Ground

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal.

Depending on what line of work you’re involved with, the ease of comfort you find in waking up each day will vary from one person to another.

Every now and then, I have to remind myself of the difficult situations others, quite close to me, are experiencing in their lives. My life isn’t always a bowl of cherries…but I most certainly don’t have the depth and weight of difficulty several of my mentors are currently experiencing, or have experienced in the past.

“Mess” is how one of my mentors refers to his financial difficulties. “I’m working through my mess” he’ll tell me, referencing hundreds of thousands of dollars he’s due to pay, while also having lost several million dollars of his own, hard-earned money. He also has a few other terms that lack blog-appropriateness, so I’ll leave them out.

I know a good number of people who have crawled through the messes of life and have come up empty-handed, or with great reward. The secret is not putting yourself through misery for the sheer sake of being miserable. It’s being willing to identify the right circumstances, opportunities, and periods of discipline that will lead to reward, while being completely willing to accept they may never turn out and you might just face a ‘mess’ of your own.

I am facing my own ‘mess’ right now. It’s fairly hard to accept the circumstances, given that I’m a 24 year-old individual with plenty of opportunity in front of me. However, the cards have been dealt and I’m left holding an empty hand…for this round.

The way I see it, these times are a period of training for me; learning how to properly conduct myself in times of stress and difficulty, while maintaining my integrity, attitude, and vision. There has been joy — there will be joy again.

Browsing through applications for management consulting firms, I’m encouraged by the age requirements many of them carry; “Must be 25 years old and able to rent a car.”

To much is given, much is expected.

Opportunity is everywhere when you take time to seek it out.