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  • The Space Between

    The Space Between

    The hole in your heart can only be filled by the companion that knows that it is there. Sometimes we seek companionship in search of one that recognises that gap, but fail to realise that we in fact projected our need on their abilities instead. We flit between the calm and the clutter, the spaces of quiet, and the spaces of revelry and indulgence, sometimes being pulled towards the calm, but most often pulled towards the clutter.

    The clutter holds the promise of accompaniment, which deceptively veils itself with a mask of companionship. A kindred spirit is seen in common needs, more than in common goals. In those needs that resonate between two souls, familiarity is born. Familiarity, especially when it echoes similar pains and wants, creates an electricity that roots us to a point of temporary relief that lacks fulfilment. But that hint of relief, of a longer term repose, draws us in, and we find ourselves willingly sliding down that slope of abdication.

    Impervious to the effects of our inclinations, the taunt of the clutter that promises the calm draws out our demons, and subdues our virtues. Relief morphs into indulgence, and indulgence honours the need for significance. To feel worthy of more than we’ve been able to acquire, companionship drifts into the distance, and the vacuous space that elicits nothing but instant gratification beckons.

    The point of departure on that journey has to be grounded in faith if ever we are to find a rope on which to hold, as we cling to sanity. Sanity is quickly reduced to a concept of common relativity, while understanding is all that matters. As long as we feel understood, the principles by which we act, or the moral compass that once guided us loses relevance. After all, life is about priorities, and priorities are applied to needs. The greater the need, the more energy and hope we expend in its pursuit.

    There is an abundance of similarly troubled souls. The ones looking for companionship that holds that embrace. The embrace that completes the flimsy grip we have on life, in the absence of which a future state is all that we court, and the present moment becomes nothing more than a means to an end. An end that no one else can relate to. An end that rests only in our hearts, and is seen only by the one in whose hands rests our soul.

    But the clutter distracts and the indulgence beckons when faith waivers. Needs are tethered to the physical form, while peace is not. The physical form demands fulfilment, while the soul demands peace, but as long as we’re living, existing in a physical world, indulgence will always command our attention, and peace will always be elusive, except for those fleeting moments in the beginning. The very beginning of every embrace of a kindred spirit completes us in a moment of deceptive bliss. Sometimes we’re distracted by the clutter in that moment, and while we enjoy that moment intensely, we forget to see it for what it is. And so it is lost, along with the peace, as we draw on the indulgence that feeds our physical state, while the peace is shooed away.

    There is a delicate space between the peace and the clutter. So delicate that the slightest distraction breaks the thread that tethers us to it, causing us to drift aimlessly. Well, not entirely aimlessly. As we drift, our focus again shifts away from the peace, the calm, the tranquil, and instead, we go in search of that fleeting moment that is only ever felt in the most momentary seconds of the initial embrace. And the rest of our lives are spent in pursuit of recreating that one single moment that we experienced when we least expected it, and when we didn’t even realise it was presenting itself.

    The slope steepens as we drift away from it, and our burdens lighten as we see hints of it approaching. It’s a to and fro of warm bodies looking for a spark to create something greater than their individual selves, but find themselves lost in the rift between here and somewhere else.

    The hole in your heart can only ever be filled by the one in whose hands rests your soul. Everything else is a distraction, or a stay of execution. The more calm we experience, the closer we are drawn to the sublime. The more clutter, the more ghastly is the silence that visits our soul.

    [I once wrote without concern for the audience, or even for any concern of the rationality of my thoughts. I wrote because it was a momentary breath that filled my lungs beyond the needs. It’s been a while since I’ve felt my lungs fill with the air that once elated me. Now I write in search of those moments that were created when the distractions were what I described, rather than what I sought to embellish.]

  • To Breathe Again

    To Breathe Again

    There are few things more exhausting than the plague of insincerity from those that find a constant need to explain their drama and their dreams under the pretense of seeking sincere advice to overcome their hurdles. 

