It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
-Confucius
I have stated on many occasions the importance of “The Journey”. Where life is lived and experiences are gained. Never underestimate the importance of the journey. Journeys do not start themselves, it takes desire, your desire. We all need to have a very clear understanding of where our journey is taking us or where we want it to take us. We all strive to reach goals, possibly long reaching, highly desirable goals. Those, goals of a lifetime type of goals. I will never discourage one from such personal endeavors.
Life is way to short to not reach for the stars. Such goals are as personal as the DNA that identifies each of us as unique among the almost 8 billion fellow humans. So how does one find the motivation they seek to reach for these goals and begin the journey? Do we simply follow the course of others reaching for such goals?
This is where the age old adage, “don’t reinvent the wheel” may just be wrong. It may very well be advisable, even necessary to reinvent the wheel. Not just any wheel, but your wheel. This mystical wheel is not a one size fits all. More like a one size fits one person kind of wheel. If we are unique, and our goals are unique, than it goes without saying, our motivation has to be unique.
Obviously, setting here writing this from the thoughts and experiences of my own life, I can only speak for myself when I say; keeping a constant effort of motivation is hard, it’s damn hard. Sometimes I think it is impossible. We are only human, at least that is what I tell myself when the motivation turns to black thick tar and I can’t seem to even move let alone get motivated.
Except Failure
There is one thing that seems to drive the death spike into motivation. That one thing is failure. Not necessarily big giant failures, though those can happen. But possible worse, small failures, and lots of them. Sometimes one after another after another. Failure can be a sneaky thing. It will trick you every chance it gets. Failures, in my humble opinion are the single most powerful learning experience we can have. Instead of being discouraged by them we need to learn to embrace them. Your dreams are not given to you, you must forge them. Forged from your strengths, experiences, and attitude.
Never Give Up
In the process of excepting failure where does that put us? Are we trying to build our wheel with no parts? Luckily that is not the case. We have the parts, use the parts, heck we know everything about the parts, we even created them. The parts are our desires, aspirations, yearnings, and dreams. In other words, the are us and we are them. One in the same.
This is not a psychological circle, it is simply the facts of life. I don’t know anything about anybody else’s motivations, I simply know my own. But as a fellow traveler on this third rock from the sun I will bet all I have that I am right about this.
Own Your Dreams
Your dreams, whatever they are, are the driving force that makes you reach for those distant seemingly unreachable goals. Those reaches will be your journey every step along the way. It is far to easy to give up. Is it because we are lazy and simply don’t want to work hard? Are we discouraged to a point of giving up? Or are we too comfortable with the mediocre? If I had to choose one I would go with, we are too comfortable with the mediocre. If mediocre is what you desire than great. But I simple can not believe most people are content with a ho-hum life. Just getting by, doing what is necessary and no more. I believe we get in our daily rut of comfort and stay there, sometimes for our entire life. Your dreams, desires, your life the way you want it to be must be stronger. No, that is not easy, nor should it be.
Nothing is final until you quite. Failures are not final, quitting is.
If you think you can do it, you can.
-John Burroughs
Life In The Prairies | ©Brad Mangas
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