Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
It always seems impossible until it is done. Nelson Mandela
Last night at the gym I listened to an audible book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz. He founded businesses in the Dot Com era, a tough time for new startups – when confidence was low and money was tight. It isn’t a book only for those who want to start their own business. Starting and running a business isn’t easy even if it is only a small business, nor is building a family an easy enterprise, and family is more fragile than business.
We watched Julia Roberts and George Cluny in their latest movie the other night. She keeps talking about the big mistake in her life that George Cluny takes as marrying him, and her daughter sometimes takes as having her. Finally, in one scene Julia Roberts admits her big mistake was giving up on her marriage because she thought she was losing herself and would never accomplish her goals if she stayed in the marriage. Now with a grown daughter, that has just graduated from university, and a career in the art world that may or may not be as satisfying as she thought it would be, she realizes she gave up on what would have been the best part of her life, her marriage.
Ben Horowitz in, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” knows he isn’t always putting his family first and he also knows that it is the most important thing to him. His father said to him one day, “Do you know what is cheap? Flowers. Do you know what is expensive? Divorce.”
A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn. Helen Keller
We can’t always keep from failing at business, marriage, and life, but we can be the one that does our best until the end. We can say we won’t be the one that gives up on… We will have to accept someone else’s choice but we don’t have to let giving up be our choice. Many men are bitter because their wives gave up on their marriage and asked for a divorce. The men, I think, feel they were so busy fighting to keep the wolf from the door, to build a life for their wives and children that maybe their wives felt neglected. But, couldn’t she see what they were doing they were doing for the family? How would any of us feel if we’ve given our lives in the service of those we love, not philandering, not gambling the life savings, drinking or using drugs, but in the trenches working often at hard and difficult jobs to provide for our families? We would likely feel unappreciated and bitter.
It is never good to let ourselves get bitter, it is understandable how some succumb to this, but if we can get better and not bitter isn’t this winning at the game of life? There will always be hard things to face in life. Hard things don’t seem to be distributed evenly; some people face harder things in life than others. Whatever is ours to face we must face, and if we can do it with as much courage as we can muster, and persevere through hard times as we get to better times, we will likely feel good about the life we’ve lived. It might not be a particularly happy life, but there is something to be said for living an honorable life. If we can look at ourselves in the mirror and know even though we’ve had missteps and failures, and not always made the best choices, we did the best we could with what we had, and when we knew better, we did better. Isn’t that the definition of a good life worthy of the effort to persevere?
It’s always too soon to quit. Norman Vincent Peale
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. Newt Gingrich
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end. Roy T. Bennett
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day, filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
