PRINCIPLES FOR SUCCESS

A Superior Life

PSYCHOLOGISTS have estimated that man puts to use only ten percent of the abilities with which he is born. Professor William James of Harvard University has very aptly observed, “What we ought to be, we are not ready to be.” In spite of the innate qualities nature has endowed us with, the successes which should have been ours in this world keep eluding us for the simple reason that we quite unthinkingly consent to lead inferior lives.

It is most important that we should consciously seek out the principles which will lead us towards a superior life and get a share in the success. A few of these principles are elucidated here.

Learn the Difference between Motion and Direction
Not knowing the difference between motion and direction is a road block to success. One intrinsic quality of activity is movement. When you are walking, driving or riding a bicycle, you are moving but in what direction? Are you moving towards your destination, or away from it? The actual motion in both cases seems to be no different in quality. The difference between the two is that the former brings you ever nearer to your destination, while the latter takes you farther and farther away from it—leaving you where? Nowhere, at least nowhere worth going. It is direction that is all important. Even if we only get on to the slow-moving bullock cart or a cycle rickshaw, we shall do better than a jet plane which has no sense of direction.

Starting out in the right direction is the first important principle of success.

Both in our private lives and social existence it is imperative that we take stock of our means and resources and then set off in the right direction, if sooner or later, we are to reach our destination.

Often people launch themselves on careers without giving due thought to their actual capacities and whether they have any real potential which can be developed. Starting out in the right direction is the first important principle of success.

Start From Small Beginnings
This is another important principle one should accept wholeheartedly to climb the ladder of success. Progress can seldom be made by leaps and bounds. The climb is up the ladder one step after another, you cannot make a success of your life by the lift expecting it to do everything for you. There are no buttons which you can just push and then automatically reach your goals. You can only make progress step by step.

Accept the Law of Nature
There is a price to be paid for every end in life; without paying that price, nothing can be achieved. In this world one has to sink before one can rise; one has to resign oneself to loss before one can gain; to backwardness before one can advance; one has to be able to accept defeat before one can claim victory. The world in which man lives has been created by God, not by man himself. This may appear to be a simple fact, but it is one that man usually forgets in his everyday life. Since we are living in God’s world, we have no alternative but to understand His laws, and follow them. There is no other way we can make a place for ourselves in the world.

Those who wish to advance and be successful in life without passing through the necessary stages, will have to build another world for themselves—one which satisfies their own requirements; for in the world that God has created, their dreams can never come true.

Thus anyone who wants success to come their way in this world will first have to make themselves deserving of it. They must know their strengths and weaknesses and circumstances. They must organize and channelize their energies properly. They must enter the field fully equipped in every respect, then others cannot fail to recognize their true value. They must be like the tree which forces its way up through the undergrowth to take its place in the sun.

Imaginary Problems
If the problem concerns the future, it is a nonexistent
problem, simply based on fear. Why
bother about something which has not yet
happened? Maybe it never will.