Words out of Context

The Miami airport has words inscribed in the floor of the terminal. I think if you were to look at it the right way you would read something amazing. Something about Miami and its history and its culture and its environment and its people. But instead all I could see where words out of context.

"Soaked up, never given back." Absorbed into time. Who wrote that line? What did they mean it to go with? Were they talking about the environment? An experience? The sand? The sun? An old lover?

As I could not begin to understand the authors intent I was instead left in the Miami airport feeling somehow empty and confused. Able to only put my interpretation against them. But wanting desperately to understand the whole picture. To see something outside of my own context.

An addition to "trying"

One last thought that woke me up in the middle of the night last night. Failure is one of the things that makes us great. We should always seek to take risks and see the outcomes for what they are not just a failure or a success. I think what bothers me about how we use the word trying is that we use it to give ourselves an excuse to fail. To somehow soften the blow to ourselves and others.

When we stop fearing failure, we will also stop trying. And begin doing.

The Trouble with Trying

I was always told to "try the best I could". The implication being that if I tried my best, even if I failed, I had somehow succeeded. I have struggled with that concept always. I don't see how trying negates the failure. It doesn't mean we don't learn from trying. It doesn't mean that failing is a bad thing. But I have grown tired of the concept of simply trying to do something.

If change is desired badly enough whether it be to quit smoking, get a new job, leave a relationship, start exercising then you don't "try" to do it. You simply begin taking the step necessary to do it. It doesn't mean the path is always clear and easy. It doesn't mean you won't have setbacks. But it does mean you have banished trying.

It is easy to tell when someone has reached that point. Their vocabulary changes. They no longer say: "I am trying to quit smoking." They say: "I quit smoking." They don't say: I am going to try to get to the gym 3 times a week." They say: "I go to the gym 3 times a week.

I say we remove "try" from our vocabulary. We do, or we don't. And we live with that.