The Important and Enduring Ideals
Take a minute out of your busy schedule and contemplate – What are the ideals that you value most in your life? Put anyone in a crisis situation, and suddenly, all they value in life comes into hyper focus. Do you value your job (and what the money earned can buy) over family, friends, or faith? If you’re not careful, over time, you will take for granted what you value most and replace it with whatever you spend most of your time doing.
Most importantly, you have to guard against losing the value of personal choice. We all have it, but seldom use it. In the United States of America, we are granted freedom and have boundless opportunities. Even in the reality of the present economic and political turbulence, there is opportunity to advance. Other important values consist of love and friendship and the ability to find our talents, both learned and innate.
I want to remind you of the values that bring our life alive and not the circumstances we find ourselves in at the moment. It is time to rediscover the true value that you were meant to bring to this world, the value that will leave ‘your footprint’ long after your time here on earth. Think further with me, will you? What happens when you focus on your values and then realize that they will be confronted with adverse circumstances? Therein lays the human dilemma. Those circumstances, combined with the passage of time, can diminish the worth of your values until you can no longer see them or remember they ever existed.
Over the years, I have seen it in the eyes of my programs’ attendees. Time and distractions have stolen away the greatest of all values—it is your birthright—and that is, your child-like excitement to have faith, courage, and enthusiasm in yourself and in your future. I have shared these three words with my team and audiences all over the country and world for over two decades. You owned these three values in abundance as a child, but now, it is your focus on knowledge, prestige, and position that has taken away your greatest asset. You find yourself anticipating failure rather than pursuing success. You see rejection first, rather than respect. Your negativity has resulted in an inability to achieve your goals and to develop your true dream in life.
It is important to remember that tomorrow will soon become today, and along with it, the chance that you might miss a new opportunity to see the values in life you possess. Tomorrow gradually becomes our escape from today. We say to ourselves, “I’ll start tomorrow” or “Things will be better tomorrow.” However, something always seems to happen in the transition of tomorrow becoming today, and possibly even making yesterday forgotten. If you can discipline yourself today, focus on what’s important, and pursue your personal plan to make tomorrow better, all of your values will come to fruition. You will need this level of focus to produce the results you require for this moment in time. It is not a gift; it is a responsibility. It is not an entitlement; it is a choice.
The Good Life Rules!
Bryan J. Dodge