Tonight I was looking at an article where this young (former) Marine was discussing his pending Congressional Medal of Honor. He stated it was hard "...getting recognized for the worst day of your life..."

Picture from http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/crandall/medal/index.html

The reality is that we will almost never achive great recognition for something easy. Anything valuable enough to deserve recognition will likely be difficult. In his case, he certainly deserves recognition. The young man saved many lives, and brought four of his fallen comrades out of the hostile environment where they had lost their lives.

Unfortunately, it seems too many people believe that there should be some recognition for little or no real sustained effort or risk. Perhaps the question for all of us is, what risk are we willing to take, even if there may be no recognition at the end?

I started working on a new project lately, and if this is going to be as big as I think it is, it will be a lot of fun. There are so many people in the world that have made it to a place where they simply don't know what they are doing, but it is what their predecessor did, so it must be right...

Clara Barton said, "I have an almost complete disregard of precedent and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done...I defy the tyrranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past."

If only this was true in the business and political world today, how much more could be accomplished with the vast resources at our disposal.