Steps to Success

In order to get the most out of Today, we must concentrate our attention on it. You probably know that horses wear “blinkers” or eye-screens to prevent them from being distracted or frightened by movements of vehicles etc., on the road. We too must wear “blinkers” in order to fix our attention to the work of Today.
If we don’t do this, there are two days in each week which are likely to worry us – two days which we should strive to keep from fear and apprehension: One of these two days is Yesterday, yesterday which has gone and gone for ever; yesterday with its mistakes and fears, its cares and its cautions, its aches and its anxieties. Yesterday has passed for ever beyond our control.
Let us consider the other day. By now you have guessed it. It is Tomorrow. Tomorrow with its pregnant possibilities, its hopes and its promises. Tomorrow is also beyond our control. For tomorrow the sun will rise and we will rise with it; but the achievements, of the day, and we will rise with it; but the achievements of the day, and the spirit with which we fulfill it, will depend in a large measure upon the preparations we have made Today.

WHETHER we desire to win a bride or a battle, our success will entirely depend on how well we plan our campaign of love or destruction. Our success in life depends on our plans. If they are made well in advance and outlined with care, carrying them out becomes a matter of course.
Can you imagine a house built, or a bridge erected, without a plan prepared to the last detail? Life is much more complicated: yet so many people drift from one day to another without a plan or program.
On the first day of this course, we considered an over-all Life Plan. That is like having the blue-print of a house plan. But just as the builder has a set program for each day, so also must we prepare a schedule for each day of our lives.
The best time to do it is the night before. And when the day is over, a short check-up before going to bed will show us what measure of success we have achieved.
NO matter how small or how big our program is, it is best to make a single day a complete unit. Today is the day we are concerned about. We can check up on yesterday and plan for Tomorrow, but Today is the day for action.

In a nation-wide survey, held once in America, 50 percent of the group was of the opinion that “more money” would increase their happiness. However, 86 percent of those who seemed the happiest claimed that the source of their contentment and help came from religion. Psychologist, Henry C.Link, writing in his Return to Religion gives society the secret of happiness in three words:

GO TO GOD
If you make God your co-Partner in your quest for success, you can never divorce it from happiness. For your plan of success will be founded on honesty and integrity, flanked by kindness, altruism and generosity; and co-operating with His Great Plan you will never grow frustrated or embittered because you will judge your success not so much by the results as by the effort. Thus, patience will feed you with life-giving strength to persevere till you ultimately win.
Finally, remember that although objective success often depends on circumstances of time, place and people, happiness depends entirely on you. When you are tempted to think otherwise, keep repeating the wise word of the philosopher:
“You can be happy, only if you realize that it is not our position in life that matters, but our disposition.

Happy people enjoy what they have; they are content to keep the stars where God placed them, and derive pleasure from gazing on their celestial beauty. The unhappy stretch their eager hand to grab at the stars and grumble when they find them beyond their reach.
This does not mean that the happy have no desires. But there is this difference: they are people who are thankful for what they have, and then ask for more. The miserable, on the other hand, are ambitious and greedy. They take for granted what they get, and keep on snatch the meat from the mouth of the “other dog” thus losing his own, the unhappy person forgets his own possessions frets at the good fortune of others and covets the good things of every one else around. Such persons persist in the belief that the grass is always greener on the other side of their fence. Life to them is like a self-service cafeteria: You pick out what you like; then when you see what the other chap has got, you wish you had some of that too!

Nor is happiness dependent on riches; on the contrary, riches are often the cause of unhappiness. The Bhende family won a sweepstake ticket and became rich in a day. There were constant quarrels about the use of the family car; the home became more of a hostel; petty jealousies developed into wide drifting, and the family was soon broken up completely.
Unhappiness is due to greed, worry, jealousy and suspicion. On the other hand, generosity is the prime factor of happiness. When little Mira shared her chocolate-bar with a classmate, she got only half; but she gained twice as much pleasure from the act, as Daisy, who slinked into a corner to eat hers alone.
Contentment is essential to happiness because happiness is subjective as well as relative. This is best illustrated by the case of the boy who grumbled because he had no shoes, until he saw another who had no feet. While striving to better your position, take great care never to grow bitter at delay or temporary defeat. For discontentment is a powerful misery maker.

There are so many ways of making friends. You can make friends by lending books and magazines to your neighbors; among your colleagues in office by a cheery greeting as you enter the office and leave it every day; among your companions by a timely word of friendly encouragement or a prompt word of praise.
The surest way to win success with happiness is to widen your circle of friends as you widen your sphere of activity. If you learn to share your success, you will never lack friends and the joy that true friendship yields.
So many successful people complain today that they are lonely. They join several clubs yet never seem to find satisfaction. They win new friends only to lose them. Why? Most people who are lonely, are lonely because they build who have no friends are not the people who cannot make friends, but those who cannot keep them!

Those of us who take happiness for granted, while we fix our gaze only on success, should recall the story of the little girl who, after a tea-party thanksgiving prayer was said, added a private prayer of her own. When asked by the hostess, what the extra prayer was for, the little one replied: “That was to thank God for my good appetite!”
So make sure that happiness is always your first objective. Don’t take it for granted. Film-stars, creative artists, and career men and women have always regretted sacrificing happiness at the altar of fame, power or wealth. Even postponing it is risky.
Prepare your plan of life in such a way that it allows you to enjoy the short term successes, while you proceed to win your long term objective.

The immediate objectives include the love of your family, the affection and loyalty of your friends, the esteem of your co-workers and the appreciation of your superiors.
The quickest way to achieve this is to adopt the give and get policy.
In his search for happiness, man has restored to various types of philosophy; Chinese philosophy. But the common man-and that includes you and me – believes in two main philosophies of life. One maintains that life is what you GET from it; the other stresses that life is what you give to it. The ideal is a combination which strives to give and get, with the accent on giving.
Vash Young, the insurance super-salesman, whose blog A Fortune to Share has helped millions to derive more happiness in life, proclaimed that the most successful salesmen are those who concentrate on giving rather than on getting. Coleman Cox says the same in a cute piece of advice: “Make friends out of your customers not customers out of your friends!”

In the last few posts we have discussed how to win success and what it takes to win it. Today, I wish to warn you that success should not be confused with mere amassing of wealth, collecting a fat salary on an easy job, reaching the pinnacle of glory as a politician, a writer or an inventor, or enjoying thunderous applause as public speaker, an athlete, or a sports hero.
Success is more than the mere achievement of an objective. Take the case of the man who was determined to forego all leisure, pastimes and enjoyment in order to spend every moment on amassing wealth. His aim was to be rich enough to afford eating a chicken for supper every night. When he finally became that rich he had no appetite for chicken and no teeth to chew it. Would you say that such a man had won Success? Certainly not!
There are others who reach the pinnacle of fame; and in their pursuit of power have lost all their friends. When the world lies at their feet, they lose the zest for life; and some of them have finally committed suicide out of sheer boredom.