Success & authentic effort

Failure is never the outcome of authentic effort.  Even if things go terribly awry & the objective is miserably missed, something always comes from making a genuine try, if only the knowledge you gave it your best.  Far from a bittersweet outcome, knowing you gave something your all, that you entered the arena & faced whatever opportunity for action had presented itself, hadn't held back - there is great power in knowing you've done all in pursuit of a worthwhile goal, even if you were knocked splat. 

Og Mandino talks about setting aside assumptions of experiencing failure, that "now I am prepared for wisdom and principles which will guide me out of the shadows into the sunlight of wealth, position & happiness."

Hmmmm...  Don't we act from principles, rather than toward them, as Og (Augustine!) describes? 

Never thought much before about how our actions develop reinforce establish our principles - and, from them, our values - rather than being rooted in them.  Layering.  I like layering. And texture & richness of color.  There is plenty of all that in the thought of our actions not just expressing our principles but nurturing them to fullness of being.

We cannot put out an authentic effort & end up with failure.  Okay, we didn't meet our objective.  What DID we gain? 

Over the past four days, the Democrats named Hillary Rodham Clinton to be its presidential candidate & she accepted.  Eight years ago, she suffered an abysmal loss when Barack Obama received the nod she'd expected.  After she went SPLAT! in the most public arena imaginable, she didn't hightail it out of there;  she stayed, called on her supporters to set aside their rancor & support the party's nominee, she campaigned for him, then served as his Secretary of State. 

Who knows her why - it doesn't matter.  What she did does.  She was present & willing to do what she could, even if it meant having to be - over & over & over - on the other side of the desk where she fought to sit. 



The past eight years have served HRC well in ways she could never have imagined.  In 2008,  only a small circle of friends, family, colleagues & Texans knew BRENE BROWN.  In 2016, countless millions - men & women - have learned about daring greatly & rising strong from her books & YouTube & TED Talks. 

Brene helps us put HRC in a different context then was remotely possible in 2008 - we can now recognize a veteran of the arena when we see her.

For her part, Hillary chose to learn humility rather than stock her fridge with ice cream & nurse her wounds.  I cannot imagine how she had to humble herself every time she entered the White House - and it wasn't HER house - every time she called her former political foe "Mr. President," every time she sat on the other side of the Oval Office desk. 

Hillary CHOSE to experience her loss at the polls as something other than failure.  As Og urges us to do, she rejected sensing it as failure & prepared herself, prepared herself for a second run through being of active service, instead of harboring a grudge against the man who dashed her dreams, against the nation that turned to him - the most unlikely candidate imaginable - rather than embracing her. 

"Failure no longer will be my payment for struggle...  In the past, I accepted it as I accepted pain.  Now I reject it & I am prepared for wisdom & principles which will guide me out of the shadows into the sunlight of wealth, position, and happiness far beyond my most extravagant dreams until even the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides will seem no more than my just reward."

Together, Og & Hillary (someone I've ALWAYS loathed but have come to realize deserves at least my respect for her heart & public service) are pointing me to a better path.  What I know in 2016 more clearly than ever before is that EVERY well-considered action, toward any worthy goal - however seemingly inconsequential or downright frivolous it might be - is imbued with success. 


I did not set out to write a blog post that includes Hillary Clinton.  That sure surprised me!  I was doing my first daily reading of Og's The World's Greatest Salesman when my brain hit PAUSE reading "Failure now longer will be my payment for struggle."  It was impossible to read what he wrote & not think about Hillary.  I am not a fan, but NO ONE in my experience more fully embodies finding success in even the most abject loss.  It was impossible to not think of her brushing herself off & staying in the public arena more determined, more capable, more resilient than before.

Never ever did I expect to say that I hope to be inspired by a woman I held in contempt for decades.  But it can't be avoided because Hillary deserves it - and so do I.  Here's to moving my own ball forward to brighter bigger better, recognizing that authentic effort always yields success!

"Only principles endure."

One thing that becomes clearer & clearer to me as years nip by - strip away the fluff, furor & fantasy from life & what remains are the principles which guide us. 

That is a sobering reality.

And we cannot be judges of the principles of others - any others.  We cannot even be assured that what we think are our own actually are.  They are our defining factor, yet we cannot know whether what we feel is core to our being, our values, our actions actually is what we sense it is.

All we can do, every day, is to do the best we can to be the best we can, within whatever circumstances present themselves.  To know the values we hope to embody & give our all to make that so.

 v

"Any act, with practice, becomes easy" - Aye, therein lies the rub!

