Continuing our good times with Confucius, here’s one of the gems from his Analects that has tattooed itself on my brain since I read it a decade ago.
“The Master said, He does not mind not being in office; all he minds about is whether he has qualities that entitle him to office. He does not mind failing to get recognition; he is too busy doing the things that entitle him to recognition.”
How great is THAT?
Would you like a little more recognition than you’re getting?
OK. That’s fine.
Now take a deep breath and get back to work doing whatever it is you think will EARN you that recognition.
Repeat that process whenever the desire for (more) recognition arises.
That’s Today’s +1.
Well, that and this passage from James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh—which is also tattooed to my brain along with big chunks of that entire essay.
Imagine working tirelessly and then, one day, things just shift.
Here’s how Allen poetically puts it: “And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal.
You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration: in the beautiful words of Stanton Kirkham Davis, ‘You may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience – the pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers – and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city – bucolic and open mouthed; shall wander under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of the master, and after a time he shall say, ‘I have nothing more to teach you.’ And now you have become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world.’”
Here’s to the ink stains on your fingers when the curtains rise and the world applauds and you say, “Did I win?”
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