No dress rehearsal, no post-performance
Sometimes, all it takes is a little bit of inspiration. Don’t just sit there waiting for it, though. Make dirt fly and see what kind of personal mountains you can build. Don’t settle for hills. Swing that shovel and see what you’re capable of. With small instant cash loans for money now, be the inspiration you seek.
That’s what Tallulah Bankhead did in her life. Whether or not she was sans clothes, codeine or bourbon, the actress went after what she wanted. “I’m a foe of moderation, the champion of excess,” she said. “If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, ‘I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.’”
The time is now. Stand tall.
Jeff Corbett writes in an editorial for the Statesville Record & Landmark that famous philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller once advised to a fellow philanthropist looking to accomplish big things that she should undertake a “Tall Tree” project. What does it mean to be a tall tree? Rockefeller explained that “the best charitable grants stand out like a tall tree towering over the other trees in the forest. Tall trees change the landscape by making a unique and lasting difference” in the immediate community or world at large. In Rockefeller’s estimation, one “Tall Tree” project would do more good for more people than a dozen smaller projects.
Admittedly, most of us are not in a financial position to be able to self-finance charitable organizations (instant cash loans or otherwise), but each and every one of us is in the position to find the true lesson in Rockefeller’s statement. We can be tall trees in our own way. Corbett asks if your life is “just a laundry list of many things you do adequately, or do you have a purpose and passion that makes you stand out and be unique?” In order to find our purpose and light the fires of our passions, we must pursue that which brings us alive. That is the Promethean flame we must kindle.
Start asking questions
What makes you special or unique? It’s there. You can find it. If you swing and miss, swing again. Tallulah Bankhead, a big fan of baseball, once said that “If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.” Clearly, she had no regrets. And why should she? She may have lived a life of excess that was medically inadvisable, but she was happy in her pursuits. Swing for the fences when it comes to making a plan for your life. You have at least one skill, talent, contribution, or purpose that is unique to you. Share it with the world and you are a Tall Tree.
One of the problems people have when it comes to figuring out who they are is that they tend to define themselves through the eyes of others. Once you take control of your own destiny, you begin to truly define yourself and rely upon yourself. Once you have addressed your real needs – not the needs dictated to you in popular media – you can begin to truly aid others. You must teach yourself what it means to care, for others can only suggest what that might be like. Once you’re there, you can truly live the Tallulah Bankhead dictum “Say anything about me, dahling, as long as it isn’t boring.”
Love yourself alive
Civil rights leader Dr. Howard Thurman knew what the world needed, and that we shouldn’t wait for an answer or we miss the point. “Don’t ask what the world needs,” he said. “Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” We can only come alive if we bring our dreams into the waking world. What is it that you want to do? A new career? To create art? To serve food at a soup kitchen? To dance in public without caring what anyone thinks? The questions and answers are yours alone.
Once you decide, it’s equally important to bring fuel to your kindling fire. The combustion to burn requires your constant attention. There’s nothing passive about it. I say these things because I need to. Because I need to remind myself to continue to add the fuel to my own tank. Live and love as you see fit. If you need reminders, remind yourself. If you have a patient buddy or loved one to join you on the journey, don’t be afraid to accept and hand from them. I’m not talking self-reliance to the exclusion of all others. Part of being able to help others is being able to accept love. Just don’t forget that they need love, too. For as Tallulah Bankhead once said, “I’ll come and make love to you at five o’clock. If I’m late, start without me.” Do try to clean up first, though.
“What are you living for?”
Psychologist (and creator of “Wonder Woman”) William Moulton Marston once conducted a survey of 3,000 American sheeple. The survey consisted of one question that is both intensely personal and openly public in its import: “What are you living for?”
What did he find? Sadly, it isn’t shocking. An overwhelming majority – 94 percent – answered that they had no definite purpose. If these men and women were standing like tall trees against an establishment that was attempting to spoon feed them the locus solus of their world, I would be impressed. However, I think something much less grandiose was going on. These people were waiting at the subway station for a train to arrive and take them away. They’d wait until next year.
How would you answer that question?
The sleeper must awaken
Corbett suggests that we must venture outside our comfort zone if we are to find what is unique within ourselves. Author Frank Herbert writes through his character Duke Leto Atreides that “a person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” If slumber has been your norm, learn from the fires of passion that burn all around. Follow the smoke trail. Be an investigative reporter. Learn what makes them tick, then adapt the lessons to your own experience.
Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Sometimes, synthesizing diametrically opposed ideas into a new creation is the hallmark of growth. And if you think I don’t have a Tallulah Bankhead quote to back this up, you’re wrong: “I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That’s what I call a liberal education.”
Teach me about you
"Dahling, it's what we do that defines us."
This is hard work. I’ll be working on it for some time. If you’re already there, I salute you. Some day, be a “dahling” and return the favor.
Instant cash loans for money now are a means to a temporary financial end. What we need is something more permanent when it comes to ourselves. The whole thing can be overwhelming, but Corbett encourages with a simple directive from Henry David Thoreau. Perhaps you can find your Walden with his advice in mind: “One is not born into the world to do everything, but to do something.”
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