NO FUEL — ASSURED FAILURE

In 1986’s BEST PICTURE, PLATOON, the lead character sums up the fight in Vietnam in his closing statement:

“I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy. We fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us.”

If there is anything that I have heard over the years in my life is that “you are too hard on yourself.”

I know that pushing yourself beyond what is capable is not the drive that compels a person to succeed. It’s not that cut and dry because each of us is different, and there is no one way to paint persons with the same brush. Not all rules apply, and not all success stories begin with Edison’s famous quote:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

In fact, if we really want to use a quote from Edison, maybe it should be one not so well known:

“Never get discouraged if you fail. Learn from it. Keep trying.”

As encouraging as that is, the drive that pushes us to “keep trying” is the belief in ourselves and despite the odds of what we are trying to accomplish, most of the times, the greatest obstacle to that goal we desire lies in the face that stares back at you in the mirror.

If I have been told repeatedly that “I am too hard on myself,” maybe I should listen. Unfortunately, that goes against years of what I have been told all my life. And when you surrender yourself to being satisfied with one belief, imagination and innovation end.

Change is the one constant. I must change.

To face the inevitable roadblocks we encounter when we are working towards a goal, if we are the first enemy we face, the means of reaching that goal have ended then and there.

Hard work and its results are nothing surprising. But what are you and I working hard for?

Believing you can almost always ends with results close enough or equal to those goals we have set out to meet.

But consider this. If I believe I can’t, what is the goal you will reach? We can once again return to Edison for that answer.

“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

If we let ourselves become an enemy we never overcome, the outcome is inevitable.

We lost the Vietnam War.