    Soliciting advice while professing not to have the answers ourselves, then discarding that advice in favour of taking the easy way out reflects the deficit of conviction in our soul. 

    A deficit of conviction leads to an empty existence, embellished with an outward show of struggles, while concealing an inward turmoil of loneliness as we go through life seeking associations with others that may define who we are. 

    Loneliness is more burdensome when we lack affection for who we are. 

    Lacking affection for who we are results from a lack of courage to live with conviction because we believe that our worth is defined by the acceptance of others before it is defined by our acceptance of ourselves. 

    Accepting ourselves demands that we take a brutally honest view of who we are and what we stand for, but our timid souls protect us from such realities and turn us into victims. 

    As victims, we require a support structure that recognises our weaknesses as battle scars, while ignoring our contribution towards growing so apparently weak. 

    Our contribution towards our weakness, or our impotent state, demands a sense of accountability for the decisions we took and the choices we made. 

    Accountability becomes unnecessary when we’re protected from the reality of it by those that seek to comfort us in moments of weakness while they seek such comfort as well. 

    Seeking commonality in weakness and then building a support structure to celebrate the triumph of existing in spite of such weakness is a fool’s profession of courage to the world. 

    Victims are emboldened in their need to hold others accountable for their (victim’s) choices when the support structure that they subscribe to is formed by equally celebrated victims. 

    Celebrating the weaknesses of others as a statement of courage denies them the motivation needed to emerge from the state of weakness. 

    When our state of weakness defines our significance to those around us, and in turn solicits the affection and care that we desire, we will fight with a blinding rage against anyone that threatens the reality that we’ve created for ourselves. 

    A sobering moment at an unexpected intersection in our lives is all that is needed to shatter the alternate reality that we clung to for so long. 

    A shattered reality forces us to reinvent ourselves in the face of adversity. 

    Forced reinvention in the face of adversity is considerably more challenging than reinvention from introspection. 

    In the absence of courage to reinvent ourselves, we will seek out new avenues to play the old script of pity that is needed for a battle weary soldier. 

    Pity begets pity, and the slide into self loathing will gain momentum. 

    Self loathing constricts our ability to prevail in the absence of a support structure that celebrates our weaknesses, leaving us with the tough decision to either prevail, or willingly fail. 

    The choice we make at this point will either see us emerge from that constricted space and embrace the reality of who we are capable of being, or see us resign ourselves to a scrap heap of souls that found it easier to blame the world for their misery than to live with conviction. 

    If we choose the former, we’ll suddenly breathe deeper and realise that we were simply gasping for air until the arrival of this new reality that we chose to embrace. 

    If we choose the latter, our chests will continue to constrict, until eventually we will suffocate on the bile of the self loathing that we nurtured for so long while waiting for sympathy to make us feel whole. 

    To breathe, rather than gasp, we must live with conviction, and have the courage to see ourselves for who we are and not how others perceive us to be. 

    We always show our best side to society, and hide the worst for the quiet moments of torment that is rarely shared with others. In those quiet moments, we either learn to love ourselves, or loathe ourselves, and the choices of others has no bearing on those moments whatsoever. 

  • The Other Side Of Arrogance

    The Other Side Of Arrogance

    This is the story of assumptions. Assumptions that we make about prickly characters and their tender counterparts. Assumptions we make about the motivation of people to act the way that they do, without realising that those assumptions are projections of how we believe we would act if faced with their circumstances, and then we judge them for it while cursing those that judge us under similar circumstances. 

