Achievement can be considered the pinnacle of effort. That which you have strived for, worked for, endured much, promised little and sacrificed to accomplish all becomes secondary to the pride and joy that comes with Achievement. You’ve done it! All feats, great and small bring with them a sense of satisfaction. Once you’ve experienced that sense of wonder and awe at your own abilities you will finally understand what it means to be self-reliant, resilient, and persistent. Picking a goal and powering through what life gives you to accomplish that goal has no substitute.
Once you have reached that level of accomplishment and know what it takes to get there, you must push yourself even further. You may have heard the old cliché “don’t rest on your laurels.” Well basically that means you need to keep challenging yourself. If you don’t, your achievement will fade. I believe a fundamental goal in life should be to continually strive and push yourself to achieve ever greater accomplishments. I can tell you personally, after 4 years, I’ve finally finished my Master’s degree. I just received my diploma in the mail and it is now hanging on my office wall. It means a lot to me, because I went through a lot, professionally and personally while trying to achieve that goal of getting my degree. Now that I’m finished, I’m thinking of what my next challenge should be.
Sir Edmund Hillary’s quote is quite apt, at least for me, but at the same time, I’m reminded of that little ditty we’d sing when we were kids “…The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain… to see what he could see. He saw another mountain, he saw another mountain, he saw another mountain, so guess what he did. The bear went over the mountain…” Life is full of mountains. Go climb them, and conquer!
