Several that stuck out to me:
"The greatest thing a man can possibly do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other. It is not a question of what someone else can do or become which every youth should ask himself, but what can I do? How can I develop myself into the grandest possible manhood?" - Orison Swett Marden
"Without an adversary, virtus shrivels. We see how great and how viable is when, by endurance, it shows what it is capable of" - Seneca
"The lesson taught at this point by human experience is simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. Personal independence is a virtue and it is the soul out of which comes the sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must be developed from within" - Frederick Douglass
“Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.” –Benjamin Disraeli
There were others, but they had redundant themes. Here, we have a few different themes going on which could be addressed. All of these obviously spoke to me in one way or another.
Marden's quote deals with how to measure oneself... something I deal with all the time. Over the course of my life, I've wanted to be a writer, a filmmaker, an actor, a history teacher, a music history teacher, a musician, a helper, and now, a comic writer. All these desires, all these would-be ambitions... but what holds me back more than anything is me applying some measurement of what success looks like. Obviously, success is something I don't have, or am not. And therefore, the discouragement happens because I'm wrongly comparing myself to others, or tell myself that I wouldn't be good enough at it. The problem truly is that I can't just try something, and try to see it through... and if I fail, then I fail. I could at least pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on. But, I won't even let myself go down that road for fear of failure. This quote is about 'making the most possible out of the stuff given'. I am what I am. I'm not gonna wake up tomorrow, and be someone I'm not. I'll still be Eric Miller. But, that's the challenge. Wake up tomorrow, and grow. Wake up tomorrow, and strive to be the best 'me' that I can be.
Seneca's really spoke to me - as did several other similar quotes - because of something I've felt since I was young. Look... let me start this by saying, I've always felt like in my lifetime, a huge apocalypse-like scenario would happen. I always imagined myself living in a world far different from our own, where I was called upon to be the leader I always felt like I was. This quote reminds me of that. I always felt that if I had some great obstacle to overcome, my true greatness underneath would present itself. But, this also goes back to the prior quote. True adversity in life isn't the stuff of fantasy... it's not Lord of the Rings, and I'm not Frodo. The adversity we must face in life is the simple letdowns... the plain-old failures of not achieving everything you set out to do. When you set yourself on a path to ambition and, and goals, you will inevitably find obstacles. But, you must grow from them.
Frederick Douglass speaks of the responsibility one has to, simply, get up. These days, 'getting up' has become everything for me. It's not just how to deal with tough stuff... it's making something out of yourself. "If you get up, you will be helped up". Others will support you if you try to make something of yourself. But, if you don't even try, you won't be assisted in getting up in the first place. Obviously, there are gonna be people who want to help. But, they won't know how. You won't let them if they tried. You have to initiate the spark. And that brings us to the final quote... (man, all of these really were tied together; at least in my interpretation of them)
Disraeli's quote speaks to me because I, too, recognize the urgency. "Life IS too short to be little". To let life just pass us by, and not have anything to show for it...? These are the things to live for: feel deeply, act boldly, be frank and with fervor. I love the word fervor. I love the synonyms too: passion, intensity, zeal, eagerness, enthusiasm, vigor, energy, fire, spirit. This is the heart of what he's talking about. If life is so short, the rational thing to do would be to embody fire. These qualities are far superior to the antonyms: apathy, dullness, indifference, lethargy. The antonyms almost perfectly describe how I've been feeling for the last several years. What's wrong with this picture? I know how I ought to be, but don't seem to be doing anything about it.
Life's too short, indeed.
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