The Realm of The Real

A made up word for which there is no image. I am proud of this.

Occasionally I post "Realivational Quotes" on my Facebook page. My small circle of friends seem to like them, and maybe you will too. Something like -

"In every hospital you pass on your way to work today, someone, like you, is having the worst day of their life."

 I don't necessarily take joy in posting these thoughts, but I do relish in them a little. For most of our lives (at least here in America) and from all directions we're encouraged with happy, You can do it if you wish upon a star and try really really hard and want it real bad! type motivation, which to me is self cancelling.

If we believe that we all have the power within ourselves to succeed, than why am I trying to succeed at all!?! That poster telling me that I can climb Everest even if I'm blind is great, but there's a problem with that poster; I'm not blind and have never desired to climb Everest! The guy on the poster is awesome! He saw something and he went for it and he did it! But he did that something because HE was dying to do it, and he made it happen, and that is awesome! But here's the thing. Yes, he climbed Everest, but that poster doesn't show me how he got to the top of that mountain, and I'm willing to bet it didn't happen just because he saw (Oops, pardon the accidental pun at the expense of the blind dude) an inspirational poster telling him that he was capable of doing it.

You see, I'm willing to bet that he had to work his blind butt off, sacrifice more than a little of something, and put more effort into that feat than most of us will ever put into anything in our lifetimes. He's the exception, and good for him!

But Austin, what's wrong with hard work? Are you against hard work? Do you hate whales?

Nothing. No... And ?

Hard work is awesome. I know, I'm a hard worker myself, but we are skipping past the hard work part of things by inspiring ourselves with words instead of feats. By sitting still and listening to how great things could be if I really really want them to be and work really really hard I'm pacifying the need to actually get up and do it because by listening I am telling myself that I am taking steps towards my goal.

Here's a thought - Instead of listening to someone else talk about success (Pro Tip: Most inspirational speakers are achieving success by charging money, selling books, etc. to people who want to be successful. Get it?), while those people sit there listening to the talk, attempting to learn the magical secret wisdom of the speaker instead of physically taking steps to achieve whatever goal drove them to that conference in the first place, why don't we work towards something? We distract ourselves from achieving by talking about the potential that lives within.

Sorry for the tangent, back to the realivational quotes. For several years now I've been challenging myself to learn from the world instead of living in my own world. Acknowledging the terrible things around us doesn't mean we're afraid, it means we have eyes to see. I try to maintain a constant internal dialogue of thoughts like the one I quoted at the beginning of this post, and sometimes challenge others by sharing my thoughts.

"If you're reading this right now, you probably aren't starving."

You get the idea.