The Golden "Rule": Did Churchill really believe that??

Well.....It has been a while since I was here writing! I guess that summertime has a way of drawing me away from some of the tasks that I should be doing. But, here I am, and I have needed inspiration and I got it just a few days ago.

As I have mentioned at least two other times in this blog, I listen to a local talk radio station as I go from jobsite to jobsite in my truck. Every morning, just before the 9:00 A.M. news, they have a short segment entitled "A Moment of Hope" led by a local pastor. Most of the time, he really hits the "nail on the head" with his comments, but this time.....he was using a REALLY big hammer!

He mentioned that one of the people that really inspired him was Sir Winston Churchill. He stated that Churchill had made the following statement:

"Success is going from failure to failure
without a loss of enthusiasm"

The pastor's point that morning was that we should always look for success in every effort that we put forward. He said that even though we may think that we fail....and sometimes we fail miserably, there is always something that is good, or uplifting, or encouraging that we can focus on....IF...we choose to focus on it.

Maybe we are trying to lose weight. Our goal was 15 pounds, but we missed our goal by 5 pounds. However, if we CHOOSE to look at it this way, then we can say that we beat our starting line by 10 pounds. Sometimes, we want to make an "A" on the chemistry exam, but, we only made a "B". However, not too long ago, we probably didn't know very much at all about chemistry.

This certainly does not mean that we shouldn't strive for goals, and successes. But, it does mean that even though adversity may try to stop us, if we push hard enough, we can still get TWO steps forward and ONE step back....instead of the other way around.

My dear wife and grandbabies taught me that lesson very well last week. We were blessed with the opportunity to take our whole family to the beach for a few days. As I usually do, after a little walking on the beach and a little bit of shell looking, I tended to find myself in the chair, under the tent, listening to the seagulls, the winds, and the waves. But, I watched my wife and those grandbabies as the walked for hours in the waters edge. Seldom did they look up. Their eyes were constantly looking down. They were looking for sharks teeth, conch shells, and other elusive creatures......especially those little "Crabbies" as one of the little ones called them.

Even though many times, when they saw what they thought would be a "Treasure", it turned out to be less (or different) than they expected. They wanted to have another "special" one to put in the bucket to show "Paw-Paw." Many times what they had hoped for, and what they found were not the same thing. But...did they quit looking?? Oh No! Heads down, toes digging, and still looking.

"They found success by going from failure to failure
without a loss of enthusiasm!"