Sunday Newscape Magazine

I wanted to share a personal story. This kind of stuff often intrigues people who are curious by the outcome of triumph or defeat.

Several years ago a person I knew was stuck in what most would call, “a midlife crisis.” His job of over two decades became a bore and he began to ponder where his life was headed. He knew he needed to support his family, but intentionally or unintentionally began to sabotage every opportunity that came his way.

His mind was always filled with different ideas to help get ahead in life, but nothing seemed to pan out the way he wanted. Everything this person tried created some success for a period of time, but ultimately crashed and burned when he realized it was not for him.

Eventually this cycle of ups and downs created a lonely world for this person. He started to feel like a solider on the battle field that was the last one standing. Most family and friends portrayed him as a failure and offered little support to his ideas and often categorized them as careless thoughts or wishful thinking. Their reasons varied from uneducated to irresponsible. He could feel the whispers from others around him, but his gut feeling was to always push forward despite all of the negativity.

In his mind, he knew things happened for a reason and accepted every obstacle as a simple delay. He did not waiver on that belief even though his cabinets became empty and there was no money to feed his family. The pressure to provide was intense to say the least, but he knew the outcome would be good.

The odds where stacked against him. He had no formal training, college education, and even left high school at an early age. In his mind, if Washington, Jackson, and Lincoln could help build a Nation without the help of a so-called formal education, the opportunities were endless.

For a long time the obstacles kept coming one after another. Most people would have thrown in the towel to such pressure as the demands of life kept grabbing at him. Often, this made him feel aloof to his surroundings. He cringed as people presented jobs, or as they would put it, “opportunities” cleaning garbage cans or waiting tables, but he did not concede to those who thought they were helping.

His thoughts through all of this were of high achievement and not accepting substandard living. Most important, he wanted to do what he wanted to do and not let others pressure him into a life filled with the feelings of insignificance. Everyday he looked at his journal with enthusiasm as he wrote thoughts about his life and never pictured it anything less than what he envisioned for himself.

I am proud to write that this person who did not concede is me. Never let anyone or anything stand in the way of your dreams. If you allow yourself a life of mental misery the “what-if” syndrome will take over your thought process and you will have to live with it. The suffering to get where you want to go in life is nothing compared to how you will feel if you stop trying. The feelings of failure will ultimately kill you.

Always tell yourself, you must push forward no matter the situation and you will see those obstacles give way. Life is not hard; life is only as hard as you make it.

©Jerry Maldonado-all rights reserved 2009  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it