Resolve...

I have been told that overcoming obstacles is the first step on the journey to success, which also explains why so few attain anything like success, at least as narrowly defined in our culture. My online dictionary has as its primary definition the following: the accomplishment of an aim, or purpose. Ah, me, missed it again. It seems as though I, and a great number of others, define success by the pennies left over after the aim, or purpose is accomplished. And isn't it fair to, well, want to have some measurement by which to gauge the extent of one's success?

Maybe. Having been on the money losing side on more than my share of business deals, I am painfully aware of how a good, even GREAT project can become your worst nightmare when that one measuring stick is applied. Who's going to pay the bills? What will I do if the next one fails, and so it goes. Fear creeps in, causing paralysis, indecision, second guessing. I've been there. You, too?

But I am trying to redefine success, at least for my own peace of mind. What if I NEVER end up on the upside of a project again? What then? I have imagined every possible scenario, from giving up completely, to picking myself up, dusting the disaapointment off my clothes and moving on to the next thing. I like the last the best. Do you? I suspect it is true in all of life, not just in the business end of things.

So what is the magic sauce that makes us successful? Not rich, or even loved, but delivers into our hands " the accomplishment of an aim, or purpose." Perhaps it is in the trying that we succeed. Saint Francis of Assisi said this:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; (he says nothing about the quality of the music)
where there is hatred, let me sow love; (sowing love is not harvesting)
where there is injury, pardon; (forgiveness is hard work and doesn't come easily)
where there is doubt, faith; (putting our doubt on the line often increases our faith!)
where there is despair, hope; (and so it goes)
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Success, at least as defined here, is doing the opposite of what we normally do. By going against our tendancy to give up, our resolve must be to see through the darkness and into the glaring and often painful light of purpose greater than our own.

I'm tired already! Good night.