I have not fully read The Alchemist, but I am familiar with it and I have read parts of it. A lot of this stuff relating to the intangibles and the invisible world really seem weird as hell, but the stuff really is true.
A person who doesn’t believe in or serve a higher power/purpose basically makes themselves their own god. It’s a sociopathic mentality. There’s a book by Robert Greene called The 48 Laws of Power, and this book should really be called Sociopaths For Dummies. It’s all about how to scheme and manipulate your way to power and success. It’s frankly a sick frickin book.
We live in the Era of the Traitor where everyone sells each other out for pleasure and power. We seem to have lost that sense of purpose and higher calling that defined the founding of America. America was not founded by sociopaths. Many of these people sacrificed all of their possessions and land to oppose the British Empire in support of higher ideals.
All the great fathers of Socialism rejected God. And as their students have infiltrated government, media, academia and so on we’ve seen a huge moral and literal decay in those areas which they control. I imagine it’s a bit harder to reject God if you’re a soldier and you face death at any moment.
I don’t believe that anything is accidental and meaningless. In fact, there isn’t a single negative thing that has ever happened to me that I couldn’t trace back to a mistake of judgment on my part – even if it wasn’t my fault. Maybe I let someone with bad character get too close, maybe I ignored an instinct. Maybe I let my emotions override my good sense.
I feel it tremendously empowering to take personal responsibility for everything that happens to me and to learn the lessons behind these things.
Most people are ignorant of the impact the invisible things have on the visible things. I believe that what fills your mind fills your life. Negative thinking quite literally attracts negative situations. You attract what you respect.
I believe that God only controls the laws that govern our world. These laws carry blessings if we abide by them, and they carry consequences if we ignore them. Without laws there would be no universe and no earth; laws give everything their structure and place and harmony. The law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, and the laws of morality, for example.
This is also why I watch what I say because words take shape once spoken, therefore, I only want to speak those things that I actually want to experience. Every word and thought is basically a prophecy of what will come. Good or bad. I don’t tolerate people who are negative. Period.
God does not arbitrarily pick winners and losers. He sets the world in order with laws and then we choose to follow them or to ignore them.
I believe that God has given every person incredible creative power to sculpt their worlds and their lives. We are not victims at the mercy of the winds of fate.
The foundation is your mindset. No matter what happens you have the power to dictate your mindset. And your mindset is a magnet attracting to it whatever it contains. Every battle is a mind battle. Doubt versus faith. Focus versus distraction.
This is why the creeping tentacles of Socialism pose such a clear and present danger, because this worldview teaches people that they are victims incapable of self-determination and that envy is the highest ideal.
The irony is that Socialists – and many of them are such without having a clue what Socialism means – believe that faith in God is crutch yet, if you ask me, being dependent on some distant intellectual elite is worse than a crutch – it is slavery. Faith in God is the most empowering mindset one can have because through your faith you realize the value and the power inherent in yourself, and you realize that you cannot fail to succeed.
Faith in God also fills you with a sense of duty, honor, and responsibility toward your fellow man. Who really cares more about the poor, someone who gives of their own resources, or someone who steals from another, embezzles some of it, pays off cronies, and then uses the rest to buy power?
If I really believed that there was no purpose in this world beyond serving myself and gratifying my every desire, I’d take a leap off a bridge. What would be the point?
There’d be none. Only a sense of a higher power and purpose can sustain a person and give their life meaning.
My favorite TV show as a kid – and probably of all time – was MacGuyver, because I loved the way this guy would just make somethin out of what *appeared* to be nothing. This is how I see life. We’re all surrounded by odd bits and ends which, upon further reflection, we can use to create something greater. But most people aren’t looking.
I believe that every man, however desperate his circumstances, has assets and talents – something – that can be harnessed for their success. I don’t believe that God leaves people without a way out, no matter how many bad mistakes they’ve made. There is always a way. Somehow.
