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Super Power: Invincibility
Resilience is a super power. But it’s a difficult power to acquire, you have to fall down, fail, it’s gonna hurt, it’s gonna be painful, you’ll want to give up, you’ll hate it. Nobody wants that, that’s absolutely everything we instinctually try to avoid. But when you learn resilience…
Resilience is invincibility.
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Writing is in my blood
I grew up in a family that had a difficult time communicating, being honest with their emotions, knowing how to express themselves but always emphasized to “never lie” maybe that’s one of the reasons they had a hard time communicating.
And maybe that’s why, I’ve been forced to learn how to communicate and why I’m compelled to write. These words are my blood, sweat and tears.
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Deficiency or Abundance
Do you approach things from a place of deficiency or abundance? Is your attitude, I need more practice, need more preparation, need more experience, need more knowledge, need more training, need more learning? Or is your attitude, I know everything there is to know, I don’t need any more practice or preparation, I am entitled to the outcome, I consider myself to be at my best?
Both are a detriment on their own or in extremes, but mostly a detriment if it’s not an honest self-evaluation. If you doggedly prepared but have an attitude I still haven’t done enough, you’ll lack self-confidence. If you haven’t really prepared or have soft discipline, but you feel you’ve done everything you can and you’re already at the pinnacle, then you’re insulating yourself in arrogance and over-confidence.
Maybe something in the middle is a more honest evaluation, don’t be so hard on yourself but don’t be too generous with yourself.
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Inward to go outward to go inward
The art of writing as an expression is a lifetime journey. It’s never quite how you want it to sound, not quite exact, not quite perfect. From an infant barely learning to perceive sounds, to making sounds, to making sounds form words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, speeches and essays. An expression of what you think, want, desire, perspectives… a journey of finding the right words. As you go further outward with your words, you have to further inward into who you are; and as you go further inward into your thoughts and feelings, you are able to go further outward through your words and expression. How can it ever be complete, how can it ever be finished, how can it ever be mastered or perfected?
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At the risk of leveling up
There was a moment in your life where you made a decision to go for something, care enough to put your passion into it, put your heart on your sleeve, blood sweat and tears, put your ambition on the line, risk it, do or die, all or nothing, make the push to see if you had what it takes, success or failure you put all of that into to something you really cared about and wanted to achieve or accomplish.
So you put the work in, but then you feel it, the doubt creeping in, it’s difficult, hard, your decision and motivation is tested, can I really do this? The first test is the commitment. But what if you get through that, you might have a sense of accomplishment, some confidence, but then the second test… with all the work you put in, you’re not as good as you thought you were. Some adversity, maybe it’s competition or maybe it’s a shortcoming or a growing pain, not quite measuring up to where you want to be. The second test is overcoming failure. What if you get through that? How about learning from your mistakes. Being honest with your progression and where you need to grow and develop. Then regrouping to put in the work and push through the next barrier, the wall that previously knocked you back. Breaking down the next limitation, only see another wall in front of you again, this time bigger, taller, stronger. Just to repeat the whole process again. The third test is perseverance. Can you sustain, can you endure, can you overcome, long enough to start to see some real change and progression. Skill and talent isn’t the limiting factor, the limiting factor is how much time and energy are you willing to put in and the resource is you.
Have you been through that? Gone through any part of that sequence, and at some point felt like, it’s not worth it and have never been able to muster the decision to go through it again? Or concluded that no matter how much time and work I put in, I’m not going to be anything of significance. All lies. The real reason is not wanting to feel like a failure, that’s what people are really afraid of. Failing at something is discouraging, depressing, defining… Defining and permanent, the perception of it, the judgment of it, the condemnation of it.
We have such a difficult time recovering from that, and sometimes actually never recover from it, if we are living to avoid the risk of failure. And I’m not talking about those of us that have a more naturally conservative personality that make calculative decisions based on risk:reward ratio. I’m talking about forcibly avoiding risk and having a visceral fear of failure. The secret here is really, knowing, realizing that the typical failure we’re talking about usually amounts to nothing of significance. It’s just a blip, that no one will remember or even pay attention to because they’re worried about their own significance. But pay attention that it’s also a scalable progression, someone just recently learning how to “fail” or take risks, should not be performing heart surgery, investing in stocks or performing in the Olympics the very next day as their first progression.
Failure is a lesson in awareness, humility and learning. Failure should be embraced as a progression built on perseverance. But repeating the same failures can be a sign of stubbornness, pride and ego which is essentially willful ignorance and negligence. Avoiding failure is letting fear control you, making it the god of your limitations.
Build up, scale up, level up.
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Tagline 2.0
“The space between what’s in my head and getting it out.”
That’s really the nebulous, abstract part, trying to get out what’s in my head and out into the air, from what’s imagined and voiced into reality, the ether. Point A to Point B. Person A to Person B – this is the space in between.
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False Humility
False humility, contrived or intentional or maybe even just humility or more specifically the idea of subduing or lowering oneself is just as bad as arrogance or conceitedness, isn’t it? It purveys the theme that there is a special hierarchy, lowering oneself for the sake of humility or some moral value or virtue seems to just reenforce the idea that someone else is higher? Better? More special?
I think real “humility”, the real essence of humility is realizing that what I do, we do, you do, is no more special, no more better, no more worse than what other people can do. The fact that it can be done, means it isn’t even ours to begin with, it’s not something we possess or can take credit for. Somebody may have already done it or will do it, maybe even better than it’s ever been done. We’re just a vessel of the act, an icon, an imperfect version of the ideal perfect version. We do them as an attempt, trying to be an open door that might bring a miracle into reality. The Miracle being anything of an idea, thought of creativity, goodness, love, hope, connectedness… something brought into existence that we can all know to be true and good.