    Facebook is a social experiment for many, including its investors. More importantly, I experiment with it by occasionally mixing in populist sentiment with principled viewpoints that I know will make many people awkward or even infuriated. And every single time, it proves true that people only polarise towards those that make them feel good about themselves, and rarely towards those that force them to think critically. Everyone wants to have their struggle recognised, but no one wants to emerge independently from their struggles because most often, their struggles grow to define their significance. The arrogance that is reflected in this approach is not one that most would relate to because we assume by default that arrogance is only an attribute of those that live selfishly, abruptly, or obnoxiously. Most are incapable of separating arrogance from passion or conviction, much to their own detriment. 
    Those that appear meek or subdued are often considered humble or downtrodden because of their apparently pitiful state, but there is an arrogance that runs deep in them as well. That arrogance is based on the belief that their state is so grave or overwhelming, that they should be celebrated for persevering, and they deserve all the compassion and assistance that their circumstance calls for. However, we’re too often so focused on the circumstance that we fail to consider their contribution towards enabling or causing their circumstance to arise. 

    The arrogance sets in when we assume that we simply cannot be responsible for our woes. The unpleasant experiences of life must have been imposed on our soft and kind nature by other arrogant or selfish ones, and therefore we are the victims of their oppression long after they departed from our lives and left us with enough opportunity to choose differently. That arrogance is the belief that life owes us more, as if life is independent of our choices and our efforts to improve our state. 

    The other side of arrogance emerges when we feel entitled to compassion, or we demand indulgence because we need an age old account to be settled before we let go of what’s holding us back. The other side of arrogance shows its ugly face when we define ourselves as damaged because we think someone else damaged us, while not realising that we subscribe willingly to being damaged and then abdicate responsibility for such a heinous choice. 

    Arrogance is not the absence of humility. Instead, arrogance is the assumption of humility, and similarly, it is the assumption of feeling entitled to a kindness that is not yours to demand or expect. The moment you impose your expectations on others, regardless of how justified it may be, before you are willing to let go of a sour experience, you become arrogant, because what should be an act of conviction now becomes a transaction of emotional blackmail. 

    Sadly, too many don’t realise this, and continue to live in self-constructed prisons while blaming the world for being cruel. 

  • Those Damned Assumptions

    I have a reputation of making people feel awkward, or as some would describe it, infuriated (stop nodding so feverishly, you may lose your balance!). I take a particular pride in knowing that I am viewed this way, because it merely cements my views about the nature of the average Joe that I meet on a daily basis. This came to the fore a few weeks ago in a discussion that I had with a colleague which subsequently spilled online as well.

    I often feel compelled to challenge incorrect assumptions, or to persist in a point that I believe is important until I am certain that I have reached a point of mutual understanding, or at the least, am able to walk away knowing that I tried. So I choose my battles, but I also choose more battles than most (I can see you nodding again!). On this one occasion, I spent a fair amount of time trying to get someone to understand why the point that they were making was actually contrary to what they were trying to achieve. And so I kept asking probing questions and prompting them to consider an alternate perspective so that they may realise what it is that they were doing.

    Some in the room came to me afterwards and suggested that I really shouldn’t bother. Some assumed that I was being argumentative or just simply difficult (stop it already!). Meanwhile, the truth was far from both of those assumptions. While I speak for myself right now, I suspect that many others may be able to relate to what I am about to share.

    When I engage with anyone on any subject, my default assumption is that they are capable of processing the concepts and themes that I feel passionately about. As the discussion progresses, if I see that they’re not grasping my point, I assume that I’m either not explaining myself well enough, or they’re distracted by a bias that is not directly relevant to what I am trying to share with them. My knee-jerk reaction to this is to try to clarify my point so that they may be able to share in the value of what I think is important. In short, I assume we’re at the same level of understanding, but are experiencing a communication gap.

    Unfortunately, the most common assumption in such a situation, especially by those with a low self-esteem, is that my efforts to attain clarity is in fact an attempt to either make them look stupid, or expose how stupid they really are. At no point do they consider that perhaps I simply assumed that their level of understanding was the same as mine, rather than me assuming that they’re beneath me. Their perceptions of themselves informed their observations of me, and while they thought they were judging me, they were in fact judging themselves.

