Tag Archives: pitfalls

Make Your Mark…Then Move It

“I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.”– Robert Downey Jr.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”– Joseph Campbell

Neat stacks and tidy rows. Organized uniformity. Controlled outcomes and throttled variables. Just the sound of the phrases evokes a soothing sense of inner peace.

Unfortunately, that’s not the game, and those aren’t the rules.

We live in a perpetual Indiana Jones boulder chase world, and the only constant is a complete lack of command over where and when those pitfalls break free from their hiding places to surprise us with a spiky slip into an unlucky situation.

Instead of a laser-locked focus on permanence, maybe the best we can hope for is a clear footprint, created from a confident plant of our boots in the mud, ready to be washed away with the next day’s rain. We don’t necessarily need ownership of a name remembered for generations, but making a mark is an important pursuit, even if it’s a daily one.

Navigating social media scoreboards and spinning inside a constant comparison culture can diminish individual victories and discount incremental gains by shining a brighter light on the checkered flag than the gravel on the ground. But reaching any finish line is accomplished by first taking one step, and then another.

Humans exist inside the center of a dynamic tornado. We spend the majority of our waking moments dodging the debris. There is only here and there is only now.

Celebrate your wins. Recognize the effort required. Take stock. Plant your flag…and then move it.

Adolescence Interrupted

Turning Tables

table3

Find me a streak of consistency and I’ll show you how quickly presumption becomes disbelief. As I’ve stated many times in this collection of musings, the only constant is change. When we feel like we’re clutching the frayed end of a rope with our last knuckle, that same line is used to pull us from the pit. Dark days are followed by sunny opportunities and the ever-evolving journey of human existence continues on its path, pushed only by a vague sense of purpose, happenstance, and luck. But hold on for that final loop because it just might be the ride that reveals what you needed to see.

A combination of opportunity and rewards from past behavior have united to alter the landscape of what I previously thought was a smooth passageway beneath the mountains, through the valley. I like my roads traversed—the brush beaten—to offer an unobstructed view and the absence of pitfalls. But without risk, there is no reward, and the flatline life, in all its predictability, neither challenges the mind nor nurtures the soul. So a lot of stress and a little shaking of the Yahtzee dice flipped my table on its top. I stepped to the edge of the unknown and jumped.

What the future has in store is heavy with potential and the hope of a portrait painted with fresh colors is no longer conjecture, but fact. I’ve saddled my steed and strapped in for the long haul. Through collaborative effort and a discerning view of the map at my feet, I’m finally able to grip the reigns of my future and steer.

Adolescence Interrupted