4-13-07  Self Study Book#1.  29 years old.  To give up now would be like climbing the stairs to only stop half-way and never reach the top.  All the work you put into something and yet you never get to see what the end result would be because the going got tough.  At what point do you stop doing what you think makes you stronger for something else because it is easier?  This is the
cross road I have reached in my life at this time.  What I sometimes dread to do each and every day I must say now makes me who I am.  The question now becomes what type of person am I as a result of my every day decisions?  No longer climbing the stairs on account of struggling is absolutely foolish and yet I entertain the thought of doing such a thing.  The stairs represent more than
stairs to me; they are a way to some place higher within me, an inner challenge of determination along with the question of “Do I really want to go beyond the immediate struggles?”  When I back down from the struggles secretly I am sending a message to myself that I cannot do it.  Before long and after many back downs, I can no longer do what I use to.  I recalled a conversation I had with a friend of mine as I climbed the stairs one night.  In this talk I found myself questioning what I was doing with my day to day life and what I thought were the lack of improvements with these day to day activities.  I was so focused on the immediate struggles that I failed to see the improvements I made along the way.  My stair climbing time was becoming faster.  I was not out of breath as I climbed the stairs.  Thoughts of having to climb those stairs again were not the main thoughts I thought about before each climb.  But my focus all this time was on being healed and not the simple, small steps that take me there.  By leaving
behind all the work I’ve done with myself over the past year because the going got tough would be like walking away from what could be.  People say you never regret the things you’ve done or said but rather the things you have not done or said.  I don’t want to regret ever knowing what lies beyond the immediate struggles of those stairs and so I will continue to climb them each and every day.