A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.

They often say that life is what you make of it. While you may not be able to control the hand that you are dealt, you can choose how you want to play it. Put another way, it’s not how many times you fall down, but how many times you get back up. That’s at the crux of what American naturalist John Burroughs has to say in the quote above. Life can be hard and, indeed, it should be. Even so, you need to decide to keep going.

Of course, these kinds of conversations inevitably reek of privilege. If, through no fault of your own, you face more challenging conditions than most, you can feel like it’s hopeless. Like your lot in life is outside of your control. It’s very discouraging, to say the least, when it feels like all of society is working against you. So, what can you do?

The only thing you can do is to tackle these seemingly insurmountable circumstances one small hurdle at a time. Break down that big dream into smaller, more manageable steps. It’s not that you should stop dreaming. It’s that you need to decide on what you can do right now to move just a bit closer to that goal. And even if you come up short, whether it’s your fault or not, you’re not a failure. You just have to dust yourself off and try again.

I get it. A lot of what we do can feel like an uphill battle, like we’re always swimming against the current. I’m sure that John Burroughs felt much the same way for much of his career, championing the conservation movement in the United States. Just last week, I came across a post on social media saying that a tree is worth more dead than it is alive. Or rather the dead tree has more direct, economic upside. Chop that tree down and you’ve got lumber and pulp and paper that you can sell for profit. Another tree in another forest doesn’t generate another dollar, at least not directly.

But, you’ve got to keep fighting. At least, that’s how I imagine John Burroughs must have felt. Even if it’s not your fault, it can be your responsibility. And you need to take ownership of your own failures and shortcomings if you want to take credit for your successes too. Take it from Theodore Roosevelt:

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

Some people are born with great advantages, just as others are born with very challenging disadvantages. We are not born on equal footing. But, no matter how hard life gets, you mustn’t ever give up. Keep going. Focus on what you can control and take it from there.