for a sub standard existence in the company of all of those regrets. I passionately disagree. To seek what you dream of all you need is passion, ambition, and.....effort. Your age is irrelevant. I can't promise that it will all work out but I can promise that it will feel great to rekindle the fire of hope. Everytime you fail you are learning one more way how not to do something which is useful information to and of itself. Which is why I believe there to be so much success in effort. I believe we are capable of so much more than we give ourselves the chance to see. Not to say that we should all be presidents or cure cancer or aspire to some sort of unrealistic perfection. Even the smallest dreams are worth pursuing. Our dreams can sit in us either as a badge of fond pride or as a dagger of futility and regret. The most amazing part of a human being is his ability and desire to seek. Sometimes it seems that the part of us that dreams is smothered by our habits and the desire we possess to assimilate. What begins in us as an undeniable, bellowing, eardrum shattering scream is eventually drown out by our equally loud and powerful fear of failure.

And that's really what it all comes to...fear. If we can predict our lives based on repetition, then we can protect ourselves from hurt. In other words if we do what we have always done, then most likely we will continue to get the same result. By removing the risk of the unknown we, quite successfully, keep ourselves safe. The reality is though that when you remove the risk of the unknown what you are keeping yourself from is not always pain and hurt and failure. The good stuff goes, too. So never stop believing in the power you possess to accomplish your goals and desires. Dream with reckless abandon. You can pursue carefully and thoughtfully but do not ever completely remove the risk. Risk is the birthplace of the unexpected and the soil where we plant our dreams. Without it they have nowhere to sprout roots and grow.