Find a purpose and your passion will follow.  But write it down, and read it often.

I got this lesson early in my life.  I was a freshman at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, and was recruited by my friend Eddie Grogan to sell books for the Southwestern Company.  They had been in business for over 100 years and each summer hired several thousand college students.  Eddie had done well the summer before and made four times as much as I had working at a men's clothing store.  I was excited and wanted to try it for the new experience and for the additional money.  There was one small problem, though.  My dad didn't want me to do it.  Not only did he not want me to do it. . . he didn't think I could do it.

Well, that was it.  I now had a mission.  The son was going to prove the father wrong.

As summer approached, however, I began to have doubts.  Furthermore, I realized it was going to be hard work--over sixty hours a week for three months.  Maybe I didn't have the discipline or maybe I couldn't handle the rejection of selling door-to-door.

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Autumn and Lean Times

Autumn in the northern hemisphere traditionally brings the harvest.  I know that I have no active part in this harvest except for helping to consume it, but the season still is a beautiful time to remember all the blessings that the world gives to us.  Here in North America, we're treated to a wonderful mix of things including apples, pumpkins, grains, and many other edibles.  As a result of the harvest, these are the days of apple cider, pumpkin pie, hot cereals, apple pies, and other dishes too numerous to name.

In addition to providing for our nutritional needs, autumn also contributes to our aesthetic appreciation.  With the change in colors of the leaves on trees and bushes come some of the most intense and remarkable landscape scenes that we'll ever see, reminding us just how spectacular this planet of ours can be.  It also reminds us of our creativity and our love for the aesthetically pleasing, as well as helping us to keep in mind just how deeply we can feel the pleasant sense of appreciation when we do see a scene that literally takes our breath away, even if for only a few moments. 

Autumn also can rekindle our spirits by reminding us of the seasons of life and their place in our existence.  The change from spring to summer isn't very dramatic, but when we move from summer to fall, we witness a very dramatic shift in the world around us.  Trees lose their leaves, temperatures fall significantly, skies tend to be greyer for longer periods of time, and the first snowfalls come and blanket the world.  Spiritually, these reminders of the cycles of life help us to strengthen ourselves, help us to see that such times of supposed "deprivation" often serve as preparation, instead.  The loss of light and leaves isn't the earth dying, but is the earth preparing itself for the hardships of winter.  Sometimes our most despairing days may be those days of preparation that will serve us well in the times ahead.  In addition to the preparation, autumn helps us spiritually by slowing us down a bit, keeping us inside more, pointing out the beauty of reflection and focus on our inner selves in contrast to our summertime focus on all the things that are going on around us.

This tendency to stay indoors also can help our relationships a great deal.  When everyone's on the go most of the time, it can become difficult to find time to sit and talk with a friend, a parent, a sibling, or a child.  When the weather keeps us indoors, though, we find ourselves with an opportunity to be closer to the people we care about.  When we're not wondering what we're going to go out and do, we can take the chance to sit down with someone else and simply be, playing games or drinking coffee or tea or simply chatting with someone.  There's an intimacy to autumn that we don't find in the summer--or at least there's an opportunity for intimacy, if only we'll take advantage of the chances that are there.

If we allow it to do so, autumn can remind us of the beauty and importance of simplicity.  It can remind us that just because things appear to be turning bleak and dismal, the fact is that nature always takes care of herself by forcing her creatures and plants to rest when they need to rest.

These are good lessons to keep in mind during our current world financial situations.  There's no arguing with the fact that things seem to be quite dismal, and many people are suffering from a lack of the basics that they need in their lives.  Yes, it does look like a winter is coming, and the winter may be more difficult to get through than most.   But ours is a world of cycles, and if we recognize that our financial culture is going through a difficult autumn, we can plan for that by making sure that we're well set to get through the difficult times.

Instead of eating all the fruits we find, as we do in summer, we can eat some and save some.  Instead of rushing out to take advantage of new things that cost us money, as we do in summer, we can plan to spend time at home with loved ones.  We can take our cues from the farmers, who every year have dealt with the lower incomes of winter--they've taken autumn's cue and they've stocked up on everything they can so that they can make it through the difficult, lean times.

Even though autumn shows us a leaner side of the world, we still can find much beauty and promise in it.  As we watch the turmoil of the world around us today, we may not see the beauty in it, but we can take solace in knowing that this is an inevitable part of the cycles of life, and if we have faith that spring will come right after winter, then we can look forward to fall as a time that teaches us simplicity and spirituality while nurturing us with its gifts, as long as we keep ourselves open to seeing and recognizing those gifts.

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The Blind Boy

An insightful story tells of a blind boy who sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign that read: "I am blind, please help." However, people were tossing very few coins in his hat.

One man stopped, took a few coins from his pocket, and dropped them into the hat. He then picked up the boy's sign. He turned it around and wrote some words. Then, he set the sign on the walk so that everyone walking by would see the new words he had written.

Soon, people began stopping and crowding around the boy. Before long, the hat was filled with coins!

That afternoon, the man who had changed the sign returned to see how his young friend was doing. The boy recognized the man's voice and said, "You were the man who changed my sign this morning. My hat is overflowing with coins. What did you write?"

The man replied, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but I said it in a different way."

The man had written: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it."

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A passing stranger with a gift for language, shares it with a boy who needed hope. In doing so, he influences the hearts of many to give the gift of spiritual sight. We see kindness with spiritual eyes, and when we give it away, it returns to us in unexpected ways.

