Kenny Rogers had it right. It's just that it can be really tricky to decide when to fold 'em and walk away. Maybe all those no's and obstacles are there to be overcome. Maybe keeping on in spite of it all is the definition of perseverance. Nobody likes a quitter, right? Right?
Or...maybe closed doors are the very thing that lead to a new path, a new perspective, a different goal. I recently have been working really hard on a particular project. The thing just wouldn't cooperate. I tried muscling it. And I'm pretty strong, so muscling a project in the direction I want it to go very often works. Now, a big signpost that I have been going in the wrong direction is hard to accept. If I quit this road, does it mean I've failed? Well...it does if I decide to look at it that way. It does if I didn't learn anything. Even if the lesson is that I can't always get what I want (oh, Rolling Stones, if you only knew how that song would hit home time and time again for so many people!).
There are other little phrases that have become part of my decision process through the years. I love one my husband, Bob, often uses: faith is saying it so, when it is not so, in order that it will be so. Well, I've been very loud about my goal for this project, telling everyone who will listen that it will happen. I have done this mostly to muscle myself into believing it and working hard enough to make it happen. So, there is the element of embarrassment that makes me reluctant to admit a change in course. Being motivated by fear of failure is a punitive way to go through life.
Keeping my mind open, keeping my heart open to input can't be done well when I'm shoving things around by brute force. Oh, Balance! What a tricky tool you are. Work and play, humility and self respect, goals and the willingness to change them, desire for success and willingness to re-define what that is...balance, balance, balance.
In the long run, knowing when to fold 'em keeps me at the table.
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