"Life's Greatest Secret"

THE MOST IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE IN THE WORLD

 

Part 5:  Personal Responsibility

 

"A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile,

and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life."

-As a Man Thinketh, p.19

 

It is not what happens to us that makes the difference.  What happens to us, for the most part, happens to us all.  For every woman that excuses her life of waste on the curses of her Grandmother, there are ten other ladies that had it ten-times worse, yet chose to use the sins of their ancestors as a springboard to life and victory.  No, it's not what happens to us...it's how we RESPOND to what happens to us that makes all the difference.

 

"Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results;

bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.

This is but saying nothing can come from corn but corn...

Men understand this law in the natural world, and work with it;

but few understand it in the mental and moral world,

though it's operation there is just as simple and undeviating."

-As a Man Thinketh, p.19

 

One of the greatest evidences of emotional maturity is the willingness to take personal responsibility for our own lives and actions.  The maturity to know that what is happening today is largely the result of seeds that were planted yesterday.  That for things to change, we must change.  That for life to get better, I must get better.  Here's some wisdom:  "All that we have at any given moment...we have attracted by the people we have become"(GodThoughts, Volume 1, p. 202).

 

"The way to change your life is to change your thought...

The mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character

and the outer garment of circumstance."

-As a Man Thinketh, p.x, xvii

 

Becoming an outstanding individual is not something to be wished for...it is something we choose to become.  As philosophers of the past have said, Don't hope for a better wind, learn how to set a better sail.

 

"Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at

the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life."

-As a Man Thinketh, p.20

 

"For as he thinks within himself, so he is."  -Proverbs 23:7*

 

 

 

*New American Standard.  The King James translation:  "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."  The Amplified translation:  "For as he thinks within his heart, so is he."  And then, the NIV's poor transmutilation:  "For he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost."  For further study on the terrible "translation" otherwise known as the NIV, click on: New International or Non-Inspired.