Fight For Success or Go With the Flow?

Do You Fight Your Way Upstream?

In these crazy, uncertain times, it’s tempting to fight your way upstream like a salmon getting ready to spawn. For a salmon, it’s part of the process, just as a butterfly must fight it’s way out of the chrysalis unassisted if it’s to live a strong, healthy life. For humans, other than natural birth, there’s no reason to fight the natural flow of things. Even with natural birth, there’s only one way out.

Granted, there are times when the odds are against you, but you can still use life’s natural flow to your advantage, unless, of course you want the dubious cachet of being able to say you beat all odds to achieve whatever success you think you’ve found. The trouble with that mindset is what it most likely cost you to get there. Not to mention how hard you’ll fight to stay there.

Maybe it was close friendships, or your health, or having a family. Perhaps it was something more ethereal. Whatever you gave up to achieve your goal, can you honestly say it was worth it? Is the end result so amazing you don’t miss what you had to give up to get there?

Evaluating Your Goals

Before you answer that, if what you achieved was material wealth, and you’re OK with giving up the intangibles, you’re probably not interested in what I have to say anyway because I don’t believe any amount of money can bring true happiness; a fulfilled life in and of itself.

For those who are still with me. your dreams are likely bigger than mansions, fancy cars, the finest clothes, jewels, and the rest of the outer trappings of wealth. You measure your wealth in more than things, and value the relationships you’ve built at each stage in your life. You know there’s no amount of money, or collection of things that can replace the touch of human compassion, or, to be more explicit, someone to share both your successes and your failures with.

If you’re so busy fighting to climb the corporate ladder, or amass more and more money, you devote your life to your job to the exclusion of everything else. Your position depends on a combination of dedication to the job, and your own cunning, because you’re swimming in a pool of sharks bent on the same objective. In your world, there’s not enough for everyone, and those who play there each want more than their fair share.

Sharing the Journey

The truth is, there is enough for everyone, but you have to be willing to not only travel at a slower pace, but help others along the way as well. You have to give up the fight, at least with other people. You have to believe in right timing, and that a failure or setback is merely showing you what doesn’t work so you can find a better solution, or it’s teaching you something you need to know once you get closer to your goal. Sometimes, the lesson is to ask for help instead of struggling to do it all alone.

It doesn’t mean there won’t be times you have to get uncomfortable. Any major change will do that. Just because you’re traveling with the flow rather than against it doesn’t mean the road will be easy, or that there won’t be times when you have to paddle like crazy to make it over the rapids in one piece. It means you won’t be paddling that boat alone. You’ll be supported by family, friends, business partners, and others who have your best interests at heart, while pursuing their own as well.

You’ve gathered around you a team of experts who can either help you past the things you don’t know, or help you learn them. You don’t have to either sink or swim because there’s always someone to pull you to shore before you’re dragged under. You may come out exhausted, bruised, and battered; a little the worse for wear, but sometimes a little pain is part of the learning experience.

The Rocky Road to Success and Fulfillment

Taking the smoother road to your biggest dreams won’t always be clear skies and calm seas, but road it won’t be a life or death struggle either because you have support, and you’re not trying to scale a crumbling mountain with little but your bare hands and grim determination.

The best part is, once you reach your goal, you don’t need to build a fortress to defend your position. Instead, you’re free to raise the bar, and strive for even loftier goals. Or you can take a break and help someone else overcome obstacles to their own goals before setting out again.

As I see it, whatever your journey, it’s a lot easier and more pleasant with company. Getting there is only half the fun so why would you want to get their worn out, exhausted, and alone?

I see a man in a glass tower looking out on the city lights. His rooms are meticulously decorated in glass and chrome, all edges and angles, in shades of black and white. He stands in the middle of the room in his Italian suit and $800 shoes, drinking rare whiskey from a cut crystal glass.

There are no pictures of family or friends on the mantel. No silly mementos of carefree vacations scattered on the glass topped tables. The place looks more like an expensive, impersonal hotel suite than someone’s home. The cold perfection is his life once he leaves the office, or business dinners, or cocktail parties where you barely sip your drink so you don’t lose control and show a side of you the other sharks will see as blood to be attacked; consumed.

The people in his life are equally perfect; equally shielded. In truth, they all have too much to lose, and nothing to gain by allowing a spark of humanity to bleed through the carefully crafted facade.

Life is Meant to be Shared

For me, it’s the ultimate horror story, to live a life so sterile and devoid of emotion that the human who once lived inside has long ago been smothered and tossed into the rubbish heap. Part of letting yourself ride the waves of life instead of swimming against them is the pure joy of being whoever you are, in all your messy, uncontrolled glory…at least part of the time. Being yourself isn’t an invitation for others in your world to chew you up and toss you out.

The truth is, we’ve all had some tough times and traumas. We’ve had the choice to let the wounds heal over, and be grateful for both the lessons and the scars, or encase ourselves in a hard shell so no one sees the parts that are still broken and bleeding.

I learned the hard way, those walls get harder to maintain the longer you’re alive, because you never stop having setbacks, or experiencing trauma. I’ve seen the rich and powerful implode when their own burdens became too great to carry alone.

Vulnerability and going with the flow are invitations for others to connect, to relate, and to form bonds that can’t occur when everyone’s edges are sharp and controlled; when everyone’s walls are in place, and their masks firmly affixed to their faces. True strength lies in allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and trusting in the humanity of the people around you. it isn’t for everyone, though what a world it would be if it were.

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author.

Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming releases of ” Rebuilding After Suicide” and “Sasha’s Journey”.