No matter how tough you are, Life'll beat you to your knees and keep it there permanently if you let it.

Found these lines on an acquaintance's blog. loved them. Guess we can learn a thing or two from them :

This extract is from the conversation between Rocky Balboa and his son in the sixth episode of the Rocky series. Rocky's son blames him for all the high expectations he faces from the world because his father is "Rocky Balboa". And then Rocky explains him his philosophy of life.

The world ain't all sunshines and rainbows.
It's a very mean and nasty place... and I don't care how tough you are, it'll beat you to your knees and keep it there permanently if you let it.
You, me and nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain't about how hard you hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward...
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That's how winning is done.
Now if you know what you are worth, go out and get what you are worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits.

Loved these lines. Life isn't fair. Hoping that it will be is idealism - read as "Foolishness". But Life can be beautiful. We have it in us to make it so. There is a saying in Sanskrit which says "Fall like the ball - that bounces back after falling ; Not like the ball of mud, which falls and stays there."

They say "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal". But I say - One should be aware - of what obstacles one might face while attempting any task. While Optimism is necessary, a baseless optimism can spell doom. We need to find out possible road blocks - and know which are the ones that can be surmounted and which are the ones for which we need to devise an alternative path. I can see that there would certainly be unseen obstacles, but, he, sure, is foolish who would remain willfully blind to the seen ones. And, in spite of the thorns you see on a path, if you feel it is worth taking, then, do take that road and '..it'll make all the difference' .