The Number 1 Most Important Life Lesson You'll Ever Learn
- Jan 8, 2015
- 3 min read
As humans we are fairly fallible and as Spock says, illogical. We tend to be so short-sighted, only thinking as far ahead as a day, a week—a month at most.
How many times have you said I’m going to be doing this exactly a year from now? Unless it’s something fun like a big vacation I would guess probably never.
One exact year from now I will be at my favourite coffee shop at 3:00 clock with my best friend as we laugh about something funny that happened at work. Or I will be
working at my dream job with two secretaries fielding all my calls and planning meetings for me.
Seems strange doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s why we don’t really think too far in the future. Or brains aren’t naturally programed that way. But there is value in visualizing where you will be in the long term.
It gives you perspective that whatever challenges, problems you face today might not necessarily be the same you face tomorrow or a year from now.
Sometimes when things at work aren’t going well or you’re fighting with your spouse we tend to think that things can’t get any better.
I don’t know but I used to have the feeling of being stuck, of having nowhere to turn.
If you ever feel that way I want you to sit down at your computer and listen to the song Don’t Stop Believing sung by Journey.
Not because of the lyrics, but because of the song itself.
It debuted in 1981 and hit number 9 on the Billboard chart. I want you to pause and think about this for a moment. Don’t Stop Believing wasn’t even the most popular song at the time of its release!
It wasn’t until almost 25 years later it would make a comeback through television shows like Glee and the Sopranos which featured the song. It became popular with another generaton. The song would eventually become the most digitally downloaded Rock song in history until it was eclipsed in 2014 by Imagine Dragons.
That is a powerful lesson.
Just because something isn’t successful or the way you imagined it at first doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. Today’s problems are minor compared to the overall picture of life.
Another example is Shawshank Redemption. On opening weekend it only made a pathetic one million dollars and was written off by the studios. It eventually squeaked out $16 million but it wasn’t until video release that people started to take notice.
The film would eventually be voted the best movie of all time by IMDB users, beating out such classics as Godfather, Citizen Cane – which is often the critic’s choice – and Schindler’s List.
The world is in a constant flux and those who are on top aren’t necessarily there for ever. Just because you’re not where you want to be doesn’t mean that it can’t happen in the future.
It can happen the opposite way. Just ask Donald Trump who was a highflying millionaire before he went bankrupted. Three times. And now is a billionaire.
It took my film Neutral Territory over six months before a film festival even touched it and by the end of the circuit we were almost drowning in awards. Winning them left, right and center. We sold the film to a Canadian broadcaster then to one in Africa. But not too long ago we were dropped by our distributor because he thought the lifespan of our film was over.
I’m thankful for his short sightedness because now we are free to distribute the film digitally. We can reach a global audience and sell it to people in a format they want in a convienent way!
Life is like that.
There are bumps and curves, you just have to make sure you don’t crash.
Probably nobody knows this better than Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world. He didn’t get there by being discouraged by life’s bumps – by a single company's loss in shareholder value. He always focuses on the horizon and makes sure he continues to strive towards it, even in his mid 80s.
So remember that if it hasn’t happened for you it just means you have something to look forward to.
Joel Mark Harris is a writer, producer and journalist. (@joelmarkharris) He is the proud founder of Scene2Studio and you can download for FREE his award-winning thriller novel A Thousand Bayonets HERE
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