Success Avenue Or Skid Row

Before relocating to the South Carolina Upstate, I lived on Success Avenue in a lovely All-American town in Florida. Downtown businesses were booming and downtown was coming alive again. This All-American town was quaint, small and ideally located to be influenced by the sophistication of its neighbouring cities to the east and west. It reminds me so much of where I presently live. (Atlanta is 2 hours south and Charlotte is 2 hours north). A delegation from that neat little town in Florida came to Greenville to see what a committed Downtown Economic Development Council and Political Action Committee can accomplish. Success Avenue, in the historical district, had a blend of architectural designs but more of the palatial plantation style homes during the antebellum period. Just three blocks walking distance in one direction from where I lived was a 3-mile lake with what I think is the only yacht club anywhere without actual yachts and the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture in the world. In the opposite direction was another lake where dozens of swans made their home across from the main library and the Museum of Art. It is a lovely town.

When I lived on Success Avenue, I reflected on life and what I wanted to do with mine. I was at a turning-point and had some very important decisions to make. My marriage of eleven years was legally winding down but had actually been over before the legalities were final. I thought to myself, although you're on Success Avenue now, Skid Row is around the corner if you do not make the correct decisions. An entrepreneur at heart, I had many ideas and all of them led me away from my native state, Florida. I wanted a new beginning in a new place in different surroundings and away from all that was known to me. I chose San Jose, Costa Rica. I arranged a homestay to do an immersion study in Spanish and was accepted into a language school. I would wait tables or do whatever I could to take care of myself. My siblings were not in favour of this decision. They thought I was depressed and not thinking clearly. I abandoned the idea and cancelled those plans.

I ended up in the SC Upstate. Actually, I chose this area over many others and have had no regrets. I had never been here before, knew no one, had no job prospects and arrived sight unseen at 2:30 in the morning. Ironically, the first person I met was a student at Furman University who was from that quaint little town I'd just left. He and his roommates helped me unload my car and gave me water to drink. I smiled to myself and thought, yes...this was the correct decision. Another irony? My closest friend came to be someone whose wife is Costa Rican and her family is very prominent in San Jose. My choice to relocate here was the right one for me. Of course, Skid Row or Success Avenue was still a matter of choice. I grant you, I was not fearful of becoming homeless but I still had choices to make to keep that fear at bay. I was fortunate enough to have chosen well but that has not been true for countless others.

There is no lack of compassion found inside of me. I have stopped trying to understand why there is such disparity between those of us who have achieved some level of success and others who are so down on their luck, they are trying to survive on the streets. I have come to believe some people are lazy and have an entitlement mentality. What makes one person in a family successful and another unsuccessful? One lives on Success Avenue and the other lives on Skid Row. I am perplexed. What happened? Where did things go wrong? I could answer those questions philosophically and with a few facts but I would be still be puzzled.

One person can be born in the ghetto with none of the advantages granting a decent quality of life. He/she struggled for their survival yet something inside them had a desire as strong as their heartbeat to get out of the slums and reap the rewards of hard work, faith and determination. Skid Row was their birthplace but Success Avenue is their current address. Another person can be born with all the advantages and privileges of a 'good' name and wealth. He/she was born and raised on Success Avenue but now resides on Skid Row. What happened, I wonder? Or perhaps a better question is, what happens?

I've been told life is about choices and a bit of luck. I've observed in my own life, the wiser the choice and the harder I work, the better the outcome. A pharmaceutical company's President asked of its sales force, "have you ever noticed, the harder you work the luckier you became?" I hadn't thought about it that way before but the answer reverberating inside my head was an emphatic yes! Bad things happen to good people. Good things also happen to bad people. At the risk of sounding cynical, I'm inclined to believe if there were an innoculation against bad times, the demand would not exceed supply. I'd love to believe the contrary was true but in my heart I do not believe it is. I've observed we are our worst enemies. Life is filled with mishaps, crises, mistakes, wrong decisions and uncertainty. Life is also about living instead of being dead. One of three things is certain, it seems and that is:


We're headed for a crisis.

We're in the middle of one, or

We're coming out of one!


It's a cycle and what we learn when we're going through the crisis is what makes us stronger and more purposeful for it. We must also take note of what we know will happen, we will come out of it! I've also heard it put this way, "This too shall pass." I'm not asserting it's easy but it most definitely is predictable. We have rain so we can enjoy the sunshine. The rain helps Mother Earth and all living things.

If you loved this post and you would like to obtain far more data pertaining to Can ho Sunshine Avenue (sunshineavenuedatxanh.com) kindly pay a visit to our website. The choice is ours to make. There may be reasons for choosing poorly but there are no acceptable excuses. If our Creator cares so much about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, we know He cares far more about the ones made into His likeness, His image. He cared so much until the choice was left up to us. Will it be Success Avenue or Skid Row? Choosing Success Avenue is a decision about where you'll spend eternity. Choose wisely.