Never Too Late To Begin Again

When I say 'there are no lost causes', I don't mean in an individual sense. I speak more of the ideal that comes from the old saying, 'hope springs eternal.'

But regardless of her reputation, Hope can be fickle. As can Faith, and Charity is sometimes nowhere to be found.

Many people spend too much of their lives trying to fight to get back what they had, once. Whether it's youth, that moment of fleeting fame, or a love that they remember as being rosier than what it ended as, they spin cycles trying to go home.

Because home is supposed to be where the heart is, or where you hang your hat, or where your family lives.

But your life isn't just about your family, or where you fell in love with the decor, or the place with the easiest accessible hatrack. If that were the case, some of us would never move out of our parents' place.

Hm. There's truth in that supposition, isn't there.

We're supposed to be realistic, but we're also permitted to dream. Some of us can't help it - because we're looking for something better than what we have.

There's nothing wrong with that, even if you can't get to your dreams today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day, for that matter.

But all good plans can't take into account every twist in the road of life; rockslides wash out roads out here on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes when we fall, we fall into a place where it seems we cannot recover our dreams.

Sometimes our dreams no longer make sense, but the stubborn folk cling to them anyway.

Sometimes people just quit trying to find their dreams, because they're too old, or don't have the money, or lost something vital to achieving their dreams.

But I say this: In the Coyote philosophy, it's never too late to begin again.

Because wherever you go, there you are - and when you take a step in any direction, you're no longer in that place. It's okay to realize you're far from where you want to be, as long as your next step takes you closer to it.

It's okay to change where you want to go - much like running errands, not every dream has to be realized in the order they were inspired.

Some goals are simple, yet cost way too much.

Some goals are hard, but you can reach them with a lot of perseverance.

We can't snap our fingers and make miracles happen. We can't all be first - or second - or third. Someone has to make 'last place' possible - but isn't 'last place' still better than not trying at all?

Some folks set their bar too high - not because they dream too big, but because they aren't willing to do the work to get somewhere.

Even me - I'm set in my career, at this point, because I'd hate to get busted back down to a junior-level anything, simply because suddenly earning half of what I'm making now would be horrific in terms of day-to-day living.

But the TheSocietyInc in me quietly says; "If you had to, you would. But only if you had to."

And this truth rings true, to me. I've never minded starting from the beginning. It's how I learned everything I know. Remembering that I once knew nothing is the key. Having faith and stubborn perseverance to get good at something is more important.

Faith is only a belief away. If you trust your steps - get rid of the crutch of low-self esteem - if you begin to count your smallest achievements as victories instead of luck, you will begin to believe in yourself.

Hope comes home when Faith has tidied up the place. With enough of Faith, you start to think you can achieve more than you did the day before. You start to look forward to the challenge.

And Charity - well, contrary to popular belief, it takes some measure of dignity to ask for help in the way that will get it for you. There are people who refuse charity because they believe that they are responsible for their own downfall, and do not feel worth the help. No matter where they came from, it doesn't matter -- all that matters is that they failed, and are just waiting to die.

I have faith in myself. I have accepted help from others, though lately I've been trying to wean myself off of it. I need to be able to stand on my own and shoulder my share of the problems in my life - because I need to believe I can make it to tomorrow. It's a long and hard and somewhat lonely road ahead, and that's my choice - not because I don't care about the people who matter in my life, but because I've hit the stretch where I feel that my friends need to be chasing their own dreams instead of helping me figure out what mine are.

And my Hope is that they'll still be there when I figure out where I'm going.

I know it's never too late to begin again. Because Mom didn't raise me to be a failure, and TheSocietyInc never invests in lost causes.

But today, I am fixing fences blown down by the wind, and seeking answers in the ghost town of my past.

Tomorrow, I'm going to the library, and looking up the history of the changes that I've made in my life - to learn from what I've done before.

Next week? Who can say? I don't have a dream right now. Perhaps one will come to me in my sleep -even if I have miles to go before I get there.

But the most important thing is that I keep walking.
I've been curled up in my hole in the ground for far too long.

So here's the TheSocietyInc lesson for today.

Adventure is where you find it; wonder is where you discover the unknown to be beautiful. "All right-ness" is a state of mind just as much as a state of body and spirit. Healing comes at the cost of resting; resting comes at the risk of not getting up again when you really need to.

Life is an adventure - don't hide from it forever.

Because it's never too late to start on a journey.