Every now and then you come across something in life that you really want or believe that you really need. Success can be a slippery eel. I think it is always important to have a goal, however lofty it might be, and strive for it, but not at the expense of all else.

The journey to achieving your success must be fun, never lose focus of the important things in your life. Sometimes when you achieve that ultimate goal, you will realize that it’s not all its cracked up to be. Or even worse, you end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. You end up miserable with nothing left to strive for.

When climbing a mountain, you reach a certain point, and if you fall or slip not only do you lose ground, but you also loosen up the rocks and stones ahead of you, so it’s harder to climb back up again.

I said all that because I think it is clever and I needed lots to say before I told this story, or else I will sound silly.

There once was a little boy whose parents very rich. The family was well traveled and the boy spent his child hood years seeing the world. One such trip found this family in Alaska spending time with an Eskimo tribe called the nottahotters. This tribe had discovered an ancient wonder called Blue Ice. Blue Ice is so cold that it never melts. It is now beyond the point of melting, it is beyond even frozen. The only word for it is COLD.  The Eskimos fashioned this blue ice into a fridge. Please don’t ask how because this is actually a fictional story used to demonstrate a point.

The boy loved the fridge, and from that moment swore an oath to buy one when he was older. When he reached the age of 18 years, his parents died and their lawyer swindled the boy out of the full inheritance, other than a single ice cream shop. The young man spent the next ten years of his life building an empire in order to acquire the Blue Ice Fridge. And what an empire he built. It made Wayne Enterprises © from Batman© by DC Comics© look like Toys R’ Us©. His desire for the fridge had now reached obsession.

Anyway, to cut a long story to slightly less long but not quite short. The boy, turned young man finally reached the point where he could afford the fridge, and flew off to Alaska to get it. It cost him his whole empire to buy it but he had it and was happy.

On the flight back home, somewhere over Polynesia, the plane encountered some turbulence and was in big trouble. The pilots, afraid for their lives unloaded the entire luggage into the atmosphere around. But the plane still couldn’t pull right. Eventually “Obsessed With Fridge Guy” agrees to haul the chunk of blue ice over the side, and with it ten years of hard work.

So you see, enjoy the journey, because you may hate the ending.

Thanks to Ian Campbell for the story...