Posts Tagged ‘Positive Living’

‘If you love learning, you love the discipline that goes with it – how shortsighted to refuse correction.’ Proverbs 12:1 The Message

Laziness will never produce anything of value. Tardiness will leave behind disappointment and unfulfilled promises. But discipline will instill confidence and provide excellence as its hallmark.

But discipline takes on many forms, and it is my purpose to unveil how we are to apply this to our daily lives.

So here are five areas where I have found discipline to help me live a fulfilled and productive life.

1. A Disciplined Mind

How you fill your mind will determine the way you think and the way you live. That is why I spend a portion of each day in the disciplining of my mind. Most days I start by reading wisdom literature, which includes the Bible along with material written in that field – from both the past and the present. I flick though the newspapers with one purpose only, and that is to find commentary on the businesses I’m either involved or interested in, but I refuse to focus on the negative.

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Day 1: Another day. Another miracle. Another opportunity. Another reason to give thanks. Another reason to live and to love. Another day!

Day 2: Another day. Another reason to dream. Another reason to stretch. Another reason to grow. Another reason to praise. Another reason to breathe. Another reason to try. Another day!

Day 3: Another day. Another reason to forgive. Another reason to rest. Another reason to trust. Another reason to conquer fear. Another reason to act. Another reason to give. Another day!

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When we are born we are issued with a life sentence.

Now there are two ways that we can approach this. We can either treat our  life as if we have been imprisoned into a set path of drudgery, restricted living and repetitive doldrums, or else we can treat it like writing a book.

Yours and my book of life is made up of a whole collected group of sentences. And each of these sentences are denoted by punctuation such as commas, colons, semi-colons, the occasional exclamation mark, lots of question marks, hyphens, and the inevitable appearance of the full stop.

And it is in this treatise that I particularly want to take a look at – the full stop.

The good news is this, that just because you have reached a full stop in your life, and you’re still living and breathing, you are presented with the opportunity of simply writing the next sentence.

For a book, much like a life, is made up of paragraphs. Paragraphs include a combination of sentences. And each sentence contains a group of words. So don’t see a full stop as ‘the end’. But rather view a full stop as a ‘new beginning’.

One sentence leads to another. One phrase to another phrase. And one completed chapter can unfold a whole new exciting chapter to your life.

As sure as the seasons appear each year – so to do the seasons of life.  Learn to identify them , and learn to flow through them. At times there is a pause. At times a delay. At times a surging forward, and at times a drawing aside. But no matter what punctuates your life at this present time – know this – that you are always moving forward – for time ticks on, age adds on, and life goes on – no matter the punctuation we are currently facing.

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I have in the first month of this year attended two funerals. One for a friend who was a few years older than myself, and who had lost a five year battle with cancer, and the other for a friend’s child who died full-term in the womb of his young mother. Both were sad events, but we were all comforted by the fact that we know that both now reside in heaven.

Apart from the services that were both amazingly beautiful ceremonies, I was moved by the richness of the friendships that were evident at both, along with the communication and support that surrounded each of the events.

Friendship is so important if we’re ever to live a rich life. Without true friends – those whom we can depend on in both the good and the not so good times – we are poor indeed.

Friends provide us the support we need. They gird us and they goad us. They draw out the best and encourage us to be better. They provide the strength in our weakness and the light in our darkness.

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The world is clearly divided between those who choose to see the best, and those who see the worst.

Napoleon Hill once wrote, ‘Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.’ He was definitely an optimist.

An optimist calls a half-filled glass half full. A pessimist will declare it as half empty. An optimist sees a pile of bricks and envisages a castle, whereas a pessimist will only think of the hard work ahead. The mouth of an optimist is positive and uplifting. The tongue of a pessimist is negative and critical.

So where do you lie? On what side of the fence do you inhabit?

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