Creating Your Own Revolution [Repost]

Daringly Adamant or Stubbornly Headstrong…Which are You?

“Why reach for the stars when you could reach for the Creator of the same”?

~ Patrick Muhereza

 Cynicism is a way to rehearse the let-downs the world has in store–before they arrive. And the cynic chooses this attitude at the expense of the group. Because he can’t bear to be disappointed, he shares his rehearsed disappointment with the rest of us, slowing down projects, betting on lousy outcomes and dampening enthusiasm.

~Seth Godin

Before something is done differently, culture and the way of doing things will stay in comfort. Few people would want to venture out…and ask questions that make you uncomfortable.

Before a record is broken, there is normally a general agreement world-wide that nobody can achieve the milestone. It happened with the guy who revolutionized high jump as a sport. He’s called Forsby…I believe. When he invented the style of going with the head first, they called him a flop. In fact they labelled his high jump technique as the ‘Forsby flop’.

Since then, people have been ‘floppingly’ breaking high jump records each decade. In fact, you would be considered a real Nearnderthal today if you did not use the “Forsby Flop” in high jump.

Someone somewhere has said that those who say that things cannot be done should not interrupt those who are making things happen…

A certain visionary hundreds of years back was punished by an institutionalized church for claiming that the earth was not flat….that it was round. I believe the Pope John Paul the second apologized for this some time back.

“Whenever I see people doing something the way it has always been done, the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be done, following the same old trends, well, that’s just a big red flag for me to look somewhere else”

–Mark Cuban

So, how do we make a distinction between being stubborn and refusing to listen to advice then head for destruction and being daringly adamant and doing things differently to cause a revolution?

You know, a revolution has never been without controversy, that is for sure. If it is widely and wildly accepted today, it does no mean it was always that way. Someone somewhere had to pay the price by being daring enough to go against the grain. In other words, all revolutions have faced stiff opposition and prevailed.

“The biggest risk is not taking a risk…in a world that is changing really quickly the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks”

— Mark Zuckerberg

A preacher was busy waxing eloquent about how God never intended for mankind to fly…and that it would never happen. At his backyard, his two boys, the Wright Brothers were experimenting with the first aircraft.

 He alone knows about everything. It was easy in 1910 to say that ‘Man will never set foot on the moon’…and get the whole world agree with you. Just over fifty years later, you would be forced to swallow your words.

When someone uses the word ‘Never’ in the context of possibilities,

• They might be culturally comfortable today and do not want things to change;
• They might know the difficulty involved and would not want to be part of it;
• They might know of the possibility of failure and would not want to be on a sinking ship
• Chances are that they might not have gathered all the data needed
• Chances are that they are just looking at it from one angle
• Chances are that they have not factored the use of extra resources, but they are just thinking about the available ones
• Chances are that from where they are standing and with the mindset they possess, their prediction can be a self fulfilling prophecy.

“The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we are still alive”

~ Quote

In our personal lives,there comes a time on several occasions that we have to be adamant and pursue that which resonates inside our hearts. The idea at hand is not a fluke, not an accident. I think a battle that we visionaries always will fight is the call to always fit in and accept the status quo vs. doing things that serve our dreams and visions.

If you are warned that taking a particular direction will make you fail, you need to evaluate your ‘adamancy’ with the following questions:

1. Is it a heart-felt vision or desire?
2. Is it a heart-felt vision or desire in the life of those against it?
3. If you cannot do it alone, is it still doable? Must it be done alone?
4. Has someone else someplace else ever done it before?
5. Has it worked or is it working with them?
6. If someone failed with it before…are the reasons for their failure the main reason for shrinking back or is there a better way of doing it?
7. What exactly caused it to fail the first time? Can you go around it? What can we learn from the failure?
8. If you pull it off, does it have the capacity to cause a revolution?

When you answer these questions well and still feel the desire to remain adamant and do it, you should bite the bullet and go ahead. Like they say, “Jump off the cliff and grow wings on your way down”.

I should say that it would have been better to try and fail, than not to try and never know.

Have you been thinking about a personal revolution of late?

PS: In writing about ‘the Impossible’ as a theme recently, it necessitated me to look back at this post done close to one year ago. My thoughts have always gravitated towards the issues addressed in this article. I therefore took the liberty to re-post it.