The 800-pound gorilla -- aka The connection we're not making...

There was a cartoon that I saw many years ago. There were 4 hobos (former entrepreneurs) sitting against a dumpster, sharing a bottle of whiskey. One suggests to the others, "Maybe we should all just get jobs"...

Then there was silence.

Finally another hobo responded, "What -- and ADMIT that we are failures?"...

I also remember an interview given by Micheal J Fox, who recalled his early days of sharing a 1 room apartment with 12 other wannabe actors, eating only macaroni and cheese for over 2 years before finally getting a long-term paying gig, enabling him to finally get his own apartment.

Or the story of Edison, who supposedly "failed" at making at light bulb 10,000 times before finally getting it right...

Knowing when to persist and when to give up or change direction is part of the crap shoot that I think Ross spoke of. Like the treasure hunter who single handedly digs for 3 weeks straight, a 90 foot deep hole. He almost gave up at the 10 foot mark... but kept going to 20. Then 30. Then 70... but gives up at 90...

and walks away.

An onlooker picks up a shovel, climbs into the same hole, and hits the treasure at the 91 foot mark...


It's part of the game -- the persistence, but doing what you can with the resources you have and making decisions based on the information and experience you have at the time.

And while you are striving, you are keeping your yes on the prize, ducking when you need to duck, picking up speed, slowing down, hiring experts for what you can't do yet on your own, researching, going new directions, making u-turns, backing up, regrouping, changing lanes... but always being driven from a place of wanting to improve, considering and knowing that every step is a success because of the gift of the lesson, the clue, the progress, or the change in perception that comes with it.

I don't know where you are at... Maybe you are in a 1 room apartment eating macaroni and cheese. Or maybe you are at the 90 foot mark in your self-dug hole, searching for your treasure.

Sometimes the success is that you strived, without being concerned of how Harry Anderson thinks of you. He may have a nice bank account, but do you know if Harry is truly happy?
As Ross kinda said, you have to do it for you. No one else but you.


Remember Richard Cory?

*****************
Richard Cory
By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

**********************************


Is Harry a success because he made it in the "real world"? I remember reading that Elvis Presley, as a child, didn't know he was "poor" until he was in the 5th grade, when he met another kid with his own room, and his own radio.

And that bumblebees, due to the engineering of their wings and disproportionate body structure, aren't supposed to be able to fly. But they can and do, probably cause no ones ever told them otherwise.

I think someone is a "success" when they truly believe that they are... and at that point, the success will grow and it will spill into other areas of your life and as your focus and thoughts change, your words will change, your outlook and dimeanor will change, and eventually others will notice and percieve these changes, and maybe even percieve that you are successful -- and you won't seek validation.

But for what it's worth, I think you are a success. You've observed and experienced and learned something that you have shared with us, generating others to think and to share their perceptions and views and thoughts as well...