Fall down seven times, get up eight times.
— Japanese Proverb
I have struggled over the last couple of weeks. There have been so many challenges. (Don’t you love that euphemism?) Work challenges, travel challenges, financial challenges, family challenges. In that constant, unending, “will this ever fucking let up” kind of way.
On a recent morning, I wondered whether any of my mentors, my idols, my heroes ever woke up and said, “Shit, another day of struggle ahead.” Folks like Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins, Robin Sharma. The motivators, the great inspirational speakers of our time. Do they struggle? Or are there just certain enlightened folks who roll out of bed with a smile and unbendable optimism every single day?
I’m not sure. But my suspicion is that everybody struggles.
And that it’s timeless too.
This is the story they tell: A young mother came to the Buddha’s door. In her arms was the dead body of her infant. With tears streaming down her face, she begged the Buddha to restore her child’s life. The Buddha instructed her that if she were able to bring to him a mustard seed from the home of someone who had never suffered any loss, that he would be able to bring her infant back to life. Frantically she searched only to discover what all of us already know to be true.
Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece begins: “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.”
Colonel Sanders was turned down 300 times before anyone endorsed his dream. Jack Canfield’s Chicken Soup for the Soul was rejected 130 times before it went on to form the cornerstone of a multi-million dollar conglomerate. Tony Robbins spoke to a room of four people when he first began his mission. Sylvester Stallone had to sell his dog in order to put food on his table while he peddled Rocky.
Mother Theresa shared with her biographer the dark night of her own soul – her doubts, her loneliness, her search for the God she could not see – that stretched on for decades. Imagine that: Mother Theresa lost and struggling.
A client of mine was shot in the line of duty. His surgery required a temporary colostomy. When his “plumbing” was hooked back up, he had a difficult time “going” again. His sister, as an “inspirational” gift, bought him the wonderful children’s potty training book Everyone Poops.
An excellent reminder.
Everyone searches.
Everyone struggles. Everyone poops.
As with one, so the other. Ya’ just need to keep on goin.’
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Your blog was worth the wait! It’s nice to hear that people you think are always “up” and inspired and raring to go sometimes have their moments of struggle, too.