you are your own worst enemy

Last week I had breakfast with a friend who shared his life’s journey with me. Like all of us, he found himself at yet another crossroad and described his lane changes in a very interesting way. He said, “You spend all those years helping people to become as successful as they could be, but in the end, I wanted their success more than they did.” The real-world translation of this is: “time to find a new job.”

Ariel Dorfman said, “The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.” Enabling organizational or individual status quo is unacceptable. If today is as good as you’re ever going to be, why continue consuming the earth’s limited resources? Make room for somebody who wants to breathe deeply and drink unceasingly from the pool of life.

I think one of the most difficult questions in the universe isn’t “what am I going to live my life doing?,” but “how committed am I to continuously excel in my current occupation?” After all, that’s the reality that each of us faces every day the alarm clock sounds. A visionary isn’t somebody who has some kind of clairvoyant ability; it’s the person who acknowledges the tasks at hand and then does them to the best of their ability.

Any time I state a problem but not a solution, I am broadcasting to the universe that I don’t care enough to be successful. If I truly did, solutions, and not excuses, would be bubbling out of my head and flowing from my lips. As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”