Daily Mood Quote
Day 132 – September 12, 2011
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
~E.E. Cummings
Golda Meir said, “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” But, first we must believe in ourselves before we can trsut ourselves to start fanning. In my lifetime, that trust and belief in me has been a roller coaster ride. Not for any other reason than I allowed the naysayers of my life to have an opinion about my life (that never has a positive or achieving ending). The worst thing anyone can say to you or you can say to yourself is “you can't do this” it is the fastest way to stop someone from succeeding and cause them to rethink their position, causing self-doubt, lack of confidence and distrust of one's own decisions. I know this because it has happened to me more than once. My mother was the biggest offender. If she wasn't telling me “You can't do this” then she was stopping me from doing it, by making me quit the things I loved to do. Making a lifetime quitter of me, until the I joined the military. You can't quit the military, well you could if you tried, I guess, I never tested that theory. I had my reasons for joining and someday I may share them in the blog, but I'm not ready yet...
There is a great saying, I'm paraphrasing here “You don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore.” This was said to me, by a first class petty officer at my first duty station and I really didn't understand the meaning of it, until much later in life. It has so many connotations, both negative and positive, it is how you choose to view things. In the movie the Game Plan, with “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson, Monique Vasquez (played by Roselyn Sanchez) said, “Fathers are the ones that pick you up and give you the courage to do stuff you never thought you could.” At least thats the concept. In many ways the military and the leaders within it, provided that father/parent, role modeling for me. It's not like that for everyone, but given my background it worked for me. Let's move on and be positive.
We are all given talents, abilities and dreams. While it's up to us to do it, sometimes we need a little up front support to gain the necessary confidence to try. When you're a parent, that up front confidence builder should be you. In many families that's the case and that is why humanity has been able to inch forward generation upon generation and not be stuck sitting around in the dark wilderness, by a campfire forever. In some families that is not the case and that's why so many people never take a chance, follow a dream, or dare to try. This isn't rocket science. It's just the way things are; plain and simple. The job of a parent is to make sure the next generation looks farther, aims higher, does better, than we did. If the parents aren't there to do that job, then it is incumbent upon those who are in leadership positions to add that little confidence “push” to those who they lead. If not, we fail ourselves and society as a whole. The positive lessons we learn are meant to be passed forward, not hoarded or hidden. One step at a time; we help each other forward.
How will you be a positive role model today?
Tune in tomorrow to read the daily mood quote
Thank you for reading
No comments:
Post a Comment