    Of course, if  I were to point this out to them (as I do on occasion, often just for fun!) they would feel justified in their views about my supposed arrogance, or condescension. The turning point in my life regarding my self-worth was when I realised this troublesome truth about people. From that point on, I found it easier to rise above the unqualified criticisms leveled against me, and instead, continued to focus on the passion that I had about the value that I wanted to realise for me and for others. Often, this resulted in the offended party recognising the point I originally tried to make, but only after they had enough time to get over their own insecurities about the interaction. For this reason, I almost always do my best to allow for a graceful exit from such contentious discussions.

    The times that I don’t allow for a graceful exit are the times when the offending moron is pretty much a confirmed bully who just won’t back down. That’s when my favourite philosophy kicks in. Treat an arrogant person with arrogance so that they may taste humility.

    Back to the topic at hand. Assumptions are made all the time. Some are informed, most are not. Another poor assumption on my part when I originally started contemplating writing books on leadership and mentoring others at the office to take leadership roles in their areas of influence was that in doing so, I may work myself into a position of irrelevance. In other words, like the fickle-minded, I thought that I was working myself out of a job. You know, that scarcity mentality thing where we assume that the success of others will rob us of opportunities for our own success? Well, fortunately I snapped out of that mindset soon thereafter when I realised that leadership is so rare because conviction is lacking in most people.

    In general, people want to be associated with greatness, not because they want to be great, but because they want to be with the crowd that is also associated with such greatness. One of the important lessons I learnt in the process is that despite giving someone the golden handbook of how to achieve greatness, and giving then the opportunity and environment in which to achieve it, their deeply ingrained insecurities will prevent them from embracing the opportunity. Everyone wants to be liked, or popular, or part of a group. Except for a few that see the futility in that, and decide to forge their own path in life. They don’t necessarily set out to be leaders. In fact, I would go as far as saying that leadership finds them, while everyone else tries to mimic the assumed journey of the new leader in the hope that they will achieve the same.

    People that set out to become leaders usually lack authenticity. Authenticity is by far the most important leadership trait ever. In the absence of it, you simply have authority and resources at your disposal, but will fail to genuinely influence or inspire others, except for those that aspire to similar levels of materialism. Perhaps this is why we have the leadership void that we have in this world. Perhaps this is why the worst of us has truly become the leaders of us, because we celebrate the wrong attributes, and dismiss the detractors that challenge the status quo.

    We make assumptions negatively about others when we assume that their flaws are the same as our own, while not being willing to acknowledge or own our own flaws. Criticism that has little to no constructive basis behind it simply feeds the ego. It does not encourage growth, nor does it forge new avenues of understanding. When someone takes the time to extend their engagement with you about a topic that they are passionate about, recognise their passion before assuming that they’re simply being arrogant. The biggest mistake most people make is that they fail to recognise the difference between passion and emotion, and are too ready to dismiss a passionate soul as an emotional being. That is the burden on society of a weak mind. It degrades sincerity in favour of popularity. And that is how society ends up being something that everyone wants to criticise, but no one wants to acknowledge being an integral part of it.

  • Jet Lag

    Table for one in the slow lounge. The appeal of airports. It’s almost grounding. The hint of adventure. The burden of responsibility. The blessing of good fortune. The numerous memories of defining moments spent in airport terminals, restaurants, and departure and arrival halls. They’re all just whispers beckoning nostalgia while egging me on to want to take the next trip, preferably to a place I haven’t been before. 

    Life tends to stagnate when I revisit the same places all the time. Home is not always a good anchor, but then again, neither is being set adrift without a harbour in sight or in mind. The mind can never be unleashed or kept safe and protected. The biggest bigots I’ve seen are those that have rarely travelled. Being exposed to different cultures and places tends to erode that arrogance associated with myopic ignorance. 

    The irony of capitalism. Striving to serve a purpose greater than our selfish needs is always a good mediator to extract the good from the experiences and wealth of our lives. 

  • Slip Sliding Away

    There are far too many mornings when I wake up and find myself searching for a specific inspiration before looking forward to the events or non-events of the day. My inclination to write is dwindling at a pace that is concerning, because it was part of a bigger picture ideal that I held on to for a very long time. ‘Held on to‘ is probably not an accurate way to describe it. It was part of a broader purpose that I willingly subscribed to. Still do, but just not with as much gusto as I did before.

