LIFE

     There are a lot of things we are told in life that I think make us feel like failures.  We are told that if we work hard enough that we can do anything we want to do or be anything we want to be.  I don't think that is true.  Our talents and capabilities are indeed limited.  However, I do believe that many of us don't reach our full potential.  So maybe when people say that we can do anything we set our minds to, they really mean that we should always be striving.  Without striving and pushing ourselves, we won't know how far we can actually go.  But if we tell ourselves that we can do anything and we get to that point where we can't go any farther, we can end up feeling like failures.  In my way of thinking there is a point where we can simply say "enough" and legitimately have a feeling of satisfaction with ourselves.  We can find that balance but it will be different for each person.
     On the flip side of this are all those people who don't reach their full potential.  Those represent the average person.  That is who I am and actually who I strive to be in a not striving kind of way.  We need a lot of average people in order to make the wheels of society go around.  I'm suggesting that maybe it is okay to be one of those people.  A person who doesn't get accolades.  A person who works hard but also takes the time to be lazy.  A person who doesn't strive every day to be the best that they can be but who is not a burden on society because they fill a societal need in a small way or maybe even a tiny way.  Just a middle of the road kind of person.
     In the past I have described one of my good qualities as being the kind of person who can keep going in the face of failure.  I can fail at something and pick myself up and try again, hence why I keep gardening.  Maybe now I am just tired of feeling that way.  At 52 years old I am just looking back and thinking how I struggled so much to try to be something that I could never be.  In the end what I have as a success is that I am a person who can keep going through failure.  Is that enough?  Close friends feel bad for me and reassure me that I am not a failure but I really don't want that kind of comfort.  I just want to be okay with not striving anymore.  And I think I am okay with that.
     If I had thought all this when I was young I would have been living in a basement apartment, working at a Milwaukee brewery with a friend named Shirley and I would have changed my name to Laverne...well actually my friend's name was Christine but maybe she would have changed it to Shirley.