Live The Secret

“No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, more to learn, more to achieve.” – Barack Obama

“No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, more to learn, more to achieve.” – Barack Obama

I’m not going to give a shit about AIG until the pundits are visibly outraged about Homeless Veterans.

Let’s focus on heros, not villians

focus!

focus people and declare your intention to the world!

the latest in the series of new and fulfilling goals has been created so why not give it a whirl

Kick the economic crisis in the canoogies by doing at least one new and fulfilling (and quite possibly thrifty and frugal) thing in April, May, and June!

new and fulfilling things don’t have to be big and bold – just new and fulfilling – anything from trying a new flavour of ice cream, to kissing in the rain, to planing an herb garden – all sorts of things can be new and fulfilling (and sometimes you don’t even have to plan anything, just having the intention of wanting to do something new and fulfilling makes you keenly aware of the wonderful things that just stumble across your day!)

so join us!

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
- Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society (1895)

With so much of the African American Experience gaining attention in the news with the election of Barack Obama and the Martin Luther King Jr holiday I cannot help reflect on the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

The stories are personal, and horrific, and moving, and troubling, and inspiring. Several years ago there was a documentary series on Public Television called “Eyes On The Prize” and perhaps that is one of the significant, yet less obvious, lessons of the period.

Who among us would have the fortitude to withstand the challenges faced not only by the Blacks in America, but especially by those who sought change? The march to Selma, bloody Sunday, is a statement of the fortitude of those seeking equality.

Lynchings, and firehoses, and police dogs, and night riders, and “white only” this, and bricks through windows. If someone were to suggest – “ooh, you might get in trouble” most of us today would curl into a ball and remain silent. But the Civil Rights activists kept on, even after those working against them responded violently.

They kept their eyes on the prize.

Listening to the stories of the elderly people reflecting on the election of Barack Obama I am surprised at how many of the people who were at Selma, and Birmingham, and Detroit, and Newark never imagined that they would see an African American in the White House in their lifetime. Yet when they were active in the Civil Right Movement 40 and 50 years ago they pressed on even in the presence of real danger.

They kept their eye on the prize.

There is a lesson about the American character that I think we may be overlooking. The horror and empathy and all those other emotions that come from the African American experience are real, no doubt about that, but somehow we overlooked the lesson that we all learn from the African American experiece : keeping our eye on the prize.

Losing a job or losing value in a 401k cannot compare to firehoses and police dogs, so then why are so many of us cocooning ourselves in our misery with these challenges? Do we have anything to gain by focusing our attention on what we have lost or may lose? It’s just stuff. These heros of our history had everything to lose, some where living considerable comfortable middle class lives, and yet they pressed on, they saw what they wanted and kept their eyes on the prize, no matter what the cost.

For a while I thought that perhaps I might diminish their story by comparing that struggle to the woes of middle class suburbia, but I realized all to quickly that their American story is a part of my American story. What makes America great is our ability to confront trouble with fortitude and creativity and stamina and press on. There will be those around us who tell us we are wrong, there will be some around us who will try to derail us, others will say we have no place at the table.

If we keep our focus on what we want we can achieve it. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but we can achieve it.

I have been focusing my attention on several aspects of my business, one of them being the seller account on Amazon, hence the jungle theme.

The way Christmas fell this year, the last day to ship for Christmas delivery was 19 December, somewhat early. (next year we get to take orders that whole weekend and ship them on Monday – woo hoo!) but I digress..

In the two week period from that “last ship day” to New Years Day things were okay, actually pretty good. But here is where that power of positive thinking comes in.

I want 2009 to succeed. I refuse to let the recession get to me. I am forging ahead. And since January 2 to today, just 4 selling days, so far I have sold as much as in the previous two weeks! Woo hoo!

A quick look-see of what sold in these last 4 days and its all merchandise that I ordered just before Christmas with the goal of saying “piss off recession, I am going to come out on top.” New stuff! Things that were delivered last week!

By taking that chance and pushing forward I already started to make 2009 a great year! Just sitting back and waiting for things to change isn’t going to make them change, I have to make them change.

And that’s my secret!

“As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

One of the really cool things about Proverbs, and so much of the Bible, is that so many passages can be applied in different ways. I am accustomed to Proverbs 23:7 being applied to situations in which someone acts one way in the open but really thinks otherwise. (and I am not thinking “do I look fat in these jeans” type of situations but rather those people who go out of their way to make the the Salvation Army kettle clang loudly with their quarter while on the way to drop a few hundred dollars at Macy*s)

It was only recently that I began to see Proverbs as something more introspective.

“As he thinketh in his heart, so he is”

How many of us think poorly of ourselves or situations. I’m fat, I’m sad, I’m unemployed, I’m this, I’m that. Even if we don’t say it boldly, if we hold those poor self images in our hearts we will live up to our own expectations.

A paradigm shift is required. And what better time to make that shift than with our annual gathering of resolutions.

This year one of the goals on my, and perhaps your, list will be to change my perception of self to what I want, not some negative perception of where I am now. Today is not about being in a place I don’t want to be, today is a starting place of a journey, and if “thinketh in my heart” that I am on the journey I will be on that journey.

With Christmas two weeks from today, and only 8 days in which to ship to ensure delivery for Christmas, I took the leap and reordered some items that have sold out. As the companies are here in the New York Metro area I should have the merchandise by Monday but its know the Secret, knowing that I can make these sales happen, is what is motivating me to press on with such a tight deadline!

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of songs that were included in the service this morning (Advent 1) and could not but help how they reflect that idea of focusing on the positive that is the foundation of the secret.

The Advent season marks the Sundays before Christmas. An underlying theme of the holiday is waiting. In the Christian experience we are waiting in the cold and ever increasing darkness of the season for Christ, whose birthdate is marked right after the solstice (when light increases ever so much each day).

The hymns this morning had that theme of waiting with all sorts of onomotopoeaic references to cold and darkness. I could not help but think of how this squares so well with the economic situation in the world.

It is that focus on the positive, that waiting in darkness, the patience, all the while knowing that light will come that marks the Advent Season. Of course “the Secret” copies that idea completely.

In these challenging times, focusing on the positive, the light to come, will make all the difference with regard to how we fare once the economic cold has passed. Those of us of Christian background know this, students of the secret know this, and for those among us who are less inclined to beleive things spiritual, think of really good farmers – they allow fields to go fallow, sometimes for a season or two, and then when they are replanted the bounty is amazing!

:)