We Fail in the Execution

What is it that interferes with our success in life? All of the dreams we hold and plan for that do not come to pass are not simply unfulfilled due to their greatness. We have dreams that are possible, realistic and attainable - we should be able to see these things happen in our lives with care and planning.
The execution of these dreams is where we fall short. We fail to complete the details that make things happen in the daily grind of life. We become distracted and dismotivated by the every day chores and tasks that consume our time. We lose sight of the goal and therefore leave our dreams unfulfilled through our own inaction.
Realizing that our own actions day-to-day are the difference between accomplishment and failure can be enough to make the necessary changes. People are successful when they follow through and follow a directed path towards a specific destination. This journey will provide a measurable goal and allow us to realize progress as we go. Having no ability to measure progress can be discouraging and the likelihood of reaching a vague goal is next to nil.
We are not too small to accomplish great things; great things do, however, require consistent effort and attention to the execution.

"We are who we pretend to be..." - Kurt Vonnegut

It is often misunderstood in our western culture that saying or doing anything that is not exactly true to what you are immediately feeling and thinking is hypocritical. We prize frankness and even brutal honesty and justify it with, "Well, it's the truth!"

When I was approximately 4 years old I was with my mother at a bus stop. Waiting there with us was a heavyset woman. For some reason, which I cannot recall, I was inspired to speak up and say to this stranger, "You know, you are fat". My mother - horrified and embarrassed -  tried to stammer out an apology. The poor woman, however, handled it gracefully and said, "Yes, I know. I'm a nurse" (to this day I cannot understand her motivation for volunteering that extra bit of information). I instantly responded, "Well then, you should know better". My mother, now an intense shade of red, had her mouth opening and closing as she tried to think of some thing to say to repair the damage and could think of nothing. I will always remember the woman's response to me in her final remark: "Well, maybe I should, but you're a very rude little girl and you should know better." I was stung to the core! I was rude?! How could that be? I was merely speaking the truth!! 

Speaking something simply because it is the truth is not always going to ensure that you are in the right. It is not always necessary to speak up, especially when stating the obvious (as evidenced above). Not saying everything that is on our minds is not hypocritical. In fact, it should be emphasized. When an emotion or thought has flitted into our silly human head it does not need to fall just as suddenly out of our mouths. 

Maintaining relationships (not merely of the romantic nature - any sort of human interaction) requires awareness of other's feelings and thoughts. We always attempt to portray our 'best' self when we are attempting to impress someone or to those we have just met. At work we portray our 'professional' self. In each setting it may be necessary to filter and define the self that we present. I do no see that this is hypocritical. It is however, something that is largely unknown in our society these days - practicing self-control. Are we not multi-faceted? The many facets of a diamond do not make it less a diamond, they simply display it to it's best advantage. That is what we must also do in life with our own presentation by practicing self-control.. 

Kurt Vonnegut, in his book Mother Night, is often quoted, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be". We are the culmination of what we portray.

If we strive to appear to be as we wish to be, so we will become.

The Law of Gravity

Not even a silly person is going to argue against the Law of Gravity. It's the glue that holds our butts to this blessed, green sod. Its presence is clearly demonstrated by every object on this globe and without it we'd be mucking about in space.

Isaac Newton was the clever chap that first made sense out of things consistently falling down; but the truth of the matter is, being aware of gravity didn't change a thing. Gravity is the same as when humans were all blissfully ignorant of the phenomenon and simply took for granted that when you dropped a brick it would land on your toe and not bop you in the nose. I am pretty certain that most of average intelligence understood that the weight of the object was proportionate to the mass of the object. Hence dropping a quarter on your toe would not be as regrettable. Science has truly made an art out of putting new words to old ideas and making it into something new. So, thanks Isaac, for putting a name to the face we were all familiar with.

Hold your ground, you nut!

