SUCCESS

Every new idea, somewhere along the line, will be met with either indifference or skepticism. There is an ingrained reluctance on the part of most people to accept new things. Samuel Morse had his telegraphic equipment turned down by the American Congress. The reason ? No practical value. Thomas Edison found a great deal of resistance in having his electric light bulb accepted because he had neither formal education nor scientific standing. People scoffed at the idea of being able to talk through a hollow wire, as the telephone was called in its early days. Who now can ever think of modern living without a phone ? These men, these inventors, had something in common and that was a resourcefulness, an ingenuity, and a deep faith in their own ability to reproduce their dream. They had hope and enthusiasm. They had to struggle long and hard but they never considered giving up. Try to direct your energies along lines that suit your inclinations or particular talents. Keep constantly in your mind the picture of the successful person that you want to be. Try to avoid negative thoughts, and do not discuss your shortcomings or the unpleasant experiences that have happened to you. Do you know people who start to tell you all their troubles just as soon as you meet them ? they are constantly lamenting their problems. They never seem to get out of their dilemma. One unpleasant experience after another seems to befall them. If you happen to be one of these unfortunate individuals, stop telling the world your troubles ! People have their own problems. If you really want help, seek the help and guidance of a competent counselor. It is always desirable, of course, to talk about your new goals and aspirations. The repetition will firmly implant these ideas both in your conscious and subconscious mind. Besides talking about your desires, there must be positive action. I certainly do not want you to be a dreamer. The time has come for action. Saturate your mind with your new-found enthusiasm. Make it a full time job. Your actions must reflect your new thinking. If you follow this plan, ideas and solutions to your problems will automatically come to you. It is a well known fact that inventors and creative people agree that many of their ideas just seem to come to them without conscious effort at all times. Once the idea is set into motion, the subconscious mind many times will come up with the solution. I know a song writer who often gets his hit tunes while he is asleep. His subconscious mind works on the tune while he is asleep. It then comes to him as though he were in a dream. After heaving it in this sort of dream state, he awakens himself and puts the tune down on paper. It is like recording a dream that you want to remember. The utilization of the subconscious in this manner is an integral link in the chain of success. There are thousand approaches to the road that ultimately lead to success, but once the approaches have led you to the proper road, you must travel the “straight and narrow”. It is marked along the way with all the milestones. Each milestone brings you closer to the goal, and each milestone is charged with a deep and gratifying reward of its own. Eventual success is the sum total of all these rewarding experiences merged into one glorious sensation of achievement. We now have a reasonable and logical question. Can each of us do this by ourselves, by use of our own individual ambition, initiative and eagerness to succeed ? it’s a big job. Each of the many required factors has its own problems and obstacles. Each ingredient is itself fraught with complexities that present obstacles of its own. These may be some of your thoughts. Success is rarely accomplished without assistance somewhere along the way. The component elements of society are so inter related, and so inter dependent, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of a situation wherein the deed of one person does not either directly or indirectly, in some measure, affect another. There is no greater fund of enlightenment than that which results from the exchange of ideas between people. Practice positive thinking every inch on the way, for without it no amount of help will enable you to reach and maintain the goal you have set up for yourself. But, above all, engage freely with others in the exchange of thoughts and ideas related to your devices for attaining success. The aid that you will receive, in addition to that which you will be able to extend to others, will be of inestimable value. Great stimulation will stem from the inspiration of others, and your own particular efforts will be considerably accelerated to this achievement of your purposes. You may agree with all of the foregoing, but in your mind might exist a question of how to accomplish it. It is not difficult. The art of positive thinking is not a rare or unique human endowment; it is not the exclusive property of a few favoured individuals. There countless positive thinking people in every community, and of these vast numbers many more than you might imagine are eager for the opportunity of discussing their problems and presenting their questions to other positive thinking people or groups. They hold a part of the puzzle, you hold the rest of the puzzle. What each of you hold is incomplete and insufficient to spell out a pattern of success. Put them together and you have each contributed heavily towards the construction of a successful project. It therefore becomes evident that to bring about a circumstance or situation wherein you may seek out those who hold the balance of your puzzle, there remains only the question of how it may be accomplished. The answer is amazingly simple. It contains only one requirement: One Person, just one, our Lord Jesus. Two mistakes are commonly made in setting goals. One is putting them so high that they can never be realized. When a young man was asked what he aspired to be, re replied, “A genius”. That’s an example of an unattainable goal. The other mistake is setting our sights too low. Psychologists tell us that the people who come from poor families often do this. They work hard and attain a better standard of living than their parents, but they may actually be capable of going much higher.