In the beginning life is thrust upon us-something into which we are entered completely involuntarily. Personally, this was a bone of contention in my own life for years. I allowed this fact, among other circumstances, to invade and obscure my perception of life. I didn't understand that my perception was my choice, and that my choice determined my circumstance. Now, we all know that our circumstance has a powerful impact on our perception-so, I created a self-fulfilling prophesy and withdrew into a constant negative spiral of depression.

It was many years later that I came to realize two very important things: 1) Why waste time worrying about something that cannot be changed (I couldn't change the fact that I was here...alive)? And 2) Emotion effects thought (which we already know well), but the inverse is also true-thought effects emotion, and the same with activity: emotion effects activity and activity effects emotion. It is amazing that acting excited can actually make us excited! And thinking motivational thoughts can actually get us motivated-even though we start out feeling down!

All too often we run willy-nilly through life with no plans, no goals and no direction. We allow the whim of the wind to send us where we'll go, and we often end up where we didn't want to be. There are many great and wonderful things we just happen upon through these life travels, but the end is often unsettling because we thought we'd have more, have done more, reached a certain level, have been at a certain point in life when reality strikes, and we begin to wonder:  "what happened? What went wrong?"

Well, now we get back to the first point-we can't change what has happened. If it cannot be changed, the decisions not undone, then why waste time fretting over it? We do need to learn from it, so we can't simply forget. But we must use it to make conscious decisions to change things. We only have a limited amount of time here, so why waste it worrying about stuff we cannot change? We need to make the decision to change and make the most of the time that we have.

Our past is only our chains if we allow it to be: this is point two. We can live an "oh woe is me" life and allow our emotion to govern our present and subject us to its future. Or, we can accept it, learn from it and change direction--we can use thought and activity to change our future.

Whatever force it was that spawned creation did not hide that power within its own environs. The power of creation was given to all of us, not only in the form of procreation, but in the form of re-invention. We have the ability to re-invent ourselves every day. We have the ability to be and become the person WE want. But, the catch is...you can't "Forest Gump" into it!! Good things and success don't just happen to you because you fell into them! 

If you don't change, you will always stay the same-a simple statement that seems to overstate the obvious. But, this is an incredibly realistic statement which, far too often, goes completely over people's heads. Think of it this way-if you put your money in a vending machine and keep pushing the same selection, like Coke, no matter how much you do it, you won't get a Sprite! No matter how badly you want it, it isn't going to happen-you will keep getting Coke! In order to get Sprite, you need to change your selection.

If you don't consciously change how you think, how you live, what you are doing, where you are going, then you will reap the same reward that you always have!

I have never known happier people than those in active pursuit of an attainable goal-thought and activity effect emotion. And I have never known those people to ever be effected by set backs or failure. They can't change what happened, but they learn from it and change the way they are going about attaining their goals in the future.