Some of the people reading my blogs are asking and often I wonder why I have chosen to take on some of these risky and seemingly impossible projects and persist until success appears or, in very few cases, failures is the end result. After all, being self-employed, I have no one else to blame; I am totally responsible for my actions – or inactions. So, why? My answer is quite simple – summarized in a few sentences (source unknown) by someone who certainly knows me –
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving to others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.
Yes, I choose what I do or don’t. Further, to me, life is a challenge, a game with winners and losers – full of risks, hard work and sometimes – reward.
Theodore Roosevelt summarized my “addiction” as follows –
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.