Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
I have been thinking about this word success. It’s opposite in the dictionary is the word failure. Certainly not a positive word for many people, but I beg to differ as Mr. Churchill so eloquently put it in the quote above. We get so hung up on success and failure. Either one can send people nose diving into a sea of depression, but I think we look at success all wrong. It is about the accomplishments after trying something. We may not get the desired outcome, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t successful. We may have achieved a different outcome that was better or we have learned a lesson so we can continue to try, improve, fail, try again until we reach the desired outcome. Each trial, each lesson has some success because it moves us forward. And that is what success is…moving forward even though you may have to move backward, sideways or stand still for a while. If you keep trying you will eventually move forward. At least that is how I have come to perceive success in my life.
People will tell you to be positive as you endeavor to work toward accomplishments, but sometimes that is not always possible. We can be disappointed by the outcome of our effort. But if you let the disappointment be felt in a constructive way so that it can be a means of enthusiasm to keep trying then you will want to keep going and moving forward. If you decide to give up well OK maybe this was not for you. It was not your passion. I have tried to play golf because my dad loved it, friends played it and I wanted to join in. I took lessons, my dad patiently took me golfing and tried to teach me and I even joined a league. But in the end, I realized I was trying to love and play golf for others not myself. So I stopped. I found other activities to enjoy like writing and gardening. This is where I put my efforts. And with each new try I have found some success.
In another month I will be celebrating my one year anniversary of starting this blog. I had committed myself to writing one post a week on Mondays, and I faithfully accomplished this goal. People seem to enjoy what I write and I love the interaction with my readers. I even posted more than once a week many times. This past Saturday, I did a guest post at Beautiful Wildlife Garden. The subject was Discovering Rain Gardens and folks seem to enjoy the post and learn from it. I even learned a few things from readers.
I also guest post monthly at Walkabout Chronicles. Two dear friends, Steven and Liane, started this site about life and journeys and
asked it I would post sometimes. They were delighted when I asked if I could post monthly. They were delighted….wow you mean you actually like my writing. You can check out my new post for August!
I still find it hard to believe that people do like my writing. For me the writing is something I must do. It comes from somewhere deep inside and it must have an outlet. So I keep writing even if it is just for me. But the recognition of a memoir and the publishing of 2 poems was even more than I thought possible as I took up the pen this year. If you do consider buying the book that contains 2 of my poems, there is info about where to order the book at the end of the post.
With the garden, there have been a series of highs, lows, successes and failures ever changing with each new season and year. So as I contemplate successes this year, I am thinking about what has been a success in the garden. I know, I know the garden season is not over yet so why write about successes. There are certainly more to come. I do believe that, but I thought I would consider what has happened so far particularly in the veg garden. The vegetable garden is a new challenge for me, and one I continue to “grow” with every year…forgive the pun 😉
Veg Garden successes this year:
- Growing some heirloom tomatoes and beating some problems like blight although tomato harvest will be small. Letting a few tomatoes fall and compost in the raised bed gave me 2 volunteers that are growing strong and producing tomatoes. Maybe the hot weather will allow them to ripen before frost.
- Growing hot peppers from seed. Cayenne have been ripening, hatch green chiles are flowering. Almost lost the chiles, but they recovered. Sweet peppers had a very limited success. Still learning about growing successful peppers.
- Harvested 24 cloves of garlic that are almost dried and ready to use.
- Harvested lots of carrots, lettuce, radishes, scallions. Just planted more.
- Harvested a few peas, beans, beets.
- Pumpkins last year produced no fruit. It appears we have some fruiting up.
- baby pumpkin
- Sweet potatoes still growing in their grow bags. Hope to harvest a bunch in a few weeks.
- Eggplant growing slowly. I think the raised bed is a bit shady for the tomatoes and eggplant there. Will move them to another sunnier bed, and put cooler weather veggies here.
- Some blueberries so we had success this year. Raspberries are now flowering so we will get some late raspberries although the plants are much smaller than in previous years.
- The new blackberry bush grew but no berries, and the grape grew a bit but not much so we need to assess what to do. The strawberries need to be moved again and the bed cleared of weeds.
- The success of the robins definitely had a profound effect on me and taught me to try a bit harder; it tends to lead to more successes than whining although sometimes we need to whine about the disappointment to get it out of our system. So forgive any whining this year especially about the weather. It is out of our control after all so we just have to roll with it.
Here is the latest picture of one of the baby robins. They are a week old but their eyes are still shut. It is hard to believe that very soon they will be leaving the nest. I expect by this time next week, we will be dealing with an empty nest. But the number of juvenile robins in the yard lately leads me to believe that the robins who nested nearby have had a bumper crop of young ones. Soon they will all gather and be gone and the garden will be so quiet.
The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way. ~ Robert Kiyosaki
Book Update:
For those that have asked, my 2 poems are being published in the book, The Moment I Knew, August 26th. You can see the announcement in my blog post. Information about sale of the book is:
- The book will be for sale at www.SugatiPublications.com as well as other online and independent booksellers (e.g. Amazon, Barnes and Noble).
- Preference is for folks to buy directly from Sugati Publications because the charities selected, who will profit from the sale of the book, will get a greater amount of the profits. If folks buy from other booksellers (e.g., Amazon) then the book seller gets about 40% which significantly cuts into the charities profits as well.
Special Note: All flowers and critters pictured here are from my garden. Flaunt your flowers at Tootsie Time this Friday where she hosts Fertilizer Friday. I’ll be flaunting mine.
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