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Some thoughts for the New Year, I hope they work for you
Success...
The need becomes a Nemesis
That often drives Man
To the brink of disaster.
Runners make their futile efforts
In Life's frantic race
To keep pace with the faceless "Joneses";
And somewhere along that course
They stumble, becoming enmeshed
In an inexorable web of debt.
The young rush through childhood
And leap headlong into marriage,
Chasing the "American Dream",
Only to find themselves trapped
In an endless journey toward mediocrity.
They suddenly stop
And make a reckless plunge,
Vainly attempting to recapture
The adolescence they so casually bypassed;
Desperately trying to fill the emptiness,
The chasm that time has created.
Then there are those who reach
The threshold of success,
Only to self-destruct like a comet
That burns too brightly, peaks too swiftly,
And extinguishes with startling abruptness,
Tumbling into oblivion.
These are the gifted, who achieve fame
Only to be consumed by their own flame.
To some, wealth is the measure
That determines success,
And they pursue this quest
With single-minded ruthlessness,
Often sacrificing the human factor,
Until they accumulate vast vaults of wealth.
But they discover, to their dismay,
That happiness is rarely negotiable
In terms of their wealth,
And that commodity remains ever elusive.
Success...
Society dictates the standards
To which Man adheres,
Often to the point of self-destruction.
And yet, without this motivation,
This need to achieve success,
Man would deteriorate
Because he would learn to be content
With his life and strive no farther.
"Contentment" - a most dangerous word;
It is a deadly state of being.
For to be content is to stop,
And those who stop soon stagnate.
Success...
A necessity as well as a driving force.
Man hovers uncertainly
Between stagnation and self-destruction;
And sometimes one dreams of attaining
A delicate balance between the two:
To succeed in the eyes of his peers
Without denying himself
Nor betraying his own humanity.
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