You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back? – W. Clement Stone
There is no top to the success mountain! http://eisbrener.net/blog/success-a-path-up-a-mountain-with-no-top/
Hugo Chavez is sitting at home when the phone rings. He picks it up and says “Hello”. The voice at the end of the phone says “Hello Mr. Chavez, it’s Pedro here. I’m just ringing to let you know that we’ve declared war on your country.”
HC smiles to himself, “Come on Pedro”, he says, “there’s no point you declaring war on us, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Pedro replies, “No, no, we’ve had ourselves a meeting, and we’ve decided to declare war on you.”
HC says, “OK Pedro, now listen, I’ve got an air force of over a thousand planes, what kind of air force have you got to match that? It’d be over in no time.”
Pedro says, “Well my neighbor’s got himself a hot-air balloon, and my brother used to work at an airport.”
Chavez laughs, “Oh come on, you’ve not got a hope”.
“Hold on a sec, Mr. Chavez, “ Pedro says, “we’ll just have a quick meeting.” So off he goes and has a quick meeting. “Are you still there Mr. Chavez? Yes, well we’ve had our meeting, and we’ve decided that we’re still going to declare war.”
HC says, “Right then Pedro, well you know, as well as the air force, we’ve also got about a thousand tanks. How are you going to match that.”
“Well,” Pedro says, “I’ve got an old Renault, and my cousin down the road has got a tractor.”
“Get real, ” says HC, “that’s no match at all.”
So Pedro says, “Hold on, I’ll just go and have another meeting.”
“Are you still there Mr. Chavez? Yes, well we’ve had our meeting, and we’ve decided that we’re still going to declare war.”
HC thinks this is just amazing, “Well how many soldiers have you got Pedro?”
“Well,” says Pedro, “there’s me, my kid, my 4 cousins, and they all had sons, and there’s Bill down the road…. I reckon I could get together about 30.”
Laughing openly now HC replies, “Come on Pedro, I’ve got 10,000 highly trained fighting men at my personal disposal. I think you’d better go and have another meeting.”
“I will”, says Pedro, “I will.”
“Are you still there Mr. Chavez? Yes, well we’ve had our meeting, and we’ve decided that we’re not going to declare war on you after all.”
“At last,” replies HC, “What made you change your mind?”
“Well, it’s those 10 thousand soldiers you see. We can’t declare war on you because we’ve not got the facilities to keep all those prisoners!”
Not knowing what you want ensures you’ll never find it. Sometimes you will pick something just to stop not knowing. There are all kinds of opportunities and objects surrounding us. How do you know what to choose? The other side is when you pick something there always seems to be something missing. You may have even decided what you just acquired isn’t it and you send it back only to discover it is something you want but there is something more but you don’t know what it is. The first step in finding what you want is to know what all your choices are. It is not an infinite list.
I have identified fifteen different ‘things’ or separate areas all of us want. Until I looked at this list I didn’t have a way to determine what was missing. I just knew something was. This list is open for additions and improvements. I will improve or add to each category too. This list is not in any particular order because if anything is missing the entire list is incomplete. Do you have a feeling that something is missing? Should you trust your feelings? Go with your gut works for me.
As I have gotten older “feeling better” is a larger part of the conversation. Most people I know would like to feel better and many spend a lot of energy and money having it happen. The healthcare, wellness, and fitness industries are about feeling better. Related to being healthier is living longer, especially if you can have all fifteen of these!
Another easy one is the amount of time we spend on relationships, love, experiencing a connection. Most of us want more or see where there is room for improvement in this area. If you have ever lost your temper, said something you wish you could take back, or have been disappointed in your behavior, you too would like to behave better. We do settle into habits that define us, as we grow older. The longer we have used the ‘habit’ to define us the harder it is to change.
While being smarter may be out of reach, all of us would like to make better decisions. We have all experienced moments of clarity, clear thinking that if we had more of those moments it would help in all the other areas.
Ok, there are aisles of books on what it takes to be happy. There is always more happiness to have too. No one I know will say no to more happiness! However, happiness is the path, not the destination or direction.
A second cousin to happiness is inner peace; a sense of security that all will be well is on the list. Everything will turn out all right in the end. If it isn’t all right now, you have not gotten to the end.
More money is on my list and the time to enjoy spending it is part of the requirement. My ultimate goal is to produce enough residual and passive incomes that the right side of the menu is no longer a consideration.
Having a ‘labor of love’ makes earning the money more than worth the time.
I want all my challenges to be Goldilocks ones. Not so easy are boring and not so hard they keep me frustrated but that group of challenges that are just right! I have found “just right” moves from day to day, especially when I haven’t been paying attention, or have settled into a habit that does not include growth or opportunity. Living at the edge of the comfort zone with an intention to expand the zone means to move along the line every day.
I want to understand people better. I am sure much of what passes as indifference is really an area where understanding has become too difficult or painful. I suspect the first person to figure out is myself. I have discovered birds of a feather enjoy being together.
I want to be understood too. Don’t you? Of course, I’d like it to happen easily, with as few words as possible and as few explanations, as necessary and as long as we are building this list I’ll ask for all of it, a mutual ‘grok’ and it seems humans tend to go with their first impression in seconds.
Another aisle of books is being more persuasive. Sometimes I think if I could just have this one all the others would fall into line. Wouldn’t you like to know how to get everything you want using persuasion?! Some would have us believe we need to learn how to influence and it is different than persuasion yet I’m not sure either way isn’t able to manipulate a prescribed outcome. If ‘NO’ isn’t one of the choices…
Everyone I know loves having made a difference. We remember when we have and when we have not. A single word or a timely action has us come to the rescue. Don’t you want to know you make a difference? AND, YOU do, by the way, just being who you are.
Many people want a spiritual connection, some deny it’s possible, but if you have been touched by the Universe or you have met Infinity you want more!
The ‘way’ to get or have what you want is a life lived, moment to moment. Taking the Faustian Bargain doesn’t end well. The preferred path is to want what you got, gratitude is the attitude, and everything will arrive once you stop doubting, and the gestation period is complete.
Resist the tendency to collapse a few of these into each other. Each one is a work in progress in my world. Once I had the list wondering what was missing isn’t quite so loud. Did I miss something?
How Life Works 