A Different View of Success

Meme’s, those pithy sayings and quotes designed to inspire and sometimes make us laugh. My news feed is filled with them. 

But sometimes, I like to look back to learn how the people who came before us communicated the universal truths that affect all of humanity. Success is one of those truths. Here’s an example of how Henry Wadsworth Longfellow approached success.

We have not wings, we cannot soar:

But we have feet to scale and climb

By slow degrees, by more and more,

The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,

When nearer seen, and better known,

Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear

Their solid bastions to the skies,

Are crossed by pathways, that appear

As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upward in the night.