Recently I was reminded of the following well known quote from President Roosevelt. Hopefully, someday our nation will be blessed with great leadership again, but alas, I digress.
Back to the quote, to further contemplate it, I shuffled my Tarot deck and drew The World.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
What can I say, The World seems mighty fitting, and obvious to go along with our President’s words.
A.E. Waite said of The World: “It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit.”
I think that many “who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” are cursed to that state not because they lack courage as Roosevelt implies; although certainly many are. Others are in that state because they don’t know their purpose in life. They don’t understand what will give their life meaning.
For these it is a lack of self-knowledge. If we lack knowledge of the self, we can’t truly know, or exercise our will. Without that ability, we are quite likely to simply muddle through life. Chasing the next consumer product, social media dopamine fix; looking for validation outside of ourselves.
Success and victory, triumph, the meanings of these concepts are as unique as every individual. Because what is most important to one, will not be important to another. To find truly meaningful personal success, we must discover what is most vital to our completely unique self. And that can only be done if we make the effort to truly know ourself.
Once we possess the knowledge of why we are here that knowledge can become our mission. A mission pursued with single minded focus. We can then, as our President suggests, “dare mighty things.”
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