Everyone desires to succeed in …everything. No one faces their
hopes, dreams, or responsibilities in life with the expectation of failure.
That is one way that makes us all similar to one another. Even from the depths of drug addiction, to
the height of financial, educational or titled climb, to being surrounded and
well loved by family, to invention, to achievement, to taking our first steps,
to beating disease, to finding love – we all desire to succeed. Not one of us
wakes up every day seeking ways to fail. Our differences come from our ideas of
‘how’ to succeed.
I’ve met many people throughout my life that have obtained great
success, and I’ve met many more who have known nothing but one failure after
the next. One is no greater of a human
being than the other. In what we succeed
or fail doesn’t shape our character or define our moral center, but “how” we go
about succeeding or failing, makes ALL the difference and is the DNA of our
character. You can tell me a million ways, until you’re blue in the face, until
the cows come home, or any other metaphor you want to use, that you’re a good
and kind person with good intentions, yet your actions are selfish and cruel,
you are NOT a good person. If you blame others for your failures, or tear others
down, you are NOT a good person. If in order for you to rise you must step on
someone else, you are NOT a good person. I may not be perfect, and I may not always
be to blame for everything that goes wrong in my life, but one thing I will
never do is tear someone else down in order for me to rise. I will not do it to
family, loved ones, co-workers, friends or even ex-lovers. My God has taught me a deeper lesson than the
one the world shows on a constant basis.
I am currently at my lowest depths when it comes to failure and
success. I recently lost my step-kids,
my soul mate, my dogs, a life and a family I had chosen, and the only father I
had ever respected and loved. I sacrificed many successful things in my life to
choose them, but I would sacrifice those things all over again for them. I have
no regrets of anything I laid down for them, because “they” were my
success. Loving them was my goal and my
choice. I failed. Yes, I understand it takes two to make a
relationship work. It was just as much their responsibility to love and choose
me back. I can’t take responsibility for their choices, I can only take responsibility
for my own. I made mistakes, but loving them and choosing them was not one of
them. They were far from perfect, but I
will never tear them down in order to justify the failure of our relationship. I’ve already lost them, what good would come
from dwelling on their faults or failures? What good would come from tearing
them down? What good would come from blaming them or hating them? How can I
rise if my focus is to tear them down? I can’t.
I rise by looking up. I rise by
focusing on the love we had and shared.
I rise remembering the good. That
doesn’t mean I deny the pain, the truth, or the issues we all had. No – by no
means. There were issues, really major
issues and I believe more than anything in this world that only facing the
truth of an issue can anyone ever defeat and overcome them. There’s a lot of denial of some major issues,
and that denial caused a lot of damage and a lot of pain. I can’t change that –
I couldn’t change it – I failed – we failed.
But, what I can change is how I let the pain affect ME. I want to
rise. I want to breathe, I want to hope
for a better day a better tomorrow, and I know I can’t find that success if I’m
too busy trying to tear someone else down.
I will not speak of EX negatively.
Yes, he has his faults, many faults, but it’s not my job to inform the
world of them. I won’t deny the truth, even the ugly parts of the truth, but I
will not tear anyone else down in order to justify myself. I will not blame HIM
for OUR failure. I love him. I will
always love him. I love them and I will always love them. I don’t want them to
fail just because I am not with them anymore. I want them to succeed in life. I
want them to be happy. I want them to be healthy, and free, and loved, and be
good people. I want to be happy and successful
and free. So, maybe I’m odd and don’t
swim like the rest of the world, but I want to rise out of this pain. I want to
rise off this floor and fly once again. My
flight doesn’t require climbing over someone else, it only requires spreading
my wings and looking up. Spreading your wings
makes you vulnerable, but it’s the only way to catch the wind and rise.
Till next time,
~T.L. Gray
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