Years ago there was a group of brilliant young men at the University of Wisconsin, who seemed to have amazing creative literary talent. They were would-be poets, novelists, and essayists. They were extraordinary in their ability to put the English language to its best use. These promising young men met regularly to read and critique each other’s work. And critique it they did!
These men were merciless with one another. They dissected the most minute literary expression into a hundred pieces. They were heartless, tough, even mean in their criticism. The sessions became such arenas of literary criticism that the members of this exclusive club called themselves the “Stranglers.”
Not to be outdone, the women of literary talent in the university were determined to start a club of their own, one comparable to the Stranglers. They called themselves the “Wranglers.” They, too, read their works to one another. But there was one great difference. The criticism was much softer, more positive, more encouraging. Sometimes, there was almost no criticism at all. Every effort, even the most feeble one, was encouraged.
Twenty years later an alumnus of the university was doing an exhaustive study of his classmates’ careers when he noticed a vast difference in the literary accomplishments of the Stranglers as opposed to the Wranglers. Of all the bright young men in the Stranglers, not one had made a significant literary accomplishment of any kind. From the Wranglers had come six or more successful writers, some of national renown such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who wrote The Yearling.
Talent between the two? Probably the same. Level of education? Not much difference. But the Stranglers strangled, while the Wranglers were determined to give each other a lift. The Stranglers promoted an atmosphere of contention and self doubt. The Wranglers highlighted the best, not the worst.
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. ~Buddha~
“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room …. just wait.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied.
“Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged, it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.
Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away, just for this time in my life.”
She went on to explain, “Old age is like a bank account, you withdraw from what you’ve put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing.”
And with a smile, she said, “Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.”
Never ever surrender your spirit to anyone or any ideal. They both will change and no longer fully serve you - and you will change and no longer serve them.
“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson~
I often have heard and have often said myself: “How lucky can you/I get?” These are the words of a person who believes that fortune is a happenstance event unrelated to our thoughts and actions.
Luck really turns on whether you are willing to fail often enough in order to carve out your success.
Buying an established franchise or marketing a product that is hot in the marketplace, for instance, does not insure your success.
Nor does thinking positive thoughts and having boatloads’ of capital to spend on a “Can’t miss!” business.
The real determinant is whether you are willing to fail most of the time in order to hit pay dirt.
A major league baseball player is unlikely to get a hit more than one out of three chances (and usually somewhat less), yet still makes a cool million dollars or more per season.
But they are swinging. They know the odds. They play the odds. And they get paid because they stay in the game even though they keep striking out until that magic moment when they get their inevitable one hit out of three or four at bats. In the game of life we must shoot and then aim. A famous Internet marketer, Mike Litman, says it eloquently:
“Don’t get it right, just get it going.”
The competitive world we live in requires us to keep plugging away while others wave a flag of surrender and encourage us to do likewise.
Put your ear to the huge locust tree and hear the gentle grating of a bore worm. Just an insignificant worm, you say? What can that measly worm hope to do with that monster tree?
Grate, grate, grate! For years that almost imperceptible grating goes on, while the mighty locust lifts its towering branches in fancied security.
Finally, a storm comes and the locust hopes to brave it as he has many others; but behold, its strength is undermined. Its vitals are eaten away, and it falls — victim to the tiny worm.
Thus is the spirit of a success warrior when he steps to the plate one more time to get his one out of three hits. His or her determination can and will steadily eat away the sturdiest and most formidable of locust trees standing between us and our dreams.
One never knows when the lesson shirked will come back to bite you on the ass.
Every life experience must be grabbed with passion. Learn and earn, if possible, from everything put in your path.
This advice is not just a nice-sounding bit of advice based on theory, it is premised by a very traumatic event in my life some 32 years ago. That event could have put me in a federal penitentiary for a very long time.
I once heard a story of a would-be flight navigator who cheated on a major part of his written exam. His deceit went unnoticed for many years until an in-flight emergency left him at the helm. As he was descending, he couldn’t recall the total sequence. In desperation, he radioed ground control and half in tears told them that he drew a blank on how to land. The calm ground control staff walked him through it and, by shear luck, he landed without a glitch. He was fired on the spot.
Likewise, I was encouraged by my college teachers to keep a journal, and my freshman teacher encouraged me to write with passion. That lesson made me fall in love with English and when, in 1978, I stood at my arraignment and read my recognizance speech to the judge, he quickly reduced my substantial $500,000 baqil to a mere $500.
Unlike the navigator who fudged his way through, I was prepared adequately for the trauma I faced in the courtroom.
Scruffy old men were once upon a life young, egoistic and full of hope.
I believe I heard the late, great Jim Rohn say, “You’ve got to touch people where they are.” Far too often, however, people dismiss people simply because they look and act differently than they do.
What a tragedy that we refuse to leave our safety bubble of peppermint sticks and good fairies in order to experience the seeds’ and seediness of life.
In the teeming hell fires of a Bombay or Mogadishu slum stand idle vagrants looking at you for a handout or busily rummaging through garbage for some rancid morsel or a tin can to sell.
How disgusting and despicable these crumb bums seem from our sterile world perspective.
But if God’s sacred camera were rolling we would see acts’ of kindness beyond belief. One starving vagrant giving his ration to another more-emaciated street mate.
The world is full of benevolence, and not only from those with a big wad of cold cash. This is a story about a brush I had with a scruffy old man, Jacques, whom I met in my more humble days on the streets of San Francisco. Jacques was extraordinary under his scruffy beard.
Let the judge draw out this important personal story…
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