Friday, October 16, 2009

It's a your weekend...now live it!

My wife handed me a quote this morning, “Success doesn’t last forever and failure won’t kill you. Never be afraid to take chances.”



Chances…seriously, I love rubbing noses with the odds of touching the golden ring. I won’t plunk down the bucks for Power Ball but if you tell me one in five thousand become third degree black belts…no matter how bad my ancient legs ache and how easily this face and arms bruise…I’m going to be part of that crew.



What are goals other than invisible objects bosses rub in your face? Projections are educated guesses. When not met you might as well end the full staff meeting with, “You’re grounded for a week with no cell phone. Don’t even think about slamming the door to your office, I’ve got a screwdriver and I’ll remove that wall!”



Being a nonstop daily writer for nearly 15 years, the sights and sounds of an approaching year challenged a poet’s ambition to paint what would evolve into a landscape of un-tethered journeys, “In the next fifty two weeks I’ll do this! This and this!” It looks great on paper; the realms of a reality tend to peel the acrylic rainbows off the horizons we chase making the goal seeker look like an idiot to the cast of other characters he or she carries around with them hourly.



Someone had to create The Empire State Building in New York City, shape the incredibly hard rocks in South Dakota that now bare the faces of four Presidents and push our fathers, uncles and aunts through weapons of mass destruction during WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam.



A single vision that required self marketing so others could believe in the very spirit that hit them the moment it arrived through methods of thought.



Today we put our captivating presentation in places of worldly view—Twitter, Facebook, blogging websites and by way of graffiti—being a poet, I’m used to the quick comeback, “Dude, I have no clue what you’re trying to say…ease up a bit on the art and speak the language of this generation.”



Being out front takes courage, a chance, a goal, a need to leap toward a destination requiring a beginning, middle and end or does it ever stop? Success doesn’t last forever and failure won’t kill you. This weekend was to be my 3rd degree black belt test. At no other time during my martial arts journey was I better prepared physically, mentally and spiritually…then without warning my heart stopped.



Although it nearly killed me it hasn’t stopped my passion to write daily and locating newer places to display what we as a people think sing and create. The new success isn’t a black cloth wrapped around my shrinking waist but in the power of thinking, planning and taking note of what is and isn’t available not just for this survivor but others who have been struck down with cancer, liver disease, kidney, lung and thyroid complications and our current worst nightmare…a nation that can’t figure out how a banking industry nearly destroyed the entire planet and its leaders are getting away with it.



You’ve gotta love the confidence of the American people who have vowed that this won’t last long—we shall shine brighter than any other time in history. In groups, that sounds incredibly beautiful but when you’re alone in the car those eyes staring back in the rearview mirror are scared, completely haunted by the idea of what if and nearly beat down to the point of finally saying, “I quit.”



Success doesn’t last forever and failure won’t kill you. Never be afraid to take chances.



You are a survivor. The thick skin of a tree sitting with billions of others in a forest tell the tale of the worst and best winters and what makes it’s limbs last forever are the rings of certainty that scream, “Winning is a choice.”



Bad customer relations at malls, dentist offices and veterinarians teamed up with poor movie theater and restaurant services runs rampant on every street corner. Businesses don’t call back, products that broke can’t be fixed but they still charge you for it, cars don’t run on gasoline anymore…it’s called luck.



Wow! All this seems just as depressing as the new movie Where the Wild Things Are! It’s a child’s story about angst, abandonment and untrusting relationships—why would parents and school teachers read this thing to so many itty bitty minds? Because it showcases hope and with a little help from your imagination every single small, tall, somewhere in the middle, humungously large, mountain sized to universally way the heck out there bad itch that drives you crazy, insane and completely out of control…goes away.



I wasn’t doing 100 push ups a day until my heart went away. I had no clue that local grocery stores and their managers didn’t cater to people thrown onto special diets because of unexpected changes. I had no clue what surviving meant and what someone with breast cancer, chronic bronchitis or swine flu deals with not by way of awareness but living with it everyday, every second, every dream, every wish that may or may not come true…..and I still don’t…but if I study the written pages of other survivors and together we begin to make noise, maybe just maybe…something will start spinning.



Success doesn’t last forever and failure won’t kill you. Never be afraid to take chances.



Steal my art…



arroecollins@clearchannel.com

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