Guides and Redeemers

 

A man is relieved and happy when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said and done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse must be friends; no invention; no hope.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

What does it mean to do and being the best in all that we do? We live in a society today that is much different than the fifty years ago, thirty years ago, or even twenty years ago. I grew up in a large extended family in Germany, where it was not just taught, but expected to do ones best. My grandparents held minor league middle working class jobs. My grandmother worked at the military base launderette and my grandfather was lovinging called “the candy man”, as he filled candy and various snack vending machines around the base. I highly doubt that either of these jobs were their ideal dream jobs that they daydreamed about as children, but it was a job and they were proud of the jobs they both did.

Those were the days that people were loyal to their company and stuck around for the long haul, regardless of the position. They were the days that people took pride in what they did, whether it was being a laundry attendant, vending machine filler or flipping burgers at the local snack bar. People took pride in what they did, and did their jobs to the best of their abilities. It was a matter of personal pride.

How often do we go through the drive thru at a fast food restaurant to find the food service worker is less than pleasant, giving the distinct air of how miserable they are to be there? Why should we have to suffer their life choices and their inability to cope with them in a healthy manner? The bottom line is, we shouldn’t. Nor should people take on that attitude. It makes everyone involved miserable. Most of us have to work because it provides us with income that we need to make our living. We have to be at work on average about forty hours a week, more or less. You are there anyway- so why not choose to take pride in what you do and try your best to enjoy it. Whether you are an executive, flipping burgers or anything in between, you have a choice to make the best of any situation. If you work at KFC, be the best at frying chicken so at the end of the day you can have pride knowing that you have done your best. The key is to do your best at whatever you do and wherever you go.

Attitude can take you far- straight to the bottom or straight to the top. They choice is always up to you. People notice your attitude and how they felt being around you. It is ones imperative duty as a member of society to make the right choices and lead by example. Let your life be a message to others and your actions a legacy that others will be inspired to carry on. It does not have to be a grand thing you do, often rest in the simplest of statements of taking pride in the self, doing a good job and being kind. You are responsible for the energy you bring into a room. It is up to you whether you leave the energy better or worse than before you entered it. The good examples of humanity are fading all around us and it is up to us to take on the cause, before everyone forgets what it was like and we live in a world of mediocrity and unhappiness. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “we must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the almighty effort, and advancing on chaos and the Dark.”

Every moment is a fresh beginning

The Fool finds himself at ground zero of life. But Far from being sad or frustrated by having to start over, however, the fool feels remarkably free, light hearted and refreshed, as if being given a second chance. The fool chooses this state of mind over the alternative.

 

Just as life unfolds with utmost uncertainty at times, the fool has no idea where they're going or what they're going to do. But that doesn't matter. For the Fool, the most important thing is to just go out and enjoy the world. To see what there is to see and delight in all of it. To be present and live in the moment reveling in all of its endless opportunity and beauty.

I wind my Victrola today with a bit of T. S. Eliot and a reminder to live every moment happily and without regret.

The Cocktail Party

-T.S.. Eliot, 1949

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are.
You will find that you survive humiliation
And that's an experience of incalculable value.

That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost
The desires for all that was most dersirable,
Before you are contented with what you can desire;
Before you know what is left to be desired;
And you go on wishing that you could desire
What desire has left behind. But you cannot understand.
How could you understand what it is to feel old?

We die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

What is hell? Hell is oneself.
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.

There are several symptoms
Which must occur together, and to a marked degree,
To qualify a patient for my sanitorium:
And one of them is an honest mind. That is one of the causes of their suffering.

To men of a certain type
The suspicion that they are incapable of loving
Is as disturbing to their self-esteem
As, in cruder men, the fear of impotence.

I should really like to think there's something wrong with me —
Because, if there isn't then there's something wrong,
Or at least, very different from what it seemed to be,
With the world itself — and that's much more frightening!

Everyone's alone — or so it seems to me.
They make noises, and think they are talking to each other;
They make faces, and think they understand each other.
And I'm sure they don't. Is that a delusion?

