Resolutions (Encore): (Keep Trying)
As I write this, I've just returned from three weeks of vacation. Because of bad weather, I spent a lot more time indoors than I expected. While I was hoping for more golf time, the weather did give me time to think. In particular, I spent time thinking about my resolution "to redouble my efforts to use what resources I have to make others feel better, live better." I thought about fears of the past, hopes for the future, plans for immediate action to accomplish my goal.
The more I thought about it the more I realized that my resolution, indeed all my resolutions, when boiled down to their essences, are the same. The most important thing to me, the most important advice I have to give, is never to give up. As I've argued before, we're only defeated when we concede defeat, we only lose when we stop trying. Making some effort, whether or not immediate results are achieved, whether or not any results are ever achieved, is the key to life. We can't keep going unless we are doing something, trying to achieve something, making an effort to accomplish some goal. The goal can be big or small, personal or professional, important or unimportant, but we need something to try for. Even if the effort is only to keep going, while we find worthwhile goals, while we find new ways to achieve our goals, the effort is life-giving.
I also thought about what keeps us from giving up, why do we keep trying, how do we keep trying. Why are some so willing to give up while others keep trying in the face of what might appear to be insurmountable obstacles, imposing barricades, advanced age, physical, mental or emotional problems? Is it something inborn or trained in some people and not others? Is there a virus that causes some to admit defeat? I thinks it's much simpler than all that. It may even be simplistic to say this, but the essence of continuing to make an effort is hope. As long as we have hope, no matter how faint, that our efforts will bring us something, we can keep trying. When we lose all hope, we stop trying; in fact, if I'm correct that trying is the key to life, when we lose hope, we lose life.
The good news is that we all can and should keep our hopes alive. We can all hope to achieve something. We may have to moderate our goals, we may have change paths, look for different lights, but there's something there for all of us. We need only to think about the strange things we see happening every day to know that we should feel hopeful. And we should all remember that the trying, the hope, is the real goal. As long as we keep moving, it doesn't matter whether we arrive.
To sum up, the only important goal is to keep going, to keep trying. In that way, we can all achieve our goals. As long we make an effort, we're alive and well and making progress.
1-31-05
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