Sadly, Og Mandino's words are woefully apt for so many things in my life.  Throughout my life, from earliest days to this very moment, I have, without thought to the outcome, chosen an easier path, given into a freakish fear of being a flat-out success, succumbed to the false meme that focus determination accomplishment are beyond my comprehension.  Succumbing, over & over & over, set that "but not you" mindset as a core default habit, rather than its opposite - the , focus fielding, shivering with excitement, adrenalin pumping "Bring it on !" attitude/action.

Find a way, every day, to live THAT belief, moving past & far beyond the never worked but feels so familiar wretched pattern.  

What we do over & over, with often unintentional practice, becomes easy.  What becomes easy becomes what we do over & over.  It then becomes habit.  And our habits rule our lives WAY more than our conscious mind. 

So, wake up, conscious mind!  There are dirty deeds afoot - dastardly habits that feel right but do great wrong  - that need the spotlight of my focus, the attention of my awareness, the white heat of my actions.  Let's shake up the status quo & transform it into status WOW! 

Resilience, adaptability, wisdom

It's always special fun when a blog post belongs on DreamReweaver ~AND~ older2elder.  Writing it here, will repost it there, because the three qualities I'm writing about - resilience, adaptability, wisdom - are core to an abundant life at any age, under any experience.

Got to thinking about those three nouns while reading (& rereading & rereading & rereading...) The Greatest Salesman in the World.  Scroll I talks about the importance of stepping away from the "handicap of meaningless experience," that the "value of experience is overrated," compares experience to fashion - "an action that proved successful today will be unworkable & impractical tomorrow."

Is experience meaningless, as fleeting & fickle as fashion?  The experience itself - yes.  What the experience teaches us - that lasts forever.  And, unlike the experience itself, is always changing growing expanding. 

Racking up all the credentials in the world doesn't make us the best at doing a task at hand.  That's determined by how we apply what we know.  Countless  brilliant minds earned high flying degrees & garnered accolades of academic excellence, but without the ability to adapt & apply what they've learned to real life situations - without that ability, all their acquired knowledge is just academic because what they learned no longer (or never did) apply.

The best we can hope for as we go through the formal education systems, as younger people go through, is to learn to keep a light hold on what we learned because it is going to change as the world changes, as WE hange.  What we hopefully picked up from all those term papers, tests, theses is how to be resilient, adaptable & apply what we learned along the way. 

Eight years ago, I taught at-risk high school students courses that lacked enough classroom books for each to have his or her own to read from, where there was NO expectation that students would purchase their own textbooks & the supplies necessary to do homework.  My students considered me a very peculiar teacher for how my tests were constructed(the questions were to constructed to educate), that class participation was a key component of their grade, that I gave Bs & As for their questions & comments & tossed a bag of Doritos to someone with a brilliant insight or inquiry.  Sure, I wanted them to learn certain facts, but it stumped them that way more than facts, I strove to teach them how to THINK, adapt, apply.  I hoped to instill some sense of resilience, adaptability, wisdom.

Knowledge itself has no value.  Ditto experience.  Wherever I taught, at BACS or DVHS or creativity workshops, the goal was & is to help others become  alchemists, taking what they know, what they experience, transforming it into something totally different from their original, individual state. 

Looking back, it's clear that my hope, my goal was for my students to gain the tools for being resilient, adaptable, wise.  Because Og Mandino is spot on - what works today might not tomorrow, so be open to seeing what does.

Our challenge, whatever our age, is to combine what we know & what we've experience into qualities that support resilience, adaptability, wisdom, which nurture sound principles, the things that truly guide us. 

Whether we are six or sixty, a tween or ancient, nurturing our sense of resilience & adaptability helps make us wise or just make us effective.  How we approach what we foster determines whether we bend toward good & wisdom or toward something else & unwise - however productive - principles.

Seems to me that what we bring to Life's bounteous table depends less on the schooling we got, the work & life experiences we had, than on being gifted alchemists, transforming all of what crosses our path into something so much more.  We are asked to constantly change so that we can connect with what works best today, even if it might have been a total flub last week.  We are called to release the allure of apparent certainty for a life of risk & reward, of transforming what works today into what is effective tomorrow. 

Resilience, adaptability, wisdom.  Og Mandino talks about a principled life bringing wealth "far beyond my most extravagant dreams until even the golden apples of the Garden of Hesperides will seem no more than my just reward."  To me, those three qualities - resilience, adaptability, wisdom - ARE those very golden apples, treasures beyond imagination that lead us to our truest self, our greatest prosperity.