Reply To: But What is Success?

A few days ago, I shared some thoughts on significance verses success. It may have just been one of the many messages you were bombarded with during a fast paced day. Then again, for some of you it may have gotten you thinking about how you are investing your life. There is a brevity to life –and as we get older, the days seem to go by even more rapidly.

Maybe this desire for significance and to invest in things that really matter has taken root in your heart, but the fear of failing and the busyness of life is choking it out. We are each masters at looking the other way, procrastinating, talking ourselves out challenges. Some of us just settle for less, some of us fear the unknown –but fear is a liar!

Here are quotes from two famous and inspirational men. Perhaps they will talk to you–maybe even motivate you to move forward out of your comfort zone and to take action:

Mark Twain said: “Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Teddy Roosevelt said: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and tears; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”

Your thoughts?