“The greater danger lies in not setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low... and achieving our mark” Michelangelo, Italian sculptor, painter, architect, engineer and poet.
You know, it IS totally possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it. And you know what... that's OKAY. In this "too fast to blame" culture that we have created for ourselves, it has become the general rule to not set your aim high, to not have belief in the possibilities … in case you fail. Because if you don't achieve what you set out to, if you don't live up to all you believe in 24/7... then you a fantasist or a hypocrite.
I'm often told that it's all well and good aiming for our possibilities in theory, but reality of doing so is not always a sweet experience. It is clear that the trouble with what is possible is that it is not always probable and to just aim for the possibilities exposes you to risk of being accused of living in cloud cuckoo land or spouting beliefs that your life doesn't always reflect.
Therefore it's easier to stay in the middle management job than AIM to be the entrepreneur, it's easier to say we're agnostic than AIM to live up to any religion. It's less dangerous... isn't it?
Actually no.
Nothing cold be further from the truth. It is much more dangerous to be aware of falling short than failing after aiming high. (Unless of course you are a simpleton, then you would be oblivious to your own short comings... but if you are reading JaxWorld …as webscan seems to show zero simpleton profile among the 18,974 active readers... then evidence suggests you are not). We really should aim for what we believe possible, cause funny enough it's the way we are SUPPOSED to be. Humanity has come a long long way from the cave and the lion cloth... striving for what has not been proven to work, taking a risk and falling flat on our faces a few times before we get there... that's what we do.
Not that you'd believe that is the case when you listen to some of my friends talk. It's worrying really when you consider that these are intelligent people with a few years of life experience behind them. More than one or two were around to blaze a trail in the 1980's but it seems the fires have ebbed. All the talk is all of defeat or consolidation.
A friend recently advised me that one should only try what one can really achieve or else it would be 'like Icarus attempting to fly...romantic and heroic...yet foolish and fatal.”
What utter poppy cock!
I'm no historian but at a wild stab, mankind did not start of with insulated homes, plasma TVs, nice cars, foreign holidays and many expressive art forms. Trial and error had to make these things possible... by trying out what was unachievable. There must have been more than a few attempts of each of these things, we now so blithely take for granted, before they became achievable. So I guess en route to success some who trod the path got to taste the bitter bile of defeat... but in the end the results are now enjoyed by many. And yeah Icarus made a proper mess of flying... but thankfully it didn't put mankind off as we've enjoyed quite a few flights since!
It's a less clearer path with belief structures... but the same amount of courage is required. My friend was quick to add that belief structures are “responsible for all the grief and strife of humanity... just look at all the unrest they cause”.
Again with the poppy cock!
Again I'm no expert in the field but people just seem to be wired to want suffrage – the right expression political, social or religious. No matter what it is, I'll bet the path to set of beliefs to inspire or aspire did not start out with left or right, urban or rural, cross or burqa . The need to belong drove the creation of these orders... by trying out structures that provide frameworks that people can build their lives around. Of course people are individuals so no belief structure is EVER going to be one size fits all. No one belief structure is ever going to provide all the answers or even ask all the questions. I guess en route to popularity there may be many that just did not prove practicable … but in the end the surviving structures benefit many. (One only has to look at last century for popular beliefs that just couldn't last the course!) And yeah the road to suffrage is a major route to civil unrest and in many cases war... but thankfully it hasn't put off mankind as all the best countries to live in offer universal suffrage to all adult citizens.
Thing is mankind is at its best when it aims high. Falling short of those high aims nearly always comes at a cost. Failure hurts. Sometimes failure means lives are lost. But ALWAYS even when we as a species fail... out of the experience of failing... we learn. Sometimes we have to learn the same lesson over and over again before we realise that particular route will always get us that result... but we learn.
I know there is a global recession (that the gets massaged out of the headlines with some clever maths from time to time). I for one have not emerged unscathed as regular readers would know. Economic crisis or not there is NO excuse for aiming low. This is not the time to be blaming or consolidating... this is the time for invention and effort and being brave. It is a time to aim high... as high our imaginations let us.But good times or bad, boom or bust we should be looking upwards anyway.
I hate the idea that some of us are so scared of the possibility of failure that we don't try for the higher goal. That we admit defeat before we begin and justify it with a load of poppycock about it being “For the greater good”. To purposely not try for the possibility of success is to settle for the certainty of gaining nothing, of learning nothing.
I know we do it to be safe – especially from our critics. After all who wants to be branded as the person who fell short? But to never aim for the ultimate possibility is not an escape from failure. It is a certain route to the torments of 'what if'... the certain reward for aiming too low and achieving the achievable. We are BETTER than that.
Really WE are.
If we believe something is possible... we owe it to ourselves as people, as nations, as a species to try not for what the probable outcome may be but for what the possible outcome COULD be.
NEVER PUT BETTER THAN IN JUNE 1968:
“Some men see things as they are and say WHY? He saw things that have not yet come to be … and said WHY NOT?” Edward Kennedy eulogising Shaw at his brother Robert's funeral.
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