...springs eternal, and falls on a whim

"The darkest places in Hell are reserved for those, who, in times of great moral crisis, mantain their neutrality."

-Dante


"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on';

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count on you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"

-Unknown


It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt


I had dinner tonight with another dear friend. (Have I said yet that I have the best friends in the world? lol) He needs a name... ummm... INTEGRITYLANE. We discussed his life, and my life and almost everything under the Sun, and you know what I came away with?

One: People are actually reading and being changed, (in a small way albeit I'm sure, but changed nonetheless) by what I write. He stood there... quoting me. I was not only flattered, but speechless. You have to understand... this is a guy I trust and admire. For him to be standing there repeating what I wrote, well it was a realization that helped me quickly conceive a new found respect for what I write. I realized even more than before that I need to watch what I write... people are watching.

When I started this blog, it was for fun. I had something to say, and I said it. My very first blog was about me having a bigger voice than I felt I had in the actual situation. It could have been very poorly taken by the person it was about, but it was true, and that's what needed to be said at the time.

After that it was observations, and just general life stuff. But now it's more fun than ever... because I don't know who's reading. People have emailed the link to their friends (something more than I've even done) and I have people I don't know reading. This adds a new twist of responsibility to which I say...

WRONG! lol

I'm going to keep on writing just the way I have, and I'll be as responsible as I've been... right or wrong. There are blog rules here that no one knows about... they'll keep me in check.

I am, however, humbled and honored to be quoted by a dear friend. That has motivatd me to come home and write about what I had already planned... hope.

Two: There is a certain amount of comfort you can have when you have someone who is positive and sees life without obstacles. He is the type of guy that I will surround myself with when I have my own company. He sees solutions in every problem, instead of problems in every solution.

People like him remind me of the only thing that may be more important than Love... hope. Even if you have no one in life that Loves you, you'll survive based on the hope that someone, someday will. So, by that rationale alone, hope is more important.

People commit suicide every day, unfortunately. All of these people have lost hope. Had they not, they'd still be upright. With hope we can endure anything, anything at all. It is what keeps us disciplined and our minds in the right place.

Our psyches are fragile, and I have seen even myself slip. Going with the flow sometimes means that the flow takes you to the gutter. I, like many others, have had my desires wrapped up in one small package to be opened at a date some time later. When later came... I found the box to be empty. I looked back only to find that I had learned a tough lesson in life. Sometimes the lesson is more important than what was originally thought to be wrapped, but that doesn't temper the pain.

I speak all the time, on here and in life, about success. Every day that I live I have a more difficult time explaining just exactly what that is for me. I don't know what it entails any more. I don't even know for sure what makes me qualify, when I do finally get there. (It's hard to know if you're in the right place if you've never been there before, and you don't have any way of knowing you're already there.) I am constantly thinking about this day where things will finally be better. I even tell people around me how good they will be, and I emphasize the WILL. I'm beginning to think they must all believe I'm a quack, lol. But I'm not.

Mark Cuban said in his blog... "You will fail many, many times in life. As a matter of fact, you can fail every time in life... except once. You only need to succeed once.", and he's right.

I was recruited yesterday by a gentleman that I worked with before. It was a horrible realization that I wasn't so different a year ago as when he had met me five years prior. It gave me the stark realization that every year I said it would get better, and every year, well it hasn't.

"Oh, but Mo think about your kids, and think about... blah, blah, blah."

I am, but it still doesn't change history. I do have great kids, and I do have great friends. What I don't have is the things that I wanted even then. Call me greedy, or selfish, or what have you, but clean off your own front porch before you start talking about mine. I am no where near my wit's end, but I am...

restless.

Everyone wants more - everyone. For even the most humble of men seeks to be more humble.

I'm curious when I can finally take my boots off and relax. I'm curious when this elusive success, that I have a tougher and tougher time every day defining, will finally come to visit.

Success can take it's boots off too... and please, by all means... stay a while. lol

Don't worry, I know. I'm going to have to visit success... you don't have to tell me. lol.

I have kept a running total of number of times I've taken a chance, a big one. I'll continue to do that. One thing though, as it's running, know this; they've all been failures - every one. The lessons learned were great, but they were still failures at the end of the day. Hope has kept me going on them. Mood determines the number. Time will only tell.


9


Take care,

Mo