    The time when I expressed without restraint has been replaced by a time when I am measured in favour of the absence of drama. That’s not how I envisaged living my life. I still push the boundaries in my own ways, but not nearly as aggressively as I used to. Perhaps this is why I write less often, and my book has stagnated to the point of gathering digital cobwebs. Resurrecting it has its benefits in that I will once again read an old manuscript with fresh eyes. The downside is that I will feel the burden of revising something that has been endlessly revised already. It’s like solving the same problem over and over and over again. That detracts from the sincerity of the text, the rawness of the expression of emotion, and the clarity of thought that inspired the writing in the first place.

    Not long after waking up with such a vapid mindset I find myself anxious and restless, with the need to achieve something meaningful with the limited time and resources I have at my disposal once again prompting me to drag my butt out of bed and into a course of action that will satisfy the yearning within me to make a difference. To contribute towards a world that I desired for myself, but was unable to achieve it, so I apply myself in the pursuit of creating it for my children, and for the generations to come. The sowing of my seed in the hope that the shade of its tree will shelter and offer a comforting repose to ones that I will never know or meet, and neither will they ever know or meet me.

    I think it is in this anonymous benefit that we feel both part of a greater social cohesiveness, and simultaneously take for granted the social fabric that offers us the comfort and security to be who we are. In other words, if we don’t realise what it is that we get from society, we won’t see reason to pay it forward for others to enjoy the same benefit. In so doing, we end up in the state that too many find themselves in, including me, where we persevere in the establishment of those structures was once available to others, but were eroded to the point of disuse leaving us to establish it once again in the hope that it will one day be available to the ones that come after us.

    The cryptic nature of my thoughts appear to be returning, which in essence is a good thing. It implies that I am once again looking questioningly at the world around me rather than enjoying or despising it at face value. Moments between such phases of inquiry in my life feel lifeless and vacuous. Life becomes an empty shell that demands fulfilment in the form of instant gratification and reckless indulgence when such purpose is lacking. That too often seems to explain a lot of what I see around me. Missed opportunities and broken commitments, not promises. Commitments transcend the fickleness of overt promises. Commitments set the expectation of loyalty, trust, honesty, sincerity, and so much more. A promise is merely a contract made either with conviction, or with a sense of responsibility, but not always made with a sense of true commitment to the agreed outcome.

    Life slips away when we falter on the path that leads to fulfilment of purpose. That faltering arrives in the form of a distracted emphasis on agreements, and obligations, rather than mutual commitment to the spirit of the outcome of such shared aspirations. That slope is slippery. It starts with a need to take care of numero uno when we have good reason to believe that if we don’t, no one will take care of what we need, and quickly descends into a selfish embrace of life when we discover the joy of finally getting what we want before having to worry about what others need. It starts out as doing something for ourselves for a change and quickly becomes the norm when we realise how many others do exactly the same. This collective irresponsibility somehow justifies the abandonment of responsibility to those around us, and soon thereafter we become part of the burdening masses that burden our souls through their self-indulgent destruction of the lives of those that they once committed to protect and uplift.

    Some may interpret this as divorce, some as betrayals of trust, and others as a betrayal of a shared dream. Either way, the betrayal is what lingers, and the selfishness that ensues appears to be the most sane response to an insane world. Our slip into the fabric of that tainted world escapes us when we lose sight of our own purpose that we abandoned in favour of the response to a tainted crowd.

    Life slips away when we stop serving something greater than our selfish needs. Once we find ourselves sliding into that abyss that offers gratification without fulfilment, we grow increasingly closer to embracing the animal within, and abandoning the human without. Courage takes on a new form when we find ourselves clawing our way up that slope to break the slide that many others so willingly embrace. Courage is a rare attribute these days. Populism has killed it.

