belief – The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg

Progress takes time and effort, and you will not see results overnight without putting the work in. You can measure progress in whatever you do by seeing if you are starting to get a little better in whatever area you are applying yourself to. If you are taking practice tests and you notice your score keeps going up, if you can swim further and faster than before while being timed, and if you are able to save more money each month than you had the previous one.

Progress is not linear in terms of growth, and it will not happen all at once. The important thing to keep in mind is that you are having more good days than bad days. You need to see if you are progressing a little bit each day or if you are at least progressing most of the time when you measure yourself. There will be days or times when no progress is being made and that’s alright. However, how you react to that and how you work to exceed your expectations next time can make all the difference. Setbacks and lack of progress are going to happen when you are striving to be better or to do better. You must persevere and not let it get to you mentally.

What you want to avoid is to ‘throw in the towel’ and to give up without doing your absolute best and pushing yourself to the limit. If you work as hard as you can as often as you can, progress is more likely to be made on that day, that week, that month, or even that year. It’s not bad to take a day or so off to give yourself a break if needed but don’t let that break become permanent or don’t throw your hopes and dreams away because something is hard. When something is hard to do, that should push you even more because you are testing the limits of what you are capable of.

There is no greater thrill than being able to usurp everybody’s expectations that they set for you including your own. The thrill of achieving or accomplishing something that you thought was previously impossible and so did everyone else. It’s important to keep in mind that kind of achievement takes days, weeks, months, or even years to accomplish so you should be consistently measuring your progress and your setbacks. If you are consistently getting a bit better each day and doing so more often than being stagnant or getting worse, you are that much closer to achieving your goal(s). The key to achieving anything is both progress and consistency because they go hand in hand with each other.

For example, if you are running to train for a marathon, there will be days where you can run 10 miles and some days where you’ll run 5 or 15 miles. The key to keep in mind is that you are running most days or even every day to train on a consistent basis. You should be striving to go from 5 to 10 to 15 to eventually 26.2 miles in a full marathon pace to train at that level to be fully ready for the race. What you want to avoid in this scenario is running less miles as you get closer to race day or running less miles over time. You want to be building consistent habits and practices to be truly ready for this kind of accomplishment.

An impressive goal like running a marathon is an excellent way to show just how key consistency can lead to progress but it’s also about setting goals such as reaching a new number of miles each week for training purposes. If you go in a training like this case from 5 miles to 25 miles in a few months to train for the race six days a week, you’ll be much more likely to reach that goal of running a full marathon. You’ll ensure that you are as ready as can be when you step to the start line on that race day because you became a little better each day.

The key is to go from 0 to 26.2 miles during that training and not 26.2 miles to 0 miles ran. There is a clear distinction there on how to get a little better each day and that involves both consistent progress each day and knowing how to measure yourself in terms of that progress with the amount of running you do to train. Getting better at anything in life is like running a marathon in that you won’t achieve it overnight, it takes consistency at a high level, and you have to set measurable goals to show that your progress is sustainable so that you are ready to claim that achievement.

Life is a marathon in itself so make sure you count the days you made progress in your goal(s), note how you can get better, be consistent about what you want to achieve, how you’re going to do it, why it’s important to you, and you’ll be well on your way to being successful. Getting a little better each day is what I hope for all of us in whatever we set our minds and our hearts to. Be sure to treat life as a marathon and not as a sprint, and you’ll be on the right track.

The sand beneath me is coarse yet soft as it envelopes my feet and legs whole as I begin to pull myself up after admiring the waves lapping up to cool my body and soothe my worries as if I were in a welcome trance. Looking around at the vast sunset before me, the canvas of colors from blue to yellow to orange to pink, light up the seascape village I find myself near to but still so far away from. The cool, ocean breeze blows the wisps of water onto my face and my hair with the soft rustle of the wind refreshing and relaxing me as the sunset envelopes the bright horizon leaving just one solid line of distinction on the horizon to separate the sea from the sky.

