There is a formula to progress and success. It pretty much reads: Try. Fail. Examine. Refine. Try Again. Fail Again (but having gained inches, even feet, of progress). And so, Examine. Refine. Try Again. Repeat.
The point is that we never give up. We get back up. We try again. But every time we try again, we don’t just do the same thing, we don’t just do things the same way. The very definition of insanity, as Einstein would state, “is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” No. We examine where we went wrong. We examine how we could do better. We examine with curiosity, and without judgement. And from that we make changes, corrections, and apply. So go on. Fail.
“You are not something that is the result of the big bang; on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are.”
Buckminster Fuller has said that change is never made by fighting the existing reality. In order for real, true, and lasting change to occur, we need to build ourselvesanew model that make the existing model obsolete. What I essentially take from this is that if I want my life to change, if I want it to be different, and different for the better compared to what it is currently is, I need to focus on how those difference I am in hard-working pursuit of, make these easily acquired comforts of today pale in comparison. I need to convince myself that the efforts required of change beat out the comforts of complacency; that the possibilities of tomorrow are a greater reward than the realities of today.
This world is one of consumerism. It has been re-shape. Its obstacles, its depths and heights, have been re-arranged in order to ease the individuals that live within it into consumerism and complacency. We have been re-shaped to think that we can exchange money for happiness, buy safety, purchase our health. This could not be further from the truth. We need to stop consuming, and we need to start creating. We need to create happiness, build an environment that makes us feel safe, and act purposefully in health.
” …and this letting go is of course going to be uncomfortable…normally, in our school systems, you don’t find the subject ‘how to let go.’ You find the subject ‘how to get more.’”
“No matter what happens, keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you find that you have accomplished a purpose—not the one you began with, perhaps, but one that you will be glad to remember.”
how often do we dismantle what we have build, do we start again, so that we may build it stronger, better, more properly? Sometime this is by choice. Sometimes we feel forced to do so; a reluctant necessary. Going backwards, starting again, is often viewed with such negativity. We demand of ourselves such perfection. Starting over, setbacks, correcting mistakes, they are so often viewed with such shame and fear and sense of waste.
Perhaps it reminds us too much of our childhood, of youthful inexperience, when such a task was normal. How often were we told to go back and try again when we didn’t get it right the first time. How often were we told to do it again, and this time properly when we rushed it, did it carelessly. How often did we come to the wrong conclusion and have to trace ours steps backwards to where we made the mistake that cascaded through the sequence after. This was normal. We were learning.
We ARE learning. ALWAYS learning. Or have we stopped learning? have we stopped taking the risks of learning? Those actions associated with the possibility of mistakes? When was the last time you made a mistake? When was the last time you viewed your mistakes as simply learning? When was the last time you took that mistake and traced it back to where it went wrong and started over from there?
Never forget that growth and progressive movement comes with risk; comes with the risk of mistakes, comes with the need to move backward in order to move forward. Never be ashamed or afraid of this, for this IS growth, this IS progress, this IS success.
Dear Me, 