"The greatest oak was once a little nut that held his ground." - unknown

At some point you have to decide it's worth the fight. Whatever it may be that you feel is worth your time and energy (your most valuable resources), make sure that when you look back on it you will at least know that you did your best with what knowledge you had at the time. Most of us don't want to admit to ourselves that we are complacently skating through life and would deny it if asked, but I know that there are days that I have wasted to complacency. Where is my ambition and drive on those days? If I died tomorrow and had only what I have done up till this point in life, what would my obituary say in regards to my successes? I think all I have created would amount to a nicely worded paragraph of...nothing.
I have yet to choose what I will fight for, so am fighting for nothing and that's what I've accomplished so far. Without a defined aim to guide me I have wandered in useless paths and made no progress in reaching a destination of hope. Complacent to just survive till the next sunrise, to do what when it arrives?
Discover what you love, make it what you do...and hold your ground, you nuts!

Regret vs. Nostalgia

The past is such a useful thing; it defines us in the choices we've made, mistakes and glories alike. Our failures hopefully teach us, our victories prove that we have learned. But at what point is revelling in the past a dangerous or harmful endeavor? Looking back and feeling shame and regret at our past actions helps us to move forward into the future with stronger resolve to do better, be better. But wallowing in sadness over our regrets leads simply to despair over the fact that we can do nothing to change the past.
It is unavoidable to have regrets. Those who say they have none fool themselves but noone else. Every day we make choices; whether we put forth the effort to make them consciously or allow them to be made on our behalf. These choices define who we are much more than any label of political or religious definition. We are what we do. The past is our record of what has been done and who we were at that time, but does not limit who we will become.
Conserve your energies, do not regret without hope for the morrow, instead plan and decide with conviction where you will aim your passions and work every moment of every day to make your life a worthy cause.

Every day journey

     I have this image of stepping out of my skin, unzipping it maybe from some unseen seam and shrugging it off like a well-worn bathrobe. Maybe by taking it off and laundering it I can remove the grime and filth that has gotten underneath and inside of it. I want to wash it out, clean it until it squeeks that way that clean things do. I'd find a clothesline in the sun and let the fresh breeze slowly blow it dry. Putting it on again would be like a rebirth; like that feeling you get when you have finally finished unpacking from a big move and the clean sheets are on the bed, you lay down and stretch out and wiggle your toes and everything is where it should be.
     But I am stuck inside this draping of humanity that feels more and more contaminated every day by my actions and deeds. I lug it around through the filth and stink that is life and can never quite seem to rid it of the odors that permeate. The constant lingering of stink reminds me that I really don't start anew every day as some would suggest; I start from where I left off the day before. No mythical creature comes in the night to erase my transgressions from memory or happenings. When I awake it is with the knowledge that I am the same bag of flesh that crawled into my bed the night before. This knowledge I have gained has come at a great price and the transaction cannot be refunded. Each day there are different choices that lead down paths and avenues leading to incompatible places which have new roads to choose from, we can never travel the same path twice and cannot return to where we have been. Onward we must go until the inevitable end.

Self-Awareness

It's hard to say at what point I became aware of myself as a separate and independent human being. I remember at eight years old sitting in the back seat of my parents car that I had an illumination about how big the world was, and how small a part of it I was. I was looking out into the sea of cars that were driving past and saw the people caught up in their activities, busy about their lives and realized with a thud that not one of those people had any idea what I was doing right then...and even more, none of them cared. My life, which to me was so consuming and important, had no impact on the people that lived right next door to me. I was so floored by my realizations that I felt like I was shrinking right into my seat, shrinking even smaller until the universe was overwhelmingly awesome around me that I couldn't even be worthy to be on this small dot within it. I was a speck on a dot, and no one but the few people I interacted with on a day to day basis, my parents and family, would even notice if I one day just took a leap off of it and vanished; life would go on and another would take my place. All of these specks coexist and blend together to make a daily life that is so fast and devouring that we hardly have time to appreciate the grandeur of our existence and the absolute irony of it. Life seemed so short and precarious as I pondered it that day.