Gifts of simple kindness are gifts of lasting value.  They bring spiritual energy and aliveness to both giver and receiver.

It is an unbreakable law that we will receive in multiples the things we give. The law does not fail as long as the giving is unconditional. Unconditional kindnesses return from many unexpected sources.

Herman Melville observed, "We cannot live for ourselves; our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibres, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."

Focus your awareness on the goodness in your life by asking yourself these questions:

"What simple kindnesses, given or received, have brought the greatest serenity and beauty to my life?"

"If I could receive any goodness in my life from another individual today, without any limitation, what would I want?

"What simple act of kindness could I offer today to a friend, loved one, or co-worker to brighten their day?"

Take a look at Linda Riley's "Loving Ideas" listed below, and bring kindness into someone's life today. It will add a welcome spark of joy and energy that keeps on giving.


Have a fantastic day! :-)

Steve Brunkhorst

© Copyright Steve Brunkhorst. All Rights Reserved. Find many helpful resources for achievement by visiting:  http://www.achieveezine.com/

Linda Riley

Mission statements represent your belief system—the priorities, values and principles that measure your decisions. It provides overall direction and clarifies your purpose and meaning. When you clearly know what you want to be and to do in your life, you feel strong in your sense of mission. You’re no longer driven by everything that happens to you. Rather, you feel a deep and complete commitment to following your innermost values.

Dawn Angier

There is no need to be unhappy. There is no need to be sad. There is no need to be disappointed, or oppressed, or aggrieved. There is no need for illness or failure or discouragement. There is no necessity for anything but success, good health, prosperity, and an abounding interest and joy in life.

That the lives of many people are full of dreary things is unfortunately only too true; but there is no necessity for them to be there. They are there only because their victims suppose them to be inevitable, not because they are so. As long as you accept a negative condition at its own valuation, so long will you remain in bondage to it; but you have only to assert your birthright as a free man or woman and you will be free.

Success and happiness are the natural condition of humankind. It is actually easier for us to demonstrate these things than the reverse. Bad habits of thinking and acting may obscure this fact for a time, just as a wrong way of walking or sitting, or holding a pen or a musical instrument may seem to be easier than the proper way, because we have accustomed ourselves to it; but the proper way is the easier nevertheless.

Unhappiness, frustration, poverty, loneliness are really bad habits that their victims have become accustomed to bear with more or less fortitude, believing that there is no way out, whereas there is a way; and that way is simply to acquire good habits of mind instead of bad ones--habits of working with the Law instead of against it.

You should never "put up" with anything. You should never be willing to accept less than Health, Harmony, and Happiness. These things are your Divine Right as the sons and daughters of God, and it is only a bad habit, unconscious, as a rule, that causes you to be satisfied with less. In the depths of our being people always feel intuitively that there is a way out of our difficulties if only we can find it, and our natural instincts all point in the same direction.

The infant, as yet uncontaminated by the defeatist suggestions of his or her elders, simply refuses to tolerate inharmony on any terms, and therefore demonstrates over it. When the infant is hungry he or she tells the world with a confident insistence that commands attention, while many sophisticated adults go without. Does the infant find a pin sticking in some part of his or her anatomy? Not for him or her a sigh of resignation to the supposed "will of God" (it is really blasphemy to say that evil or suffering could ever be the will of God, All Good), or a whine about never having any luck, or a sigh that what cannot be cured must be endured. No, the defeatist view of life has not yet touched the babies; their instincts tell them that life and harmony are inseparable. And sure enough, that pin is located and removed even if everything else has to come to a stop until it is done.

But "shades of the prison-house begin to close about the growing boy," and by the time the child is old enough to think rationally, the Race habit will have trained the child to use reason largely in the inverted way.

Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have prosperity no matter what your present circumstances may be. You can have health and physical fitness. You can have a happy and joyous life. You can have a good home of your own. You can have congenial friends and comrades. You can have a full, free, joyous life, independent and untrammeled. You can become your own master or your own mistress. But to do this you must definitely seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly and firmly for the port that you intend to make.

What are you doing about your future? Are you content to let things just drift along as they are, hoping, like Mr. Micawber, for something to "turn up"? If you are, be assured that there is no escape in that way. Nothing ever will turn up unless you exercise your Free Will and go out and turn it up for yourself by becoming acquainted with the Laws of Life, and applying them to your own individual conditions. That is the only way. Otherwise the years will pass all too swiftly, leaving you just where you are now, if not worse off, for there is no limit to the result of thought either for good or evil.

People have dominion over all things when they know the Law of Being, and obey it. The Law gives you power to bring any condition into your life that is not harmful. The Law gives you power to overcome your own weaknesses and faults of character, no matter how often you may have failed in the past or how tenacious they may have seemed to be. The Law gives you power to attain prosperity and position without infringing the rights and opportunities of anyone else in the world. The Law gives you Freedom; freedom of soul, and body, and environment.

The law gives you Independence so that you can build your own life in your own way, in accordance with your own ideas and ideals; and plan out your future along the lines that you yourself desire. If you do not know what you really want to make you happy, then the Law will tell you what you want, and get it for you, too. And the Law rightly understood and applied will save you from the danger of what is called "outlining" with all its risks and limitations.

The Law will endow you with the gift of what is called Originality; Originality is the doing of things in a new way which is a better way, and different from anyone else's way.