The greatest lessons of life
are not learned through frustrated resignation; the greatest gains of life are not made
through force, but in patient, creative searching for the missing thought, the
unseemly solution, the misguided placement.
When you fail 15 times, back up to the point where you know you were
successful or maybe just a bit further.
Back up to where you had a choice of actions or attitudes and try a
different path. If you can, back up to
where you had many choices and look again.
It took 40 tries to come up
with WD40. But it is one of the most
fascinatingly useful products on the market, and has been for 60 years. I’m glad someone invented it. The only way you will live life without
failing 15 times is to walk away from the problem before you solve it. You
won’t always fail 15 times. Ask yourself
what is your solution; what is your WD40.
There are things that are just not worth 40 tries –even for my
mind. There are times to walk away, but
not many. Maybe it doesn’t really matter
at all, but you wouldn’t feel that frustration at the loss if it didn’t really
matter at all. Just maybe learning that
you will succeed is as valuable as any other outcome in the challenge.
There are times when it
seems there is no solution to the problem we or others have created in our
world. That is very seldom true if we
will just look again. At times I have
thought “I had only one choice of action and that was not a good or effective
choice.” I think I have looked at every
aspect of the problem, but coming from a new direction, I see how many choices
I denied by choosing one course of action.
Often the quick, intuitive
choices are the best that can be made; but far down the trail, sometimes I find
they were not. I may not even know what
choices I had until I retrace my steps a good ways. I may not be able to change
the choice I made, but I can see the problem in a new light and apply a new
solution at my present juncture.
Sometimes it is a ‘we’
thing; sometimes it is a ‘me’ thing; sometimes it is a ‘you’ thing. The greatest wisdom is seeing the problem and
the possibilities. Honestly, at times, it does not matter whether we succeed or
not, but it is what we take away from the conflict that effects the rest of our
lives. Quitting early may leave us
unprepared for the greatest opportunity or test of our lives.
There are times I’d just
rather delete the challenge from my personal programming and deem it a
worthless endeavor. What does it matter
if I am 98% successful or 99% successful at over 3000 games of
solitaire? I tried; I survived; I moved
on. But in my years, I have found that
the problem will come again with a new face, a new name, a new
opportunity. The old antagonist brings
the same frustration: the challenge is the same; the fears are the same; the solution
is right beyond my grasp. Yet I have
learned that as many times as I play solitaire, there is a solution, though it
evades me 15 times. I can succeed if I
keep trying. Maybe a tricky game of
solitaire isn’t worth the time I spend to solve it. Maybe the lesson I learn is. I’m not really talking about solitaire.
Hang in there, walk away,
look at something else for a time and then look again.
