Forgiveness and Rocks

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom." -Hannah Arendt

So how often have you walked around in life holding the pain of some past offense? Do you feel offended and carry it with you like a badge of honor, showing all the world your misery?

Why not let forgiveness enter your life and give you the power to move? Why not simply let it go?

We pull our wagon of rocks around ever increasingly heavy with the burden of real and perceived hurt. We just can't seem to let it go. The rocks pile ever higher in our world and our struggle to keep pulling the wagon gets worse and worse.

If we allow ourselves to forgive, inside our hearts and mind, then we are set free from our burden. It allows us to toss those rocks from our wagon and lighten the load that only we have allowed in our lives.

Give forgiveness to those and to yourself; move on in life.

Gathering Firewood

"Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control." -Richard Kline

As I drive the back roads of New England, driving to the office and back to the hotel, you see the preparation for winter taking place by humans. Their porches are stacked with cords of firewood. Long rows of cut and dried wood line the driveway alongside the garage. Small sheds are filled to the roof line with hard and seasoned firewood. The work required in preparation for winter has been long and hard.

Each of us know that preparing for something is essential in success. Success in making it through the winter by keeping your home warm. Success in presenting a business topic at a seminar. Success in having a great relationship or marriage. Success in raising your kids to be successful as well.

Some of us are better than others in preparing. Some of us over prepare to the point of obsession. While there are those that seem to do very little in preparing for something. For all of the preparing we do though, we have to remain confident in whatever amount of preparing we have done.

Confidence is key to pulling yourself through when you start to question the level of preparedness you have done. Without it, we will never see ourselves through to the end. Confident that you will make it through the tough winter that is part of the road to achieving a goal or vision.

Try to be prepared in all that you do. Be prepared at what ever level you feel good about. But most of all, be confident in the preparation that you have done. Be confident in yourself and see the success you will achieve.

Leap Into Darkness

Leaping Into Darkness - Sherly Nome

"We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success." -Henry David Thoreau

A friend of mine had an unfortunate accident recently. Given the fall weather and the colorful leaves that come with it, inevitably the rain gutters will fill with them. The job of cleaning those leaves before the snow and ice appear becomes necessary.

So not thinking twice, he placed his ladder up against the house and climbed. What you may have already guessed is that the ladder did not remain in an upright position. The bottom slipped out and from roughly eight feet in the air, gravity did the rest.

Luckily he landed on both feet, a perfect landing in gymnastic terms. But most of us are not well-tuned gymnasts and my friend suffered a compression fracture of his L2 Vertebrae. The diagnosis is good and it will take time to heal. For now he is in a Rehab Center learning how to do all of those things we take for granted on a daily basis; like getting out of bed.

It happens that I was in the area where he lives on a business trip. So after work, I had made the decision to go visit him. I thought that a nice card and some magazines to read would help fill his days. Flowers would have been useless to him, so "Mr. Sensible" me would have to find a magazine stand instead of a flower shop.

Since this is New England, the early darkness that comes in the fall had descended like a curtain over the tree-filled landscape. So with a printed map, a GPS map on my phone, the gathering darkness and having Myopia vision (really badly), off I went.

There was no real use in bringing the maps for I couldn't read them without my reading glasses. And to put on my reading glasses meant that I could not see out past the windshield wipers on the car. The GPS map on my phone was a blur of bright light in the darkness as well. But off into the darkness I went, with a goal in mind to see my friend.

Each of us reach a point in life when we find ourselves in a similar position. Our goal is out there, somewhere in front of us and we are running out of daylight. We are scrambling to keep up with the light, trying to get as far as we can. But sometimes we need to embrace the darkness and let our other senses guide us.

The darkness is not something to be feared, it is something that merely changes the way we need to approach things. The dark may take away my clear vision, but it heightens my thoughts, my hearing, and mind. All of these other senses come to life when the light goes away. They each seem to shout out "its my turn, my turn to shine and guide me to the destination."

You have the power of many senses inside that sometimes only the gathering darkness reveals. Use them and trust them to guide you in life. Your vision in the light of day is only one-fifth of the generally known senses. There are at least four others, which would make sight an even smaller portion of what is available to us.

Rely upon everything at your disposal and not just sight. Use touch, hearing and even smells to remind you of familiar things. You have a mind that can process so many different things that soon the mystery of darkness becomes non-mysterious. Soon the darkness becomes just another path to walk on your way to those goals you have in life.

I made it to see my friend, the darkness did not hold me back. Leap out into the darkness and find your way in life. The light will return to provide additional clarity, and reveal the greatness in your life.

Fourth Down and One

"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." -Unknown

The two teams were in overtime, playing a heated rivalry football game. The score was knotted together at twenty-three to twenty-three with plenty of momentum on one side. The offense had fallen upon a fourth down with less than one yard to go for the first down. The ball was on their own twenty-nine yard line.

Here the easy decision could have been simple, punt and wait for another chance. The hard decision though was to try and go for it. If they made the first down, momentum would have clearly swung their way. If they did not make it, the opposing team would have an easy field goal and win.

The teams lined up, excitement grew as the quarterback barked out the call. Huge men came crashing together trying to outdo the other as the running back took hold of the ball. Into the mix of bodies he went, trying to search out those few precious feet. To no avail, he was stopped short of the first down marker, short of the goal that would allow them to continue.

The opposing team had stopped them on "4th and 1" and went on to kick the game winning field goal. One team victorious and another defeated. All of this drama played out for a mere two or three feet.

Sometimes we get that close to our own goals in life. One, two or three feet is all that seperates us from achievement. As we make our final push to cross over that line, we get pushed back, defeated and rejected. It seems during those few moments that all is lost.

But not all is lost, there is hope, there is strength in knowledge of what went wrong. There is greatness in moving forward and trying again. The obstacles in life we face sometimes get the better of us. Even when we felt we were unstoppable, even when we had the greatest of confidence in our own ability, the opposition will win sometimes.

So you withdraw, replan and then reattack the goal. You jump back into it with new experience and understanding. You keep trying.