First Experience
and success
(special)
Success (n) : (1) The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted: attributed their success in business to hard work. (2) The gaining of fame or prosperity: an artist spoiled by success. (3) The extent of such gain.and success
(special)
This 'thing' we call success happens on many levels of our lives - successfully walking our own footsteps alone in infancy. Successfully cooking our first perfectly soft-boiled egg. The success of winning our first checker game. On and on these successes, although they may be insignificant in the larger scheme of life, aid us in larger successes as we continue living.
Our first A+ in school... first raise in our first job... these contributed to our success as living, breathing humans. These have a common denominator - first. We equate success, our own and others, with being first or a first. The Beatles first platinum record was hailed as a success. Their second, third, even sixth were successes... not because they weren't first as in one but first for the Beatles to receive their second, the first for them to receive their third and so on.... first is important. Important for those that experience a first in their lives. The 'First Experience' is a keystone for us.
The first time I heard the Beatles I experienced something I never had before. The first time I listened to a Bob Dylan song I wanted to hear more. Dylan's first album made my first experience a memorable one. It influenced me as it did thousands of others.
Today is the first time I wrote about 'The First Experience.' Today is the first time the Super Bowl has been played on February 4, 2007. Today is the first day the Colts and the Bears have been in the Super Bowl.
Firsts are all around us - each day is the first for the next, next is the first for the others. And when we have our very own 'First Experience" we open doors, maybe windows jacked up a few inches, but we open up something within ourselves that first time that gives us something special.
Special (adj) : (1) Surpassing what is common or usual; exceptional: a special occasion; a special treat. Also a noun : something arranged, issued, or appropriated to a particular service or occasion: rode to work on the commuter special.
What makes 'special' so special..? Is something special because it's a first. It certainly was when I shot my first bird - probably 8 yrs old I took aim with my brothers pellet gun, there is the dense jungles of our backyard (or so it seemed). I was a hunter. I was out to bag a bird. In the fantasy, I was going to feed my hunger so I aimed carefully, siting the bird perched on the telephone wire behind the house, his body now my target. I pulled the trigger and in a flash moment the bird spun it's wings out of control, quickly dropping from the wire and spinning to the ground. It fell within ten feet of me and I saw this bird who just a blink before I pulled the trigger, now fallen and dead.
That was my First Experience with killing. I was no longer a hunter. I was a killer. One special aim, one successful shot and I took the bird's life and saw it's small body lying lifelessly upon the grass. That first experience opened a door, flung it hard on it's hinges, and I knew I had used the power of this pellet gun to silently take the life of one little bird on a wire and it's once happy tune, it's playfulness with it's family and flock would never again be. I buried the bird that I was responsible for killing. I dug an appropriate-sized hole and placed the bird's lifeless body down into it's grave. I covered him with same dirt from the ground that I had dug up. I was having my First Experience on guilt from killing this bird. Being raised half-assedly as a Catholic, I looked for a marker for this dead bird and right there! next to the grave I saw two small sticks. With little ingenuity, one stick easily would hold the other stick horizontally making a crude cross. This bird had a Christian burial. My first burial was special. My first burial was a door opener. I saw the fragility of life and how quickly one could remove that life from a body.
That day was special. That first experience happened over fifty years ago and altered me. Why was I changed from this and not other friends of mine who shot birds with their Daisy BB guns? Why weren't they affected as I was? All that I am sure of is on that one special day, that first experience successfully cured me of haphazardly killing another bird... or any other innocent life.
First experiences are always special and further take us to new levels of success. Our success depends on others... even little birds perched on telephone wires. Other's are important to our success. One does not become successful without others. J.K. Rowling did not become a success with Harry Potter without others buying the books. Elvis Presley was not a success without others buying his records. Disneyland could not be a success without others going there and enjoying the surroundings and having their First Experiences. Walt Disney would not have been successful without Micky Mouse. While Mickey Mouse would not have been successful without others enjoying his antics.
And the many who had their First Experience with anyone's one success was influenced, their own doors opened, through this succession of success. They have become special moments... that first time that inner door or window opened up and connected us to something that made us a little bigger, more than we were. Each experience is a first, whether we acknowledge it or not, but when we do, we grow more successfully as human beings.
If we allow another's success to inhibit ourselves, we do ourselves no good. That is failure - the opposite of success. "I could never write as good as..." "I could never paint like ...." I could never sing as good as ..." I could never be as smart as ..." All these 'could never's' are inhibiting ourselves from being who we are. Just as those we call successful are successful for the most part, because they are themselves. Sure they too, had their first experiences that were special to them, but theie measure of success is their measure of being themselves... that good, decent, honest Self within. Those that are the most successful are the ones that are most successful with their own being. Those that find themselves find success. It matters not a hoot that their success is widely known... that may take time. Their are those that were successful in their endeavors but never found the success of other's appreciation of those endeavors. But they did give others their own First Experience in whatever it may be... your first listening to Mozart, her first reading of 'The Black Stallion,' our first experience together watching The Grateful Dead perform... whatever the special occasion was, if it opened a door for someone, that is a success for both the the influencer and influencee...
the succession of success succeeds each special first experience.
Cecil
04 February 2007
Screened Door
many of our own doors
within
are screened to enjoy
'what's out there'
and not to take part
completely
with what is
out there
by opening
this screen
and being
here
out there
.
many of our own doors
within
are screened to enjoy
'what's out there'
and not to take part
completely
with what is
out there
by opening
this screen
and being
here
out there
.
