My mentor, the smart and wise human being that he is, gave me two main reasons....
#1. People are satisfied with what the status quo, and don't want to go for what is theirs....
#2. People don't know who they are....
We have had this conversation many times. Yet I still wonder about it. Why would people have a dream and not go after it?
People dream big. We all think that we can be astronauts as kids. We want to go "traipsing away through the constellations", yet as we get older, and life settles in, we settle. we settle for getting off the curb instead of the constellations. We forget how to dream big. We also forget that in order to get what we want, we fall down.... Think about it... As kids when we wanted to learn how to ride a bike, we fell. Some of us more than others, but nonetheless we fell. But we got up, and kept getting up until we got it right. As we get older, we tend to stay down a lot more, and a lot longer with things instead of falling and getting right back up. That's when we end up with shoulda, coulda, wouldas..... You talk to any businessman/woman, and they will tell you that they didn't succeed at what they were doing at first. Talk to any athlete, and they all have stories about the shot that didn't go in, or the missed catch, the missed free throw, the missed spare, that cost them the game and/or the championship. However, they continued to get back up and press forward. They worked on that shot, they worked on that spare, and got it right....
Micheal Jordan, arguably one of the best Basketball players, past or present, was cut from his High school team. Did that stop him from going after his dream? His work ethic consisted of being in the gym when his peers might have been out partying. His work ethic consisted of working on his game... One of my favorite posters of him says this "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." No matter how many times he failed, he got back up until he got it..... Instead of settling for the status quo, for being just like everyone else, he not only had to play in the NBA, but he had to be great at what he did...
We fall into this rut where we don't want to be great, because being great requires more from us. When people know you can do something they rely on you more instead of just leaving you be. They require and expect you to always deliver when they know you are capable of it... Knowing this, there are times when I haven't been great, where mediocre was cool. However, when your soul craves for greatness a piece of you diminishes until there is no fight left in you. when there is no fight in you, you accept any and everything. This is perfect for the life we live. A defeated people, is a people less likely to seek the truth. A defeated people is more likely to raise the next generation of defeated people until everyone is blindly following each other instead of creating their own. They are settling for unhealthy relationships cause they don't see themselves as being worthy of them... That brings me to the next point.
People don't know who they are. They don't know what they are capable of because they refuse to stop. Stop, Look, and Listen. Stop all of the distractions, go off into the dessert, have the quiet time without the distractions and pray. Pray, meditate, get closer to God. Our souls, because they come from him, strive to get back to him, but how do we know that unless we tap into our souls, and we can't tap into our souls until we're willing to stop and listen. Once we tap into our souls, if we listen close enough, we can find out what our purpose is and how to carry out the plan. Once we know what we are listening too, we know where to look... By knowing ourselves, we get closer to God......
So the question is are you willing to get closer to God? Are you willing to go after what is yours?