I am wearing all-white as I pick myself up out of the sand and I see the shimmering lights behind me of a picturesque village where there is laughter, unknown music, and the smell of delicious food cooking over an open flame. After the sun sets over the village, I feel the distinct urge to go towards the village where everything and nothing seems familiar to me at the same time. The shimmering lights help me as I climb from the base of the beach up through the rocky hillside feeling at ease even as my bare feet climb over the rocks and shrubbery covered boulders.

As I climb higher and higher to the top of the hillside that juts out of this mountainous formation, the sound of people in different languages laughing heartily, the sounds of beautiful music playing in a sweet symphony as to not clash with the people’s joy. The smells of enticing foods, which become more and more familiar to me that come either from a distant past or of a future yet to come. The arduous hill climbing causes me to stumble and rest prematurely but I am undeterred. I do not bleed and while I tire, I do not fall back. Eventually, I make my way to the entrance of this pristine yet unfamiliar village with cobbled streets and stucco walls. Each of the village homes I walk past have large windows but no one’s inside, the walls are white or pastel-colored, and the arches speak to a grandeur of which I immediately fall in love with.

The windows and doors are arched with beige or dark red clay roof tiles with outdoor space with gardens likely filled with lush tomatoes and other plants to grow one’s own food. Surprisingly, I encounter women and men dressed from different eras on these cobbled streets who greet me in the languages of my ancestors. They have carriages and horses with them and exchange pleasantries with me as I pass them by on the way to the party. While I do not know them, they know me and perhaps they’ve known me my whole life. Even though I am tired from my journey, my hunger and thirst apparent to them all, they whisper words of belonging and encouragement in my ears and tell me that, “everyone is waiting for me.”

Who is everyone? Is it my friends? My family? My loves of past, present, or future? Where am I? Questions wash over me, but I am not anxious. It’s that strange sense of anticipation that comes after a fortuitous journey where my last destination is not known but I have no doubt of where it is that I am supposed to go. I am here for a reason and while I do not know when, where, or how I got here, I finally know that I have a destination in mind that may be what I was looking for all along.

Once I get there, the high, wooden entrance of a pure white village house made of solid brown doors swing wide open for me as an honored guest. There are sturdy, mahogany tables filled with known faces who have known me throughout my life and unknown yet familiar faces who I may be related to by blood or folks who I don’t remember as a child or baby but have also met them at one point or another. The tables and chairs seem to go on forever up to the edge of the hillside looking out on the moon, the sea, and the stars as gloriously bright as can be with no way not see hundreds or thousands in the night sky. Ornate dining sets have been set up with wine goblets and delicious foods with peaceful music playing in the background and it seems everyone is waiting for me to arrive to begin the meal together.

Everybody at each table is dressed up in their own regalia from the era they lived in and are at the age that they most would like to be remembered by. Surprisingly, while each person is exchanging languages with each other that they themselves may not speak, they are somehow being instantaneously translated so everyone can understand one another even while having not been from the same century or same continent.

It dawns on me that this is exactly where I’m meant to be. The food is as delicious as can be, the wine and other drinks plentiful, and everyone is enjoying each other’s company with pure joy and happiness lighting up the evening. They all know me as if I were a family…which I am. Many hugs, kisses, and handshakes are exchanged as each of my ancestors and family members encourage me to join them at the table through a night that seems to stretch across time like a flowing river.

I am the latest to arrive to the celebration here, but it feels like they’ve all been waiting a while for me to join them here at this heavenly setting. There is no mention of anything negative in the conversations I have. We don’t highlight my or their own Earthly failures, setbacks, heartbreaks, and tragedies. There is just happiness, joy, warmth, and discussing the fine setting and meal we find ourselves enjoying together after having been apart. There are no hard feelings, no pain, no remorse, no odd person out, as we are a whole family again united after all this time, which feels like just yesterday we were all together but may have been decades, centuries, or millennia since our paths have crossed. If this is heaven, I ask myself, it is certainly a pleasant vision of it.