Living Life with Purpose Part 2
“Having a Definite Purpose is the single largest difference between those that truly succeed at getting what they want and those that do not…” — Rick Cox
We started out last time talking about a friend of mine who has lived his life with definiteness of purpose. He set his target high, kept his goal in sight and didn’t waver from what it was he wanted to accomplish. I can tell you from knowing him as a close friend, he has had plenty of opportunities to call it quits, to give up the fight and to cave in to the pressures, but he stayed on course accomplishing much more than the majority of those who are much better educated and would be perceived as smarter. The difference, they were not of the same mindset. They did not have a singleness of purpose. They were not definite in what their purpose should be like my friend and the result is he has what he set out to achieve and they have unfulfilled desires.
Although my friend and the other better educated both had desires, it was only my friend that had such a burning desire he would not allow anything to keep that desire from becoming a reality. He had the discipline to stay focused on he wanted and was unwilling to accept anything less – you must be willing to make life pay what you want.
When I spoke of the struggles that many face in Part 1, it is these very struggles that get most folks off their course and keep them from their desires and the fulfillment of their destiny. These struggles can be viewed like the winds being used by a sailor. If you know how to set your sails, the winds will take you where you want to go. If you know how to properly respond to struggles and use the energy in them to propel you, they will help you get to your destiny.
Life is full of winds; winds to the contrary and winds to our favor. These winds can all be used to our benefit, but that will depend on our personal philosophy in life. Your philosophy has the ability to use the winds to your advantage or your philosophy may wind up leaving you a victim of the winds. As a victim you will be blown about here and there yet never in the direction of your goals or desires. It is all based on the set of your sail. Your philosophy is the set of your sail.
How you view and approach life, what your attitude and response will be, as well as how you will view each day and what you will expect from each day is all determined by your philosophy. If you expect from an attitude of optimism then things can and will work out for you but if you have the attitude that nothing works for you then it probably will not. It is all based on your philosophy. It is all based on how you view life. Jimmy Dean, the singer, actor and famous sausage maker said, “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” That is the right philosophy. That is what it takes to make sure you are going to get out of life what you want.
Even if the winds are blowing straight at you sailors know it is possible to sail into the winds and make progress by the use of the “tacking” method. This allows you to move in the direction you want to head even if ever so slowly by tacking back and forth or zig zagging from left to right and making some progress with each change of direction. By taking the same approach as a sailor, we can move forward in life even when the winds of life are against us.
In Napoleon Hill’s book Outwitting the Devil he states through definiteness of purpose you can make life hand over whatever it is you want. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essay on Compensation he writes that each person is compensated in like manner for that which he or she has contributed. The Law of Compensation is another restatement of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. It says that you will always be compensated for your efforts and for your contribution, whatever it is, however much or however little. In other words, you can keep moving forward even in the face of opposition and when you do you will be compensated accordingly.
Although these may seem a little different they are not. One says by having a definite purpose you can make life pay what you want. The other says what you sow you will reap. If you are sowing something definite, you will reap the harvest of that which was sown. In other words if you sow an apple seed you will get an apple tree and thus more apples, you will not get orange tree with oranges. Therefore, if you are definite in what it is you want you are going to get what you want not something else.
My friend, wasn’t an academic scholar in high school, did not attend college, and was more than likely not thought of as one to be on top of the world at age sixty two. He has done this in the face of incredible odds such as being very dyslexic and having no formal business training. He faced and overcame unbelievable pressures (winds) brought on by the dyslexia and lack of education that all face when they start and run a successful business. He didn’t let those winds blow him off course, but kept his focus and set his sails staying the course through definiteness of purpose. Today, my friend is very financially set and would have to work hard to spend what he has been fortunate to accrue even if he lived to be a hundred.
When you are a person that has a definite purpose, you are not waiting for circumstances or other people to create things for you. You are consciously creating your own future by being focused on your own definite purpose for which you have set your sights.
Best of LUCK as you
Labor Under Correct Knowledge…
Respectfully,
Rick Cox