“When you change from wishing and whinging to setting powerful value-driven goals, you move to a more positive and productive life. Negative emotions like frustration, fear, anxiety, stress, anger and depression plague people with no direction and therefore no focus or hope. Setting goals moves us from dreams with a remote possibility and reliance on blind luck to the results and relationships we are looking for. Living life with the attitude, ‘let’s wait and see how it turns out’ is a waste of your potential and your power.”
Jinny Ditzler
Source: Jinny Ditzler, 1994, Your Best Year Yet, London: Thorsons, p.139
The one sure way to go broke is to sit around waiting for a break!
We might be products of our past but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. We do have a choice.
The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that you never know when you’re finished!
The Port of ‘Men-Who-Might-Have-Been’
Lies just off Hasbeenville.
And all the men-who-might-have-been
Are shabby, grey and still.
One missed a punch; one married wrong;
Ambition died in one.
One loved the light; the light o’ nights
That blaze behind the sun.
By Gosh! It gives a man a chill
To see them, shabby, grey and still –
So many men-who-might-have-been
In the Port of Hasbeenville.
The Port of ‘Men-Who-Might-Have-Been’
Is crowded to the doors.
And all the men-of-might-have-been
Are very dreadful bores.
Their tales are old; their tales are dry –
One trusted in a friend;
One lacked the part; one lacked the heart
To seek the rainbow’s end.
By Gosh! It gives a man the mopes
To see them sitting there like dopes –
So many men-who-might-have-been
In the Port of Busted Hopes.
The Port of ‘Men-Who-Might-Have-Been’
Is east of Used-To-Be
And all the men-who-might-of-been
Are carried passage free.
I’ve seen it pass, their boats of glass,
And drift along the years
With all the men-who-might-have-been
Past shoals of bitter sneers.
By Gosh! It makes a fellow sigh
To see the good ship, Alibi –
With all those men-who-might-have-been
And cargoes of careers!
Anon
If you continue to take in the Word of God but you don’t do anything with it; you don’t apply it and pass it along, you get spiritually overweight. Then what was designed for your health [and well-being] becomes a detriment to you. You should be exercising [what you learn] and sharing this stuff [in the lives of others]. Any athlete will tell you it’s easy to win games from an armchair. It’s something else to win on the field. Too many churches are filled with “armchair players” who see clearly what everyone else should be doing. But God has not called you to watch from the side-lines. He’s called you to get involved with the game.
Tony Evans
Tony Evans, Time To Get Serious, p.206
‘Victory’
You are the man who used to boast
That you’d achieve the uttermost,
Some day.
You merely wished a show,
To demonstrate how much you know
And prove the distance you can go…
Another year we’ve just passed through.
What new ideas came to you?
How many big things did you do?
Time… left twelve months in your care
How many times did you share
With opportunity and dare
Again where you so often missed?
We do not find you on the list of Makers Good.
Explain the fact!
Ah no, ‘twas not the chance you lacked!
As usual you failed to act.
by Herbert Kauffman
Source: How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling, Frank Bettger, 1986, New York: Simon & Schuster, Fireside Books, p.14
You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance…
Deuteronomy 1:6-7 NIV
Consider the ant you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet is stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:9-11 NIV1984 Edition
“The longer a man is inactive in resisting, the weaker each day he grows in himself, and the enemy stronger against him.”
Thomas à Kempis
Source: Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, p.37
“Laziness is a mood or a pose: It’s like a coat, you can take it off whenever you decide to. Activity breeds productivity. Get busy and you’ll get business.”
Tom Hopkins
Many a pair of shoes are worn out between the words ‘saying’ and ‘doing’.
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a crisis of morality retain their position of neutrality.”
J. F. Kennedy
“Better to wear out than rust out.”
Richard Cumberland (1631-1718), English bishop, theologian and philosopher
Rust ruins more tools than overuse.
Too much sunshine makes a desert.
Arabian proverb
Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes it.
“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by times; it is the regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”
Sydney J. Harris (syndicated columnist)
“The unfathomable sadness of the ‘might have been’! God never opens doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which need never have been shut, imaginations which need never have been sullied. Never be afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the ‘might have been’ into a wonderful culture for the future.”
Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, (2000 edition), Worcester: Oswald Chambers Publications, p.100
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
God has already recorded your departure date so whatever you plan to do, get going!
Bob Gass
“An ostrich may think it is safe by sticking its head in the sand but think for a moment how vulnerable it looks with its backside sticking up in the air!”
Roy Sheppard, author and speaker
Some people just whittle away their time, others carve out a future for themselves.
“I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British author, creator of Sherlock Holmes
