If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any
time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without alcohol,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs….
THEN YOU ARE MY DOG WITH UNFETTERED LOVE.
E.W. Wilcox :
The genius that shines like a cometFills only one part of God’s plan,
If the lesson the word derives from it
Is marred by the life of the man.
Be worthy your work if you love it;
The king should be fit for the crown;
Stand high as your art, or above it,
And make us look up and not down.
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To burn always with a hard, gemlike flame, that's success in life.-- R. W. MARKS
SUCCESS IN LIFE : Two most important subjects need consideration- 'life' and the next one 'success'. There are many realistic ways that you can make comparisons to your real life and your achievements or lack thereof. Success can be subjective, but, as it can be biased, it can only be observed , assessed, predicted, and if necessary, announced by an observer, if that were possible.
One of the ways I like to think of life as it being a bus. (You can perhaps imagine a cruise liner, or an aeroplane etc).
A bus is kept at a depot along with many other buses- buses of all shapes, sizes and color. The buses are well maintained, but some are showing their age, by worn out tires, defective brakes , paint work peeling off, rust spots etc. In fact, some are getting ready for the vehicular graveyard.
In the morning the buses begin their journey. Each bus has an assignment. What it is to do for the day, where it has to go, the places it has to stop and the time to return, the people it has to pick up and the people it has to drop off on the way. Thus the beginning as it leaves the depot is like birth, the beginning of a life when the journey begins. The various stops it makes, is where it drops off or collects passengers or other events is what happen in life as we envisage it here.
The point at which it leaves the depot is the moment of birth. You are the the driver while the bus is your life. Various stops it makes are like milestones- start kindergarten, later school, then comes college, maybe a girlfriend or two, marriage, children, grandchildren, a career, retirement, travel, wealth, health, disease, and the return to the depot is when the bus rests and the ignition is switched off, which off course is death from which for the human there is no return.
You are not the driver of the bus. It is your soul, your inner self, or your conscience that always does right, and knows when you did wrong, even if you managed to get away with it.
The body of the bus is your body, and the inside of the body is your mind in your brain. The passengers are the people you came across as you lived as you drove through the highway of life.
As time goes by, the bus is getting older, and is maintained generally by patchwork, but at times it has to be taken to the garage (hospital), but eventually it is too sick for maintenance, and the driver leaves his job (dies), or changes his job and has a new bus to drive if you believe in reincarnation.
Consider the driver (you), where he is sitting, and all the controls that surround you. The steering, the accelerator pedals, the brakes, the gear etc help you to steer your life in the appropriate direction. To fine tune the controls when you might be a little out is done by all the passengers, i.e. your relatives and friends who are taking a ride with you. There is also the hand of the unknown (God) that is directing your hand, especially when you are in the middle of a storm.
We must remember that all the passengers that are in the bus do influence your journey. All the passengers not necessarily helpful, as there can also be drug addicts, alcoholics, maybe smokers and leading lives that might appear treacherous to some, like eating meat (for some), leading an immoral life etc., and they could have an influence on you, and it behooves you to ignore these influences, not only that, but to point towards a righteous behavior to some of the passengers that are following a wrong path. It might also be better if the stubborn passengers are requested to leave the bus.
As regards the passengers, the spirit that is next to you is the closest member of your family, namely your wife or husband). Part of your character is already built by the parents and others, and is already written as a code in the DNA molecule.
While discussing this concept, I was asked as to what was the fuel that propelled the bus. The bus has a solar panel that absorbs power and stores it in a battery, and is used as necessary.
Just where is our sun that gives all that power?
It is of course our five senses- touch, taste, smell, sight and taste. All these provide an input that is analyzed and stored in the memory bank.
It is even more important to get rid of waste products. Products that are doing you harm, and are not helpful at all. Hence we have a long exhaust pipe, and emissions that nobody want. Of course, these are the seven deadly sins- sins of - wrath, greed, sloth, pride , lust, envy and gluttony ( manifest as extravagance, lust, gluttony, greed, acedia, despair, sloth, wrath, envy, pride, vainglory. (In Latin the mnemonic was ' S A L I G I A '- Superbia, Aviritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia.
The emanations from the exhaust are its demons in their physical forms- and they are- Lucifer, Mammon, Asmodeus, Levithian, Beelzbub, Satan (Amon), and Belphegor.
To retain or to imbibe virtues would of course be the opposites of the above, they are the vitamins that will your soul with goodness- and they are - chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. Success in life is when you have imbibed these in their entirety and practiced them with due diligence.