To Win, You Must Begin
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
–George Elliot
The title of today’s post’s is borrowed from a poem I wrote back in 1992 after listening to the next generation of leaders who intrigued me with their profound insights. Little children have so much to say if only we, as grown folk, took more time to engage them. Children are fearless. They will try anything and do anything without ever thinking about failure. Unlike grown folk, these little leaders have no fear of failure.
In the beginning, children are quick to say, “Help me” or “Show me.” They readily admit when they don’t know how to do something. My pearl of a girl, who’ll be 3 years old in May, is extremely independent. She gets upset when I attempt to assist her with many of the tasks I enjoyed doing when she was totally dependent on me.
As my daughter grew older and wiser, she began telling me, “No daddy. I can do this all by myself.” Matters not how long it takes or how many times she tries but falls short, she persisted. She was relentless. Days would pass. Weeks would pass. Nevertheless, she succeeded more times than she failed. I watched what she did after each failure. She reminded me that just because we failed before doesn’t mean that we’ll fail the same way again.
Now that she can dress herself, she’s moved on to bigger, more complex challenges. She loves helping me get dressed in the mornings. I love watching her face light while she’s helping me with my belt, bringing me my shoes, pushing the buttons on the blender, locking and unlocking doors, turning on and off the lights.
My gift from God reminds me of the little engine that could. She believes she can. She’s the perfect illustration of what I imagined while writing “To Win, You Must Begin.” We, as writers, pen poems for a plethora of reasons. I recall writing this particular poem to encourage and inspire myself to pick up the pieces after Adversity paid me an unexpected visit. It’s amazing how differently we view ourselves and our abilities after a great fall.
We stop believing in ourselves. We start second guessing ourselves. We doubt. We lose faith in our abilities to do what we did without thinking before the fall. We lose trust in our ability to make wise choices. The glide in our stride becomes a “stutter step.” How many of you know what I’m talking about? Have any of you been there and done that before? Are any of you there now?
On January 1, 2007, this blog was birthed as an act of faith. I dubbed 2007 as the “Year Of Firsts.” As evidenced by the news, there have been many firsts. What have you done for the first time this year? Do you have a new attitude, new habits, new goals, new friends to replace the old ones? Do you have a project that you started but never finished because tough times introduced you to “Murphy’s Law?”
As an ex-perfectionist, half the battle for me was getting up and showing up. I didn’t have much time to plan, to prepare, to plot a predetermined path. I didn’t have all the answers, didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know what to expect. But I trusted God.
Had I kept leaning upon my own understanding and demanding to know all the answers, this blog would not exist. So, I stepped out of what gave me a false sense of security and walked away from the comfort zone of “what is known.” Have any of you been there and done that before? Are any of you there now?
Each day that I challenged myself to dig inside the cluttered place where we hide our secrets, God graciously unearthed the truth about what I had forgotten after falling flat on my face and bumping heads with Adversity, Failure, and Setback. God used my daughter to remind me that before I can achieve great things, I must honestly believe that I can do all things through Christ.
Everyday that God blesses me with another day, I thank my Creator for the new mercies that always come in the morning. Watching the rising sun shatter the darkness inspires me to do the same. Watching my daughter gives me the courage to “keep risin’ after every fall.” She’s my inspiration. She’s my champion. She believes in me. She loves me. She watches everything I do and listens to everything I say.
Since one’s actions speak louder than one’s words, what message am I, as the first man my persistent princess will ever love, sending to her? Am I teaching my diligent daughter to love, honor, and respect herself, to believe in herself, to have faith in God, to trust God? Am I teaching one of the leaders of the next generation that “to win, you must begin” by my actions?
Am I, as her father, showing my daughter that “impossible is nothing but a word to God,” by trying to achieve what pessimistic peers believe is an impossibility? Am I, as a mentor, practicing what I’m preaching while reaching out and teaching in the light what Adversity taught me in the dark? I hope so.
But I’ll never know the answers to the aforementioned questions if I never begin. We will never know what “might have been” if we keep procrastinating and waiting until it’s too late to win. So, who or what are you waiting for before you believe you can achieve great things? “To win, you must begin. If not now, when?”
“A winner is nothing more than a persistent person who was once a humbled beginner.”
© Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
Popularity: 6% [?]
2 comments April 19th, 2007
