051223 Stop Thinking If Only...

Stop Thinking "If Only"
 
"If only I could get a better break."
"If only I had some money."
"If only I would've married the right person."
"If only I worked for the right company."
"If only I had the right parents."
 
Do you pull back from taking full personal responsibility
for yourself?

Many of us do. We think that a parent, a teacher, a friend,

A boss, a spouse, the company we worked for, or some

Governmental program should shoulder our burden for

Turning our lives into what we want them to be.
 
This approach can't get the job done.

Other people and organizations have too many pressing

Challenges and priorities of their own.
 
What does this mean?

That you'll always be disappointed when you depend on

Others for the things you must do for yourself.
 
It's so easy to justify the temptations of freeloading,

To slide into being a follower, to fail to see the hidden price
tag in the handout.

Unless you take complete control of your life and assume

Full personal responsibility for yourself, who will? No one will.
 
Every dollar you earn is worth ten given to you.

Earned money creates the self-image of self-reliance;

Given money creates the self-image of other-dependence.

This is why some families stay on welfare for generations.
 
Hangers-on and free-loaders are the most frustrated people
on earth because they have created their own frustrations.
You can't be successful and happy until you earn the respect
of the toughest, hardest to fool and most important judge
in the world… yourself.

- Tom Hopkins

 ***

 

There was no such thing as half-trying.

Whether it was running a race or catching a football,

Competing in school … we were to try.

And we were to try harder than anyone else.

We might not be the best, and none of us were,

But we were to make the effort to be the best.

- Robert Francis Kennedy

 

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage

And belief that human history is shaped.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal,

Or acts to improve the lot of others,

Or strikes out against injustice,

He sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,

And crossing each other from a million different

Centers of energy and daring those ripples build

A current which can sweep down the mightiest

Walls of oppression and injustice.

- Robert Francis Kennedy

(Day of Affirmation Address at

The University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1966.)

 

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself,

But each one of us can work to change a

Small portion of events,

And in the total of all those acts will be written

The history of this generation.

- Robert Francis Kennedy