  • Resilience is not cheap 

    I’ve watched some emerge stronger from harrowing ordeals, while others crumble from comparatively minor setbacks. This made me wonder what it is that makes some resilient while others remain fragile? Sometimes it’s the final straw that makes us appear weak when we crumble from a seemingly petty incident, while others have no insight into how many straws we carried on our backs up to that point. Yet at other times it is something that surprises even us when we find ourselves bewildered by the ferocity of a trial that strikes from a quarter from which we least expected. 
    Seeing something coming a mile off, or not expecting much from someone that eventually disappoints us has little impact to our composure. It takes a lot more of those anticipated occurrences to wear us down, as opposed to a single blow from someone we trust deeply. Our apparent resilience is therefore not something that is fixed or easily predictable, but rather it is relative to what we hold dear, or what we’re willing to do without. That suggests that what we tolerate is a deeply personal choice, some of which we’re aware of consciously, but most of which is shaped quite unconsciously throughout our lives. 

    Importantly though, we can’t assume that everyone is, or should be equally resilient, or that our tolerance to bear burdens or trials is equal. It’s not. We define our tolerance levels long before we reach it, and it is that tolerance level that often defines our resilience. On the other hand, our capacity to deal with troubling life events is largely the same. What we allow to consume that capacity versus what we let go of is what determines our resilience. Those choices are not so easy to make. Most often, that elusive state of mindfulness ensures that in the absence of mindfulness, we barely realise that we’re making such huge choices to begin with. 

    I always picture it as a wheel barrow that we push through life. As we go along, we pack in our troubles. As those troubles pass, we offload them from that wheel barrow and make space for new growth events. Sometimes we even allocate specific areas in the wheel barrow for different types of life events. When that specific area starts filling up, we grow anxious because it threatens to take up spaces that we set aside for other important life events. And in that way, challenges in one part of our life ends up threatening experiences in other parts of our lives. In such circumstances, we may find we lose patience in one area, like work, while we’re completely composed in another area, like a relationship with a significant other. When we don’t create those unique spaces, we find that one area of our life will more easily contaminate the quality of a totally and often unrelated other area of our life. Add to this the fact that many of us don’t ever offload those events because the events themselves have grown to define the state of our being, and you quickly see how easily it is that we sabotage our ability to carry our burdens through life in that little wheel barrow we were each given. That’s when that wheel barrow fills up until it either gives in under all that weight, or we lack the strength to push it any further. That is what determines our capacity to deal with new experiences. The more we hold on to the past, the less capacity we have to embrace the present. The less capacity we have, the lower our resilience to deal with what comes our way. 

    Before we can choose what we hold on to versus what we let go of, we need to know what we want. Sometimes we know what we want, but we don’t articulate it well enough to ourselves, so we go chasing after something we don’t really want, and then find ourselves devastated when we acquire it only to find that it is not what we were looking for to begin with. It sounds cryptic, but no more cryptic than how many of us live our lives. 

    Our ability to face adversity, smile, maintain our composure and move on is determined long before that adversity strikes. It is determined in those moments when we hold on to a bad memory and promise ourselves never to forgive or forget, or it is determined by those moments when we shrug, smile, accept what we could not change, and move on with the knowledge we gained from the experience. 

    Very simplistically, I see resilience as a sense of conviction driven from a deeply held desire to serve a greater purpose, which outweighs our need to exact retribution for a past event. But that begs the question at to what is purpose? Purpose must be greater than a selfish benefit. It has to benefit others as well. If it only benefits us, it’s not true purpose, it is more likely convenience or indulgence. Purpose becomes important for resilience because it is all that stands between us and the distractions that prevent us from reaching our goals. In fact, if your goal is not aligned with a specific purpose, it is more likely to have a fleeting effect on your happiness, rather than a lasting one. Goals without purpose tend to be instant gratification. Instant gratification doesn’t require conviction. It merely requires a short term satisfaction of a fleeting need. Such needs are usually instinctive and spontaneous, and feed an emotional state, not necessarily a spiritual one. 

