Circumstances! I make circumstances! — Napoleon Bonaparte

“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.” — Vince Lombardi

“The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great, they will not go on living and will die of despair. The Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky

“To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.” — William H. Walton

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. — Henry Miller

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. — Beverly Sills

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Ultimately, I chose to move all the blogs to a hosting company with a better record of restoring server failure issues as well as better customer service. It will be time consuming to be sure. After all, there are 5 blogs to move. Fortunately, there is a window of about 5 months. And that is good.

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Table of contents for On Your Way

1. On Your Way Part 1
2. On Your Way Part 2

But what if the action you’re preparing to take is something you have to do instead of something you want to do? How can you come up with a good solid reason for that, a reason that means something to you?

The answer is to find the reason behind the reason. If it is something you have to do, then what is the reason you have to do it? And what is the reason behind that reason? Keep looking for the reason behind the reason until you find a reason that really means something to you. It’s in there somewhere, or else you would not feel the necessity of taking action.

For example, if the action you’re preparing to take is something related to your job, then dig deeper and find the reason why you are working in that job. If the driving reason behind your job is to make money, then ask yourself why you are working to make money. Money, in and of itself, really has no value to you. There is a reason you have for working to acquire that money. At some point you’ll arrive at a reason with which you can solidly connect.

Somewhere, there is a reason that truly means something to you. Find it and get clear about it. Connect your need for action with something so deep within you that the connection simply cannot be severed. Do that, and then you’ll really have a reason, a reason that will drive you positively forward, a reason that will make you unstoppable.

For what usually stops you from taking action is your lack of will to do so. It’s not that you don’t know what to do. It’s not that you’re prevented from doing it. In most cases, there is some way or another to take whatever action must be taken. Yet a journey requires more than a road. A successful journey requires you to actually travel down that road, mile after mile, until the destination is reached. The road is there, and when you have the will to make it so, the journey takes place.
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If you are a blogger, considering starting your own blog as a primary business site, or, even worse, thinking about changing you hosting company, please check in often. You will gain an education watching me try to work this through.

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Table of contents for On Your Way

1. On Your Way Part 1
2. On Your Way Part 2

Are you ready to take action? Are you ready to stop just thinking about it or talking about it or wishing for it, to actually step forward and get it done?

That’s great! Before you begin, though, there are some crucial questions to ask yourself.

The first question is this. Why are you doing it? Do you have a good answer for that question? Do you have an answer that is personally meaningful, a reason that will drive you to persist in taking action no matter what?

Don’t settle for a meaningless answer, or, more precisely, an answer that has no meaning for you. If your reason for taking action is to follow someone else’s dream or someone else’s idea of success, that reason is not going to sustain you. That borrowed reason is not going to push you through the challenges, the discouragement, the effort and the sacrifice involved in taking effective action.
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RF2GTTFFTATW

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Table of contents for Gaining Perspective

1. Gaining Perspective Part 1
2. Gaining Perspective Part 2
3. Gaining Perspective Part 3
4. Gaining Perspective Part 4
5. Gaining Perspective Part 5

When you stop and put things in perspective, though, it can make a big difference. When you work at getting to the core of what your life is all about, you begin to understand that most of those external things you see as necessities are not really necessities at all. Each one of them is merely one way, one way out of many, of expressing a deeper purpose. Even if you did not have your job, even if you could not afford your current lifestyle, you would still be you. You would still have the same driving purpose, and you would most certainly be able to find some other way to express it.

If you’re at the airport waiting to travel to another city and you miss your flight, there will be another flight to eventually take you where you want to go. You may have to experience a little inconvenience, you may have to wait until the next day, you may have to buy another ticket, but you have not forever lost the chance to get where you want to go. It’s important to remember that the flight is not the destination. If you miss the flight you have not lost the destination. There is another way to get there. Even if the airport is closed because of bad weather, you can rent a car and drive to where you want to go. Likewise, your job is not irrevocably tied to your purpose in life. It may be a great way of expressing that purpose, but it is not the only way.

If you feel that you’re working at your job because you have to do it, because you’re somehow forced by fate to be toiling at this particular activity, it can work against you regardless of what happens. With such a negative attitude, when you’re working at the job you resent it and if you were to lose the job you’d be in danger of becoming completely lost.

