Easy?

It’s easy being successful when you are successful. What requires strength, fortitude, stamina, an unshakable belief, vision, determination, drive, passion – is being successful when you are not. Every business goes through cycles – we live in a cyclic world – seasons, planets, days and nights, menstruation, the rhythms of music, economies, religions. Feast and famine. Rise and fall. Good days and bad days. A sage once said “it’s not how you fall down that matters – its how you get up again”. I’ve spoken to a number of people recently who have fallen down at some stage in their life, professionally or personally, but have managed to get back up again. Listening to them reminded me of one of my favourite poems – which I offer today to all those who feel that they are carrying burdens… The Invitation Oriah Mountain Dreamer Canadian Teacher and Author It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon… I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. © 1995 by Oriah House, From “Dreams Of Desire” Published by Mountain Dreaming, 300 Coxwell Avenue, Box 22546, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4L 2A0 Please click here for more information about Oriah’s book.