Motivational Training for Greatness

When I was a nineteen-year-old high school student and future poet two years after my diving disaster numerous factors adversely affected my creativity. My trips in a specialized bus to school and back home, my courses, and my assignments, although I was spared a lot of writing and was mainly tested orally, all this was time-consuming. More often than not, my duty to study took importance over my crave to compose poetry.

To tell the truth, I had tons of free time. That I drained much of it uncreatively showed proof of lightness, inactivity, and cowardliness. I mainly choose to take my mind off things, or to daydream, rather than to depict myself through poems. The comfort I could derive from attaining this expression rarely induced me to try. The deterring basics were the hardship of trying and the uncertainty adjoining the result of my efforts.

A poem assuming one is involved about writing fashionably is indeed no cinch. It requires a poet who is gifted, proficient, and persistent. My poetic ability was flighty; my grammar and style were defective; my will was dim. I lacked the bravery of my creative desire. This lack was not perfect. Now and then, when I felt compellingly creative, I resisted my temptation to trifle which amounted to taking the easy way out and endeavored to compose a poem. I had to reiterate this endeavor, over and over, to grow more adept and assured, less miserable by the challenge at hand.

I am afraid minor individuals equivalent to the young man I was then are not a rarity. The perspective of achievement turns them on; effort and the danger of failure turn them off. The retaliation is evident, and the outcome probable: Since effort and the jeopardy of failure are requisite for success, the avoidance of them precludes this triumph. Of course everyone knows this. The trouble is that many reject chiefly to permit it. This is evidence that knowledge is incompetent in itself; it needs a powerful will to be effective.

Teenage individuals, who understand the rules of triumph, can be failures inasmuch as they not succeed to accept these rules. Wisdom includes this acceptance (the exclusion of which is thus foolish). It must be respected from knowledge. Wise people are also fearless people who put their knowledge into practice and become successful for that reason. The clear holds good in every way: Life without bravery is like a bird without wings; it cannot take off.

Why is it hard to want both the end and the means? Exactly because the means are hard, not to refer to the fact that they are dangerous, you might answer. If you are right, then why do some in reality thrive on this hardness and hazardousness? The key to this mystery is their position: They view these contrasting elements not only as obstacles but also as opportunities for worthiness and tension. Just as they were young once, spoon-fed and protected from the evils of the world, they finally outgrew their attachment to easiness and developed a taste for challenge. In culmination, what characterizes them is their adulthood, by contrast with the infantilism of others.

Between these two extremes there is a fair compromise, partly mature, partly childish. It consists in taking obligation of one's life while taking the easy way out. Small judgement, small realizations, far below one's possible for greatness, they are poor excuses for wisdom and success. Potential, that is the operative word. There can be superiority in obvious smallness and smallness in apparent superiority; the truth resides in the great or small incarnation of one's potential, whatever it is.

How does one discover what it is? By making the energy to materialize it in the ever-renewed and multi-purpose act of living. This entails that one push oneself hard, at the risk of going too far. Volume is an empty abstraction for anyone who has never exceeded it. Restriction should be versed, not invented. This knowledge demands a thoughtful and fearless bond to greatness. Steer clear of flippancy, laziness, and cowardliness; do not fall prey to them as I did so many times. They are strong temptations that can assume the form of a cunning philosophy that is unique to losers. Beware of this snare. Life is a demanding character test; come death, you will have ample time to rest!

Nostalgic for the old days at the rehabilitation facility when I wrote anyhow about anything, I once conveniently believed in spontaneous writing as a guarantee of genuineness. Fortunately I was foolish yet not a complete fool. After some denial, which involved some nonsense in justification of my foolishness, I admitted sullenly that my sacrosanct pursuit of genuineness was in fact a vile indulgence in idiocy. There is nothing spontaneous about the intelligent conception and intelligible expression of one's true self, which is everything but simple. It is a tissue of desires, feelings, ideas, and memories, caught in a whirl of interactions between the mind and the world. Either one goes to great lengths to elucidate and formulate the truth about oneself, and one hits the bull's-eye, or one talks bullshit %uFFFD please forgive my language.

Some people shine at off-the-cuff speeches, as though they were so brilliant they could avoid saying idiocies when forced to be spontaneous. Make no mistake; their brilliance is merely one side of the equation. They have spent years polishing their manner of thinking and speaking, while their knowledge waxed through learning. Their spontaneity is studied. It is a product of numerous rehearsals, like the performance of an actor. Nothing great ever comes easily to anyone, including those who are the most gifted among us. Superior luck is not human greatness, only a steppingstone toward it. The stone is given; the stepping is done by the sweat of one's brow and is made of a million steps, uphill. To work one's way up to greatness is comparable to conquering Mount Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. It is an outstanding achievement with a sense of pride to match.