Are You Ready To Rise?
For a long time, I believed that if you created a graph of the activity and thought a person experienced in their life, it would inevitably have a wide variety of points. There would be big moments where you shared your best, and of course, the predictable low moments where tragedy and disappointment visited a life. Between the highs and lows are the steady moments of life that make up most of our experiences. We can’t fear the low moments because they lead to the most significant personal growth. I can look at my life and plot the points of success, failure, satisfaction, fun, contentment, anger, hatred, and love. My experience provides a virtual rise and fall of personal accomplishment and fear. But where they fall on my chart is based on my own beliefs. The events of my life generally have neutral except for the value I assigned to them. I decided what was “good” and what was “bad” and reacted as such. Was I lost or just plain wrong? Looking at the events of falling in love, graduating from college, getting that job, and accomplishing that goal, along with everything else that I viewed as a positive, represented positive growth. While their corresponding low points represent every failure, loss of love, job change, unfulfilled dream, and damage suffered the opportunities I have had for growth. I thought you could never have a high without a low. Was I right, or can we all rise at this moment and become the best version of ourselves today?
I was Wrong
As I look at my life, I realize that I have been plotting things all wrong. Each of my experiences is not meant to be judged as good or bad and then charted to 
signify my advancement toward happiness. Each experience was given to me to help me learn a lesson that I needed to know. Either I will master the task and move forward to accept new teaching. Or perhaps if the experience isn’t acquired, the lesson will continually be presented until I finally get a clue and learn what I need to know.
That realization is powerful, although I don’t like to have “bad” things happen to me because that experience is not great fun at the moment. The momentum and direction a challenging experience gives you can be the same push you need to become something you always dreamed you could be.
So charting your life through highs and lows is merely adding our perceptions of things into your experience. Nothing is inherently good or bad unless we believe them to be so. A more accurate chart would be a straight line that continually moves upward to a fuller development as a human being.
Finding your Gift
I believe that we are all born with a gift that is unique to us, and that gift is the 
thing that makes us happy. Often throughout life, that gift is forgotten due to the conditioning that society, our peers, families, and the educational system provide us with incomplete information designed to make us forget who we are.
People are encouraged to fit in and excel in the acceptance of someone else’s ideas. Our educational system gives out Kudos for being a properly trained individual. It seems like avoidance of creative thinking is all that concerns most people. Individuals become docile, accepting sheep who devour all of the provided fodder, and falling in line will bring reward. Think outside the expectations, and you will have a significant problem.
To find the unique gift, you must overcome this conditioning and realize that you are a great human soul with unlimited potential. A fact that is not debatable, and what is up for discussion, is how you use that gift.
Rising
So as you move through life and experiences come your way, remember that each moment comes to help you overcome the narrow-minded conditioning of life and remind you what your natural talent is.
You are learning not to label these experiences as either good or bad and accept them as things happening right now. Some lessons are inherently more pleasant than others, but all experiences have value. It is often difficult to see the value of the forest when you are lost amongst the trees.
Remember that no matter what stage of your life you are in, the graph does not fluctuate wildly, up and down, depending on experiences. That would give you seasickness or whiplash. Your chart always moves in a continually upward direction, moving you closer to your true self and unique talent. It may level off as you stop searching or get lost, but it will never go down, just as your chronological age will never go backward. Your identity will continually climb.
When you are ready to recognize your talent, you will see that you have been and continually are rising all the time.
“You decide how high you rise in life. Nobody can stop you but you.”
“Never let the fear of falling stop you from rising to your highest potential. Fear is just a thought.”
“Falling is a part of life; we all fall. It’s getting up every time that makes you a legend.”
“In all situations, you dictate the meaning for you. You decide if it builds you or breaks you. No person can ask for more power than that.”
