No one ever finds life worth
living. He has to MAKE life worth living. What life does to us in the long run,
depends on what life finds in us.
– J. Lowery Fendrich, Jr Mental Hygiene
Do not store up for yourselves
treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in
and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and
vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where
your treasure is, there your heart will be also. – Matt 6:19-21 NIV
The attitudes we bring to life
determine our experience of life. We may look with a cynical eye, critical of
all that does not match literally to our ideal and that is all we shall find.
We look again with an eye to seeing the best results, the best in the people we
meet, and the best of life in all areas of our experience and that is what we
find. What we see depends on our expectations and our attitudes and what we see
is what we get.
I probably ought to have known
this forever but I only recently understood that first class only costs a
little more. If I always treat myself as first class, I always easily afford first
class. For me now, prosperity worth living means that whatever I desire to be,
to do, or to have, if I am not yet at the best, I continually improve until I
continuously give and receive the best.
But, you ask, “What about all of
the world current events?” You are concerned of course about the logical
outcome of events if we continue along the path we seem to be following. I get
it, and the path we follow comes from the thoughts we think, the feelings, we
feel, and the beliefs that we allow to run our life. Notice that Fendrich
refers to the long run. Are we so stuck in the immediacy of the news and the discussions
of death, disaster, and despair that we cannot see that our own efforts for
peace and prosperity work powerfully to lift the whole world to a higher level.
Are you tired of bad news all of
the time? Well, quit watching it and wallowing in it. Deny its limitation and
affirm that everything that occurs restores your heart to fearlessness. Bryant
McGill has it right: “Be the peace you seek.” Just because this appears in
fashion and on the social media, does not invalidate its truth. Prosperity
worth living is the peace you bring to every conversation, email, and letter. You
awaken the joy in others when you wear a genuine smile of happiness. That is contagious
peace well worth giving and well worth living.
Fendrich wrote in 1941, when the
Nazis and Japanese threatened our civilization. We survive. We survived the
cold war and many other trials because in the final analysis, we are at our
core, strong and pliable beings, “made in the image and likeness” of the
Almighty and alive with the life of that Almighty within us. Every generation
since Adam has grown and prospered in the face of adversity. There is an Old Norse
saying, that the north wind made the Vikings.
I turn my eyes to the treasure of
love and life, the gifts of the Almighty. I know that Wisdom within me guides
me always to right action and opens my heart, my mind, and my will to accept
the highest and best from each moment. I afford first class prosperity worth
living because I can and so it is.
John
John Lusk
“First
you ask definitely for direction, then it will enter your consciousness as a
definite thought; then in your turn you give it back the thought and it will
give you back the thing. It answers every question, solves every problem; it is
the solution to every difficulty.” Ernest Holmes
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