Skal!

“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist; who lives and dies in a desperate effort to persuade other people how good they are.”                            

  – G.K. Chesterton

 You have heard before that the sum of the parts is more valuable than the parts individually. While true in many aspects, in that a collection of individuals can get things done more efficiently, nothing could be further from the truth: the individual is worth so much more than just the space he/she fills within the collective group. The individual (i.e. You) is not a means to an end, or even an end unto itself, but a rivulet of consciousness that is to be participated in, respected, battled with at times, and admired. It is only after this can you really get things done.

It is more than easy, in fact it is automated routine, to forget this and rather regard each other as an avenue to complete our personal checklists before “COB”. This cubbyholes and compartmentalizes our lives in the worst possible way. We eschew each other for our checklists and to-do lists. Efficiency is not the pathway to Heaven. Be comfortable with authenticity. Disrobe yourself of pretense. Earthly prestige is fleeting; an expensive suit does eventually wear, tatter, and fade into nothingness. Pursue respect and regard for one another – a genuinely good reputation has no shelf life.

Chase down creativity and drill into it like a Labrador snatching a Frisbee out of the afternoon sky. Let its embers ignite your passion. Rethink your work. Remodel your process. Refashion your boundaries. Architect your responsibilities into something new, something previously unknown. For, if you don’t, someone else will. Create something out of nothing – that is real discovery. No matter how prosaic you may think your task, elevate it from mundanity by tackling it anew with curiosity and dogged persistence to get it right.

You won’t always win. You may fail, and more than once, before you succeed. Have the intellectual honesty to admit the future is an elusive beast – no one can tame it. It is a wild creature. Run with it, do not be afraid of it, and come what may, you will drink of success deeply.

Don’t just take a risk, rather, look deep into its dark, fearsome eyes. Feel the chill within your bones as you tread new waters, not knowing the ultimate outcome as you lay it all down. Calculate your strategy and your risk will manifest itself as a gauntlet well-thrown.