IDEA LIFE
Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019
Not ideal life.
Idea life.
Leaving month, year, and decade behind – no value defending past, or celebrating someone else’s achievements nor pointing out blunders – what’s your next move?
“It’s always your next move.” – Napoleon Hill
Hill never built a lasting business, but his book Think and Grow Rich was successful. His schtick, the influence of Andrew Carnegie, and Carnegie’s suggestion he interview other successful people – his synthesis on what he learned about what made them great. Hill’s descendants reap royalties still from what he published so very long ago. It leaves out stories of his fortunes made and lost, his costly divorces, his starting over, and over, and over again. That’s perhaps his more inspiring story.
But where are the best ideas found?
Who has them, and how can we get some?
I’ve asked that question many times – found there is no particular rock to turn over, no guru to follow being any better than the rest. They are all the same, only looking different. They sound the same after a while, each regurgitating simple truths in revised form.
Looking back, looking forward, and looking up – I am convinced that we should not look down for any reason except to watch where we are going so we don’t trip.
Farewell decade, hello New Year, some thoughts for 2020:
In Defense Of An Idea
How many ideas, beliefs, and points-of-view for you?
I have hundreds – perhaps thousands if I was asked enough questions, the answers live inside me – waiting to be unlocked, not as prisoners seeking free speech, but as connective bits to leak out of innermost me when given a chance.
Most of us live by rules, principles, and habits – rooted in something. As simple as agreeing with some compelling argument or call-to-action we heard yesterday. More likely, seeds were planted much nearer the beginning of our life.
Of his many famous quotes I love, this one seems so valid on New Year’s Eve:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
Have a happy and prosperous 2020 – it’s 1 part survival, 1 part attitude – we all need both.
May we all enjoy a year of ideas and ideals, knowing the world is flawed, and so are we all, and in that recognition, we could all be filled with a little more kindness, a little more nerve, and a lot more fun.
