Hanging onto a cliff a cliff face, a tiger above him and
more tigers below, the man feels the vine that he is holding onto begin to give
way, its roots pulling out of the cliff. There is nothing he can do, but then
he notices a beautiful ripe strawberry growing to the side. He reaches over and
plucks it. And it is delicious. – The Buddha
Have you ever sabotaged your own success? Maybe you didn’t
take the risk that would have given you the opportunity to do something
different because it was too frightening or just too uncomfortable? It is only
when we get into a situation which is so difficult that we actually value what is
presented in that moment. I know from my own life I have turned down the
possibility of doing something extraordinary. In one of those instances I went
against my better judgement because somebody who I thought would know better
told me it wouldn’t work.
At the time I was in a band the son of Roger Moore, Geoffrey
had a good voice and the band was really good but this was in the time when the
record companies were looking for duos similar to the Pet Shop Boys and not a
nine piece rock band.
I thought that we should have taken the band out and gigged,
pulling in all the advertising that we could muster which would have been easy
because of the celebrity cache of our lead singer. By creating a momentum which
could have built upon we could have bootstrapped our way up but I was persuaded
that it would not work. Looking back at it I missed a great opportunity.
Take the approach that life is like being sandwiched between
two sets of tigers and when it presents you with the beautiful ripe strawberry you
need to grasp it and savour it. These events will not change the inevitable but
it will make life more wonderful. This brings me to another possibility of this
story that any opportunity to live needs to be grasped and sometimes this will
mean ignoring the calamity of life in order to
spend time doing things that are
seemingly trivial but nevertheless beautiful like playing a musical instrument.
Vic
www.bluescampuk.co.uk three days at the amazing rock summer school;
bookings for next year now being taken