    The expense associated with resilience is therefore the resolve we need to establish to let go of that which no longer serves our greater purpose. We choose those greater purposes that we wish to serve based on what we believe we are most capable of influencing as a beneficial outcome to those around us. The lower our self esteem, the less likely we are to be convinced of our ability to contribute in this regard. But before you feel pity for the one with the self esteem deficit, consider what it is that they are choosing to keep in their wheel barrows, as opposed to showing gratitude for the opportunities they have, and the growth they experienced? 

    Resilience is not cheap because it demands a level of conviction in who we are before anyone else is willing to invest in us. It demands that we recognise our abilities and take accountability for our contributions towards our lives, rather than pretending to be victims of circumstance or fate. Resilience dictates that we take charge, that we lead, that we own our space before it gets owned by others. When we give in and assume that life happens regardless of our input, or that we need saving before we feel significant, it confirms that we’re ungrateful for what we have. It also confirms that we choose not to learn from our mistakes nor accept accountability for our contributions to what weighs us down. When we get into that state, that victim mentality, we become a burden to others, a major deficit to society, and we test the resilience of those that have to pick up the slack because they see the value beyond the trials we placed in their paths instead of stopping and questioning why it is that they need to deal with what the fickle and ungrateful refuse to own. 

    Resilience is not cheap because anything in short supply is expensive to attain. The demand for resilience on those that live with conviction increases disproportionately with every wimp that cowers in the face of adversity. 

    [An incomplete thought process] 

  • The Iceberg Effect (Take II)

    My somewhat poor attempt at describing the iceberg effect in my previous post compelled me to take a second stab at it. I think I over complicated it previously, so here’s a (hopefully) shorter but clearer explanation of what I think is an important concept to grasp.

    If we view the progression of our efforts towards what is perceived as a successful state, and we compare that progression to the metaphor of an iceberg, then we need to turn that berg on its head. All the memes and the common wisdom suggests that our problems, struggles, failures, and so much more lie beneath the water line, while that which is above the water line is simply the successful outcome that is visible to others. I have two problems with this approach.

    Firstly, it assumes that we experienced our problems and failures and everything else in private, and not in front of others. We know that this is totally untrue because it is in fact our spectacular failures in a public setting that discourages so many to avoid trying again. They’re the ones that are more focused on being defined by the validation they received from others rather than defining themselves according to how well they know themselves. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know ourselves well enough to be able to accurately define ourselves. Hence our inclination to take our cues from society. Perverse logic indeed.

    Secondly, the above approach also assumes that our struggles remain below the surface, while we celebrate our success in plain view of everyone else. Again, this mostly refers to those that still harbour a desire to be celebrated for their struggles so that the magnanimity of their success can been appreciated that much more.

    I think the truth is closer to the fact that the iceberg in its entirety is our journey towards success. The part that rises to the surface first is the steps that set us out on that journey. As we chip away at that surface, or what is visible, we remove chunks of uncertainty and doubt, and allow space for what’s next in that journey to rise to the surface. As we chisel away at these steps towards success, the success that rested at the base of that iceberg, and not the tip, slowly surfaces until eventually it is in full view. When we grow complacent, it melts away and is quickly replaced by more ice that once again suppresses the success, until it sinks to the bottom of the water line, and all we have on the surface is again the taunts of challenges and failures.

    Most people don’t notice us when we chip away at what is holding us back. They only notice us when we’re in either extreme. Failure, or success. Failure, because they don’t want to be like us, and success, because they want to be like us. Everything in between is largely a private experience that we dress up in different ways for the world to see, while a few, or at least one or two significant others are allowed close enough to witness or experience that journey with us.

    The moment we focus on dressing up our failures or challenges to make it less humiliating in the presence of others, we focus on their perceptions and validations, rather than the purpose that drive us to strive for that success in the first place. Keep a firm grasp on that purpose, and the ice will never be slippery enough to dethrone you.