CHANGE YOUR STARS – PERSEVERANCE

Repost and edited from October 2010. I write because I enjoy it. When I can relate to others with words it brings gratification. Like many labors of love, the payoff is worth the struggle. The process to change your stars takes perseverance.

Sometimes when I write, the words push out of my pen sorta’ like pushing a rope uphill. Other times the words flow from the end of my pen like water from a faucet.

A blank page or screen is available to everyone. What a person does with their thoughts and a blank page or screen can be magical. The world of words is like everything else in life, it’s crowded. There are far more books written every year than get published.

There are scads of wildly gifted writers who’s work will never see the light of day. Being gifted alone will get a person almost zero. A God given gift without perseverance is like trying to see the world by sitting on your couch.

It doesn’t matter what the dream is, without perseverance it’s not going to happen.

I enjoyed the movie “A Knights Tale,” starring the late Heath Ledger. It was a story about a peasant who worked hard to hone the gift of Jousting, a sport restricted to Noblemen. The character William was sent away by his father as a lad to apprentice for a Noblemen. As William was disappearing into the fog his dad shouted after him. “CHANGE YOUR STARS, WILLIAM!”

image courtesy of fan pop.com

When it was discovered during a Jousting match that the grown up William was not of noble but of peasant ancestry, he had a chance to run in order to save his life. He chose to stay and face imprisonment because he believed, and said, “I am a knight”.

Though it’s a fictional story, that is a truth of this life. What you believe defines who you are in all aspects of life.

When a person sets their sights on “Changing Their Stars,” they come in conflict with the rest of the world. Whatever it is we’re trying to change there will be forces trying to prevent it. Just like that story, so it is with the story of real life.

The Noble’s don’t want competition. They want to keep their small world unchanged. The door to their exclusive country club is not open with a tidy welcome mat.

Likewise, the masses want to keep the rest of us equal with them. They don’t want to see someone “Change Their Stars”. Misery loves company. The masses have settled for mediocrity and don’t want to be reminded of that fact by someone getting ahead.

For anyone who has broken through the barriers to “Change Their Stars”, my hats off to them.

If someone has changed their stars due to a gift from God that they’ve coupled with perseverance and desire to accomplish it, I say, “Good for them”. That means it can happen again, it’s not impossible.

I’d be disappointed in myself if I gave up striving, that’s for the masses.

The truth is I just need to persevere to change my stars. Isn’t that the true definition of success?Recognized for it or not, I’ll write…