Can we only love
Something created in our own imaginations?
Are we all in fact unloving and unloveable?
Then one is alone, and if one is alone
Then lover and beloved are equally unreal
And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams.

I shall be left with the inconsolable memory
Of the treasure I went into the forest to find
And never found, and which was not there
And is perhaps not anywhere? But if not anywhere
Why do I feel guilty at not having found it?

Disillusion can become itself an illusion
If we rest in it.

Two people who know they do not understand each other,
Breeding children whom they do not understand
And who will never understand them.

There is another way, if you have the courage.
The first I could describe in familiar terms
Because you have seen it, as we all have seen it,
Illustrated, more or less, in lives of those about us.
The second is unknown, and so requires faith —
The kind of faith that issues from despair.
The destination cannot be described;
You will know very little until you get there;
You will journey blind. But the way leads towards possession
Of what you have sought for in the wrong place.

We must always take risks. That is our destiny.

If we all were judged according to the consequences
Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention
And beyond our limited understanding
Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.

Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.

Every moment is a fresh beginning.

The Gift of Faiure

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. 

It lies in having no goal to reach.

 

It is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is 

a disgrace not to have any stars to reach.

 

Not failure, but low aim, is the real sin.

 

                  –Benjamin Mays via Pablo Eisenberg

 

 

What another great way to view our failures in life. One should rather have failed a million times over- in attempts to reach a goal or a dream, than to never have had a goal in mind. Failure is proof that one has gotten up and tried. Repeated failure is proof that of how strong an individual can be and how motivated and driven they are.

My best lesson in failure brings me back to my first years of College and that pesky ole College Algebra they find it necessary to make you take.  I have always done relatively well in school with mostly A’s and B’s….until it came to Algebra- my arch nemesis (and still is to this day).  First they made me take Math 97 – a class to prep you for Math 99- the precursor for College Algebra. I struggled through Math 97 and made a D. By struggled- I mean endured endless hours of study and practice and showing up on Saturdays for help and review of the week’s lesson.

Math 99 was the same. About five or six extra books on the subject from Barnes and Noble- Algebra for Dummies, etc. I went online to high school and middle school math sites for better comprehension and easier examples (as my comprehension was MIA). I did practice questions online, from the book, you name it. Attended every class and review session. I passed the class with a B- but failed the required separate exit exam. I was required to repeat the course the next semester.

Math 99 round two. Same thing as round one. Practice, tutors (4 different ones- two on campus and two non campus -one who was a high school Algebra Teacher and one from GA Tech) to help me wrap my mind around the subject. NADA. I could recite the formulas- but when applied to an equation- the answer was wrong nine out of ten times.  Writing this is currently giving me flashbacks of me crying on the floor four hours on end. There seemed to be no solution to my problem.  With endless practice and positive affirmations each day- I passed with a D. Then onto the next.

College Algebra- here we go again. Same thing. Struggle after struggle. I showed up each day, sat at the front of the class, asked questions, stayed late and attended tutorial sessions. To pass this class you had to have a D. I was one point below passing- with my F in hand I felt miserable. To my surprise- my professor gave me that extra point that let me pass. He saw how frustrated I had been, yet completely dedicated.

 I had tried to reach that goal and it was NOT easy by any means.  I just did not understand the point, and didn’t for many years.  But nowadays I see that point had nothing to do with me learning Algebra. It was me setting the goal to pass those classes no matter what and no matter how hard it was. I was facing academic probation- and in that - losing my identity as a good student.  This went on for an entire year and a half. Finally when it was all said and done- I am glad I hung in there. I wouldn’t want to repeat it- but I would if I had to. Passing those classes allowed me to move forward and cultivate myself in wonderfully interesting subjects. I am quite proud for hanging in there. And even though I feel that I have technically been taught more on the subject than most- I still probably couldn’t solve an equation if millions of dollars were on the line.

Failure was a gift for me. It proved how strong I was in the midst of constant defeat for that year and a half straight. So I look back on those failures and smile (with one eye twitching of course)!  I had a goal and I did not quit.  Much more respectable than no goals at all! So love your failures- there are lessons in them if you look hard enough. SO here’s to failure- because it’s not all a bad thing!