Past mistakes have taught me many lessons. The most essential has been
to make me realize the crucial value of ideas. You will find many
obstacles on your way to a better life, but wrong ideas often constitute
the largest hurdle to be overcome. Ignorance can keep you down for a
while, but having wrong ideas can literally destroy your life.
If you have a mistaken philosophy, you won't be able to
perceive opportunities
Philosophical
convictions play such a determinant role because they focus your mind
on a goal and allow you to advance relentlessly in that direction. On
the other hand, having wrong values is equivalent to putting blinders on
your eyes.
If you have a mistaken philosophy, you won't be able to
perceive opportunities. You cannot move forward until you stop leaning
backwards. You cannot take effective action until you stop chasing
counter-productive targets. The following two poisonous ideas build
enormous obstacles to success.
Two poisonous ideas that prevent happiness and success
1. FEELING ASHAMED. You can make
yourself ashamed of being too quick or too slow, too small or too fat,
too ignorant or too old, or for who knows what. Whether your particular
reason is one or the other, it doesn't matter. You should not allow any
of them to discourage you from moving forward.
If people
criticize you, listen carefully, see if they have a point, try to
improve whatever it is, assuming that it is something under your
control, and move on. Whatever you do and no matter how well you do it,
lots of people will dislike you. Learn from their remarks if those make
sense, shrug your shoulders at the rest, and continue to advance on your
chosen path.
2. BELIEVING THAT YOU HAVE NO CHANCE. There
will always exist people who possess everything you want and who got it
without much effort. I am not denying that some owe their success to
inheritance, luck, or family connections. Does that mean that you should
be paralysed by envy? Is that a sign telling you to give up your hopes
of success? Not at all. For your personal achievement, other people's
good luck is irrelevant in the long term.
Imagine, for instance,
that a competitor has great political connections and that you have
none. If such connections are required to succeed in a certain field,
you'd do better to acknowledge that reality. It doesn't mean that you
have no chance in life. Take it instead as a message for you to move on
and get down to work in an field where you have better prospects.
You have better things to do than crying
about the unfairness of the world
By all
means, if you have decided to devote your life to promote justice,
nothing speaks against your concentrating your energies on improving
society. Nevertheless, do not delude yourself that you need to change
the whole world before you become successful in your own life. On your
road to achievement, your largest obstacles will be wrong ideas. Throw
them away today.
For more information about rational living and personal development, I refer you to my book The 10 Principles of Rational Living
[Text: http://johnvespasian.blogspot.com]
[Image by schillergarcia under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us]
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