Saturday, July 31, 2010

I have faith and Jedi mind tricks: this isn't the failure that's looking for you.

REGRETS. Those were the droids you were looking for.

This poster made me laugh all week. And think. And reflect. And laugh some more.

Anyone who understands the Star Wars mythos gets the reference. Even if you don't, nobody likes to have any regrets.

Fact is, it's too easy for some folk to say you shouldn't live with regret and that failure is not an option.

But we do and it is.

The difference is in what we learn from regret and failure, and how we learn to reconcile and elevate to give it another go, while being personally and socially responsible.

The challenge to do this becomes more magnified when you have children.

It was easier when Mama and me decided to get out of Dodge and jump the pond to Europe after the dot.com bust back in 2001. There were those who said we were crazy and why wasn't I looking for a new job when the company I worked for had failed.

But me and Mama had no regrets to take the severance and run.

When we returned I freelanced and consulted and we scraped by within a much tighter means until that all dried up.

For us there were truly no regrets and we rebounded and rebuilt from failure with blissful fluidity and fun (you should've seen me before Mama -- a tragically destructive hot mess I was).

What a difference a decade makes when you have wonderful wife, two beautiful daughters (one still not out of the oven), a water-logged mortgage, and a risky new venture that could be the rest of my life's fortune (and not all for money honey either) in a still abysmal economic environment.

"It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference." ~ Tom Brokaw

You said it, mister, but a difference doesn't pay the bills. I need to do both. Fatherhood comes at a price, whereas I do not count the cost as long as love remains (thank you, Neil).

I have faith and Jedi mind tricks: this isn't the failure that's looking for you.

1 comment:

  1. LOL:
    I didn't send this to you, but I bet you got it from either Heath or Elrond, right?

    Nice post.

    ReplyDelete