Every
great idea and dream must be established within you and you alone. There
will come times when only you will believe it is going to happen. Can you
stand alone? Can you believe when it looks as if no one else does?
John
Gardner declared, “The cynic says, ‘One man can’t do anything.’ I say, ‘Only one
man can do anything.’” Nobody can do it for you. No one
will do it for you.
Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow put it this way: “Not in the clamor of the
crowded streets, not in the shouts or plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves
are triumph and defeat.”
You can’t delegate your thinking,
dreaming, or believing to others.
Thomas
Edison, who claimed he could think better because of his partial deafness,
said, “The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has
been done in turmoil.”
Eagles
fly alone; crows fly in groups. Know
how to get away and separate yourself. Don’t belong so completely to
others that you do not belong to yourself. The fact is that we’re all in
this together – by ourselves.
Alexander
Graham Bell made this observation: “Don’t keep forever on the
public road. Leave the beaten path occasionally and drive into the
woods. You’ll be certain to find something that you’ve never seen
before. One discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you
will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really
big discoveries are the results of thought.”
Most
big ideas are discovered when you are by yourself. Be sure to spend some
time alone on a regular basis. Retreat to advance.
Don’t
accept that others know you better than yourself. Great leaders have
always encountered noisy opposition from mediocre minds. The biggest mistake
that you can make is to believe that others are responsible for your failures
and successes. Each of us will give an account of ourselves, not of anyone else,
to God.
There
is power in the principle of standing alone. More than anyone else, you
must be persuaded. The best helping hand you will ever find is at the end
of your own arm. I believe that God wants us to learn for
ourselves. Mark Twain mused, “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can
learn no other way.”
The
opportunity to succeed, or not, is yours. No one can take that away
unless you let him. Learn
to be alone and stand alone, or nothing worthwhile will catch up with you.
Share this
EmoticonEmoticon