A man went into a diner one morning (they didn’t have cafes in those days, nor latte either) looking through a pile of magazines he found in the seat beside him, he found something like a TIME magazine with a feature story of how bad the economy was with tips to survive the storm.
He went home and called his parents to warn them, sold his home and car, moved in with his parents who passed away from the fear of living through another depression.
He hunkered down into his job, told everyone there of the depression on the way, made no suggestions at work and only did what was required of him and nothing more, for fear of losing his job.
Lost his job because he did not meet his agreed performance targets (we have always had those in one way or another). Got depressed and spent his time wandering around the town spreading the news of the terrible economic situation with his friends and all who would listen to him.
The town went into an economic downturn and most lost their jobs. The gas stations closed cause most people didn’t drive their cars if they had them, stores closed. It was an awful time.
Then one day months later, the man went back to that same diner, with enough money to buy a cup of coffee. He spoke with the waitress (they were allowed to call them waitresses in those days because politically correctness was not invented yet), asked her for a pot of coffee and took extra cream and sugar while she was there (and hid them in his jacket pockets).
He asked if there was anything to read. She said there was a stack of magazines he could look through. He found the one he had read that fateful morning and began to carefully review the article again.
The waitress came with his coffee and looked over his shoulder and said, “Yes, it is amazing how people actually survived the Great Depression back in the 30s.
Someone died and left all these old magazines to me and it seems people enjoy reading about how hard it really was in those days. Anyway, is there anything else I can get you with your coffee?”
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There are days when being possessed by the need to write seems crazy or hopeless, when words come like extracting the proverbial wisdom teeth, when there is no reward, even a thank you, let alone pay for what you write.
But the pen remains mightier than the sword, mightier than the banks and mightier than our fears.
Think right now of the most difficult thing you have lived through. Remember how you felt as you faced this "challenge" (everyone calls it that thinking it will take the sting out of reality and well, I shouldn't be all that different in naming it)?
You never thought you would make it...but you did. You've come a long way and you are still here and tomorrow, as another character from another great book once said, "Tomorrow is another day..." and the hard things, well we can always think about them tomorrow.
The virtual world I live in, allows me to consider more positive alternatives and to fulfil dreams that sometimes the real world is not able to give me. So I enjoy the hope I can find, the posibilities. I hope you do too.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Dont Believe Everything You Read Or Then Again....
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((funny how things you write often remind me of things I've written))
Dryer Lint, and the Law of Attraction
If you wear clothes, chances are good that they get washed. And when they are washed, they need to be dried. The most common ways of drying are by the sun, and the clothes dryer. Let’s concentrate on the dryer. A dryer usually has a lint filter, and that filter needs to be cleaned now and then. Have you ever noticed that the best way of removing dryer lint from any surface is to use a pinch of lint? That’s because Like attracts Like.
As a result of reading a book, as I was walking down a footpath in Wales one day, I was repeating, mentally, a sort of mantra: “every day, in every way, more and more money comes into my life.” Walking ‘round a bend, there in the middle of the path was a 1 pound coin (like finding two dollar bills). It was shiny on this cloudy day, and there was nobody visible who might have dropped it and thus be glad of its return. I pocketed it and continued on my way. Now you might surmise I would repeat that mantra often, given the success of that first experience, but I have not. The simplest answer as to why not is that sometimes other things require our attention. So I have not repeated the mantra often in these past twenty years. But I have not forgotten the incident.
Like attracts Like. Try it for yourself: think about something really dismal. Don’t you find thinking more dismal thoughts come easily? Now try the opposite: remember a happy time in your life. Doesn’t that remind you of other happy times? Both may initially require a conscious act of will, but once begun, our thoughts obey Newton’s First Law of Motion: an object in motion will continue until acted upon by some outside force. You can either feel sad, or you can be happy. It is your choice. Nobody around you can change the course of your thoughts unless you let them. It’s your choice.
When my thoughts focus on a lack of abundance, they can cascade until I am overwhelmed by the spectre of not being able to pay my monthly bills, or being unable to even buy enough food. Is this desirable, given that I have a choice? No. So the day I was consciously feeling an abundance of money, there around the next corner was more. A couple of months ago I was feeling a similar gratefulness for abundance and that day’s mail brought a $50 refund from my auto insurance company.
There are any number of books out there to tell you how to get rich, how to better manage your time or find love, but the one thing they have in common is trying to change the way you think. And whether your goal is Love, Money or just a clean lint trap, remember this: Like attracts like.
It’s your choice.
Nice piece. At about this time I basically put in a stock buy...
hope all is well with you
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