About Dreams and Bayonets

Post 312:

            Lofty goals are admirable. They’re also open to heaps of criticism. It comes with the territory. Announcing that you feel fairly sanguine about your prospects at becoming the next leader of the world will not engender you to the majority. It’s the way things are and the way people are. Who can blame them?

            If you want to avoid battalions of Doubting Thomas’, best to announce your plans to go to your usual lunch spot. Nobody’s going to pay too much mind to that.

            Going big requires two things: the ability to be your own Doubting Thomas, and, more importantly, to never give up.

            It’s self-evident that giving up means you’ll never get there, but the doubting part isn’t so obvious.

            Let’s talk history. My favorite subject by a mile. Right now I’m reading some books on the American Revolution. Talk about a lofty goal. On paper, independence from England looked like the biggest geopolitical pipedream ever devised in the history of mankind. Seriously. I tend to employ hyperbole, but I’m consciously avoiding it here. None is required.

            I love the road to victory that the rebels employed. It was one of defeat, retreat, self-doubt, self-reflection, and most importantly, stubbornness.

            Stubbornness doesn’t fit with the rest of those words, but alas, it’s a fitting description of the founding generation. They had their asses handed to them on a loop, faced poverty and almost certain annihilation, but they kept going. They had a dream. Actually, no. Not a dream. A goal. One of those things you write down in your planner that’s going to happen next month. Just stick to the plan, stick to sticking to it, and there you go.

            It was a lofty goal. Shockingly so. I mean a few taxes, and this is what you do? Talk about flying off the handle.

            But they were firmly gripping the handles. And if they let go, it could cost them their lives. Sometimes I need to look to their example when I’m chasing the brass ring. I may be running, but I don’t have some asshole in a red coat tracking me down with a bayonet.

            Cheers. See you after.