Keep Moving

"You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don’t win, at least you can be satisfied that you’ve tried. If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don't try – you don’t take the risk."

— Rosalynn Carter: Former first lady and author

"People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves, they have the first secret of success."

— Norman Vincent Peale: Author, The Power of Positive Thinking

I guess its true to say you have to have enough chance of failure to increase your chance of success... You have to believe in yourself enough to take the risk in the first place and, when you do fail, believe in yourself enough to try again.

Reckon that's true in all aspects of life... at work (we are obsessed with work culture and achievement based measures of success), at home, in family, at play... The road to true success is marked with failures and the determination to try again.

But what is success?

What makes us say "I bet s/he's successful!" Is it the flash car, the big house, the executive penthouse, the waterfront offices... s/he could be a crook! Or do we perceive that s/he is a person of character and influence; someone people look up to and follow; a person of example; someone you can trust? Is success a product of achievement or a product of character?

It's probably a mixture of both, isn't it?...

It takes character to try something new. It takes character to fail and try again.

If you can keep your head when all about you
__ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
__ But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
__ Or being lied about don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
__ And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
__ If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
__ And treat these two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
__ Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
__ And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
__ And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
__ And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
__ To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
__ Except the will which says to them 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
__ Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
__ If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
__ With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
__ And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (c)

Never, never, never give up! Keep moving...