On the other hand, when you see your job as something you’ve chosen to do, and you understand how you yourself have connected that choice to the things that are truly important to you, it frees you from the resentment. It also frees you from the sense of dependence.

The purpose of your life does not depend on the external things, whatever they may be. It is the other way around. You have connected to those external things precisely because of your purpose, precisely because you have some reason to do so. Those external things are sure to change over time, because that is their nature. But even if you lose them completely, you have not lost your purpose, you have not lost that which is truly important to you. When the day-to-day complexities of life are assaulting you from every direction, it’s important to remember that.

Your perspective plays a vital role in how your life proceeds. Raise your perspective and you raise your effectiveness. Raise your perspective and you improve your ability to live life according to your most treasured values. Raise your perspective, and you’ll find yourself making positive progress in fulfilling those goals and dreams which are truly most important to you.
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Table of contents for Gaining Perspective

1. Gaining Perspective Part 1
2. Gaining Perspective Part 2
3. Gaining Perspective Part 3
4. Gaining Perspective Part 4
5. Gaining Perspective Part 5

To gain perspective, get away from the noise and confusion and put yourself in a place where you can hear yourself think, a place where you can spend some quality time and some quantity of time on contemplation. Then turn your thinking to those things that are truly important to you.

You often identify yourself with your job, your age, the community in which you live, the church you attend, the school your child goes to, and other external factors. Yet all these things are not really who you are. They are expressions of who you are. To gain perspective is to understand why you have chosen to live your life in the way you are living it. To gain perspective is to get in touch with the deep, driving purposes which compel you to make the decisions you make. Those are the kinds of things you simply can’t explore when every 30 seconds of your day is rigidly scheduled, when the problems and questions and challenges and tasks are coming at you from all directions. When you do get into a place where you can explore them, such an exercise can add valuable perspective to all you do.

Think about your life and all the good things you have going for you. Certainly you have difficulties. Everyone does. Yet those difficulties, as serious as they may be, are really just aberrations in the overwhelmingly positive and abundant experience of being alive. The fact that you’re able to even recognize them as difficulties means that you must have a positive, abundant background against which to compare them. So set aside the difficulties and focus on appreciating the good and positive things that are too often taken for granted. Consider your family, your faith, your awareness and ability to make things happen, the beauty of the world around you and the opportunities you have to experience it.

Look for the reasons behind the reasons. There is some reason for everything you have chosen to do or to be, and behind that reason is another reason, and a whole string of reasons reaching to your very core. Why do you like to drive your convertible on a sunny day, and what is the why behind that why? Dig deeply enough and you’ll connect with your most treasured purposes.

By so doing, you enable yourself to make some sense of all the confusion and to give a positive, enduring direction to all your efforts. The more deeply you delve into who you are, the more elevated your perspective becomes. Because you begin to understand that all the superficial things, the things which fill life with confusion, anxiety and complexity, are ultimately not all that important. Certainly they are often useful and desirable, but they are not essential. When you realize that you can detach yourself from them, when you understand that you don’t absolutely need all those superficial things, when you stop worrying so much about them, then you can rise above them and see beyond them.

By taking some time to get away from the noise, and using that time to raise your perspective, then when you go back the noise doesn’t seem so noisy, overwhelming or intrusive. You’ll find that you’re able to think and act at a level where you can see your way forward and then make your way forward. You’re giving yourself a lifeboat in which to stand and see over the waves so you’ll know which way to swim in order to get where you want to go.

By gaining perspective on your life you can replace those things you feel you have to do with the things you want to do, with the things you choose to do. Often the activities themselves don’t change. What changes is your relationship to them and your attitude toward them.

As an example, let’s look at the activity of earning a living. Even if you have the best job in the world and are well paid for it, there will be times when you’ll resent having to do it. And if your job and your pay are not so great, then there is even more likelihood for resentment. On top of that, you can feel locked in and trapped by your job because it supports the lifestyle you are living. The money you are earning goes to pay for all those things you see yourself as needing. Eventually you may grow to resent your own lifestyle because it keeps you locked into a job which you resent.

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Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23).

The Bible instructs us to keep our heart with all diligence. Obviously this is not a reference to my blood pumper, but to my subconscious. The reason is that out of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences that are harbored there, will come my actions, words, and deeds of today and tomorrow.

This is the battleground. My mind is where I will win and lose the game of life, so to speak. It is important therefore, to be careful how I process the experiences of my life. It is very important.

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