We know the end. The civil rights movement won, Bill Gates turned billionaire, Darth Vader is Luke's father. LeBron James and Leo Messi are big timers.
But that's often all we see. And we don't entertain the possibility of challenges and struggles that show up along the way. We don't see the failures that crop up along the way, or the missed opportunities that might have led to a different path. We see the end.
And in seeing this end, we try to replicate this end, without going through the processes that these people went through. We feel like we'll never achieve the end because we've failed on Day One. But maybe they failed on Day One too. Maybe our entire path is going on the same course to success, but the only difference is they didn't know what the end would be like and enjoyed the journey, while we see the end and get disheartened whe it seems far away.
The farmer sows his seed, hoping for it to bear fruit so he can harvest. But tomorrow a drought may come and destroy everything. Will that stop him from planting today? Should he stop working the fields because there is a possibility it might not work out?
We might never see the effect we have on our students lives. Or we might. We might have changed them for the better, or had zero impact. But we lose when we stop trying.
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Blind Prisoner: You do not fear death. You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak.
Bruce Wayne: Why?
Blind Prisoner: How can you move faster than possible, fight longer than possible without the most powerful impulse of the spirit: the fear of death.
Bruce Wayne: I do fear death. I fear dying in here, while my city burns, and there's no one there to save it.
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Yes. We might fail. We might have done nothing worth mentioning. We might mess up over and over again. And it scares us. We fear insignificance. But it is this fear that will make us do more, try harder, go further, persevere longer, until we see breakthrough.
Today we fall. Tomorrow, we go again.
