…that honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered and a firm resolve.
The Count of Mirabeau
The Honored Gabriel Riqueti, count of Mirabeau (1749-91) was a French statesman of significant renown both before the French Revolution and during, where he served as president of the National Assembly until his death of natural causes. The count got around and had numerous affairs and even his own sentence of death as well as other adventures, all of which led to scorn from the nobles and affection from the people. Completely at home in all elements of scandal, Mirabeau kept everyone on their toes and History still is not entirely certain if he was a great statesman, a demagogue who catered to the lowest common denominator or a traitor. Us humans being as we are, he may well have been all three. Today’s Thought was found in Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.
…never stood in the way of a well-considered and a firm resolve.
History has shown that nothing really gets in the way of a firm resolve. Honor and religion are easily dismissed when there is something to accomplish and those hell-bent on doing something usually do it. It could be Thomas Edison drawing on every ounce of his immense talents to benefit mankind to Hitler devoting his life to killing Jews to Martin Luther King, Jr fighting for a fair shake. It could be an athlete giving his all or the waitress at the local diner giving the impression she has waited her entire life to serve you a burger. Ideally, it’s also you and me using our resolve to get the most out of our time on this planet.
Those that get on in this world will remain on their path regardless of what is thrown in their way. And there is seldom any shortage of things thrown in our way: from the failures that regularly appear on the path to success to matters completely out of our control to the everyday distractions that pretend to demand our attention.
And as we say every hour on the hour here it doesn’t matter where our resolve leads us, either. For some, it leads to the history books. For others, some moderate renown. For most of us, though, it won’t lead to any of things.
But where our path leads is immaterial. By definition, if we have a plan for our life that stems from inside us and execute that plan every day until the very end, we will lead the life we were meant to lead.
Which is all we should want. We must use the resolve we all have to forge, fiercely, our path because it leads exactly to the life we were meant to live.
Quotes are from Gaylon’s personal quote book, begun in 1988 in a hotel room in Berkeley, California.
