March 18, 2018, Israel
If you have not read, studied, internalized the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, you should. You are welcome.
Life has its ups and downs, you see I have a knack for the obvious, but the tricky part is dealing with it.
There are two aspects to dealing with the ups and downs; one is the actual challenge of each event and the other is our self perception based on our current standing on the scale of life.
This means we have our ups and downs and all too often we see ourselves in the mirror of that light. We do not base our self perception on who we actually are but on where we happen to find ourselves on the scale of success.
Few fighters, artists, musicians, actors, have remained number 1 for very long, (other than the Beatles). Most have a hit, perhaps a few hits, stay on top for a while and then fade into oblivion. And then they end up on shows called, "Where Are They Now?"
There are days you feel like a king and days you feel like a loser with a capital L but is this a reflection of who you are, or just the sliding fortunes of life? Strikes and Gutters, as the man said.
Truth is eternal and this question was answered well in the mid 1890's.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
....Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! (Rudyard Kipling, If, circa 1895).