Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.

- Winston Churchill

 

You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures.

- Charles C. Noble

 

Having a goal is a state of happiness.

- E. J. Bartek

 

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

- Robert Byrne

 

So I had this powerful, overbearing soliloquy that I have been contemplating to open this blog with.  I was going to tell you to never give up.  Aim high!  Shoot for the moon, and if you miss you’ll be with the stars and every other cliché that people write and regurgitate in books then charge you for what you already know.  However, I felt that my words had become empty, my talk off was a fraud, and did I even believe the charismatic game I was spitting anymore.  In other words…

 

I was depressed.  Not in a clinical, shades drawn, huddled under the cover, passed out with an empty Jack Daniels bottle by the bed kind of way, but never the less I was going through it.  Was it my grandmother’s illness and death?  Was it me losing my job as quickly as I found it?  Was it self realization of my own health?  Was it a season?  Was it a mood?  Was it my business ups and downs?  Was it my personal and financial ups and downs?  Or was it simply sh#t happens and I wasn’t dealing with it very well.  Maybe it was a combination of all these things.  And to put whip cream and a cherry on top, every one is calling, looking for an encouraging word from me because their situation is similar or more jacked up.  (Side note:  No matter how bad you think situations are, some one is doing worse). 

 

I mean I did nothing.  I was going through the motions.  It looked like Chris “Cocktails” Cornell was productive by most standards, but I knew that I wasn’t even scratching the surface of what I was capable of, or what God challenges me to do.  And I felt He was doing just that, challenging me to do better, more, and in His will.  My response?  A non responsive rhetoric of ideas, thoughts, and motivational nothingness with no action involved.  It’s not that the desire wasn’t there, but for some reason I just couldn’t do it.  I’d be looking at the computer screen, looking at the phone number, looking at the person and…same result, stagnation.  Then of course insecurity crept in.  What was wrong with me?  Am I supposed to be doing this?  Am I who I thought I was?  Am I who I thought God wanted me to be?  What does God want me to be?  What do I want to be?  What is who I thought I was and other people think I am, and do I even want to be that person?  Is my window of opportunity closing?  Have I been in this game too long to have so little?  Is it service or ego when I look at my resume?  Why am I stalling when it seems that I am at a good place to catapult forward?  Am I afraid of success?  Am I afraid period?  Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but powerful beyond measure.  Do I measure up?

 

Well, I think you get the picture.  Five months of chilling…literally frozen (not because I’m an ice cold Alpha, that’s another story).  Then I got mad.  (This is the part where you and everyone else come in.)  The same underdog, Napoleonic swag that got me thus far woke up and realized that it was buried in a coffin somewhere and gravediggers were shoveling dirt on him.  Those gravediggers were named “doubt” and “fear”. 

 

Psalm 27: 1 – “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  Popular verse, but really needs to be our mantra. 

 

They (whoever they are – pick one) are shoveling dirt on us trying to suffocate us.  Between finances, credit, spirituality, healthcare, social and political ideology, have vs. have not, and every other distraction that sucks us into this vacuum abyss of frivolity, we have taken our eyes off God.  I did get mad...at myself.  Why me:  Why not me?  The scene is not doing what we should:  I will take the lead.  The kids are lost:  I will lead them as a strong male mentor.  My business is not where I want it to be:  I will organize better and work harder.  My finances aren’t where I want it to be:  I have resources that are just as valuable as money.  My spirit is restless:  Pray, Meditate, Read.  God said He will supply all our needs.  We aren’t looking at what is right in front of us.

 

So what is the point Cocktails, Chris, or who ever you claim to be while you are writing this?  The point is simple.  We are in a pivotal time.  The devil is looking for us to give up so we can be dependent on man and the flesh.  That way he has leveled the playing field.  There are millions of scriptures and quotes that I can give like, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities.”  However the bottom line is this.  We can’t help ourselves until we take ourselves out of the equation.  God was humbling me and centering me so I can get back to what got me here in the midst of His grace and mercy.  I have always been most successful when I gave of myself selflessly and had faith that the blessings would come back tenfold.  I got away from that because everyone is out here grasping for straws and looking like Hyenas from the Lion King because of this land of famine.  We are not starved physically.  Our souls are starved, and we need to feed each other.  That is a basic principle in any religious doctrine.  I had to remind myself of that, because I did get caught up in the tidal wave of self preservation.  I wasn’t truly preserving myself, because I wasn’t checking on the well being of others, even in the midst of my troubles.  God maintains me because I maintain others.  That is my talent.  I am a nucleus, a catalyst, but what energy have they been hovering around?  I’m not mad any more.  I’m not depressed any more.  I recognize my situation and accept my task.  Give until it hurts, because it can only help…What is your assignment?

 

E. Christopher "Cocktails" Cornell

www.eperiodllc.com

Facebook:  E. Christopher Cornell

Twitter: @eperiodllc