But you’ve got to look for it. Believe in it. It starts with thinking and speaking right.
The other key is that one’s success is a function of service. God set the world up such that your success won’t just prosper you but it will benefit and enrich others at the same time. The SDTS is a great example. Great product, great potential for profit. But it’s also a great benefit to others.
Socialism is basically a worldview of envy that derives gain by looting. It is a worldview of taking instead of giving. Gimme, gimme, gimme, instead of, “how can I improve someone’s life?” As such, it is a worldview that kills innovation and technological advancement because such innovation can only be produced by people looking to solve problems for others. If you’re looking to leach off of the producers, pretty soon producing becomes a liability, and production and innovation disappears.
The demonization of the oil companies is a great example. These guys provide the fuel for the engine of society, and they’re paying about two-thirds of their profit in damn taxes. They are not villains. They provide a very necessary *service* for the rest of us hypocrites who like riding around in comfortable vehicles, instead of huffing it on our ten speeds.
People act like they are owed a job, like their boss is running the Salvation Army or something. Like it’s evil to lay off people.
If people approach life from a standpoint of *service* they won’t take things for granted, they won’t have an entitlement mentality, and they’ll be looking for how they can contribute instead of looking for what they’re not being given.
I believe that what you sow your reap. This is a universal truth. Whatever you are lacking in your life is what you are not sowing. Everything requires an investment of some kind in order to flourish.
I’ve gone on again. But I think nowadays people need to hear this.
The *only* compliments that ever mean anything to me are ones regarding my character, like being told I’m a stand-up guy. Not what nice clothes I have – even though i don’t wear fancy clothes – or whatever.
My character is a service to others and it reflects my respect for God.
In a way, faith in God is much like military service. Soldiers must honor a chain of command. So, even though I was not able to join the military, in another sense I am indeed a soldier honoring my chain of command – which includes those in authority over me on earth as well, which God expects us to respect – and answerable to a higher rank. A soldier doesn’t get to just do whatever the hell he wants if he gets tired or doesn’t feel like it at a given moment. There are clear boundaries and operating principles.
This way of thinking has *really* changed the way I live. I don’t even violate the speed limit anymore – well, most of the time, gotta watch it sometimes – because I recognize that chain of command on earth has to be obeyed so long as it isn’t immoral.
And, by the way, we’re reaching a point in America where the federal government is routinely violating it’s own constitution, bringing us to a point where, if they continue unchecked, they will have to be opposed on legitimate moral and Constitutional grounds. This election in November couldn’t be more critical for this country.
I used to be a guy who didn’t much respect any authority. I got by with this attitude because I always got results. I didn’t follow rules, and I did whatever the hell I wanted. Ironically, I always had the insane work ethic, so my mentality was “screw the rules, I’m moving from point A to point B in the most efficient way I can.” My motto was literally “I’m a magician: I show you my results, not my methods.”
My mentality is still “screw the rules,” to a degree, but I’ve learned to discipline it. That’s why the SDTS appealed to me. Martial arts are largely a bunch of mindless rules. Be suspicious of rules that complicate, rather than simplify.
Now, however, I realize that I am morally compelled to follow authority even if it’s inconvenient, and even if the guy is a bumbling bafoon. There is a chain of command, from bosses to law enforcement to the President straight on up to God. All authority figures will ultimately answer to God for how they executed their authority. And if one doesn’t respect authority, one cannot themselves be qualified to be given authority.
This is a huge change in the way I used to think. I think most people have no concept of respect for authority or a divine chain of command that also involves people. And people, being people, are not always going to be perfect and imbued with angelic wisdom.
Anyhow, all of this basically reinforces the notion of service as a way of life, and mentality. Not, how can I get over on you for my own personal gain, but how can I improve your life so that we both benefit.
Geez, I really could keep going, but I’ll allow you a bathroom break, shower, and possibly a quick meal.
Every person is a solution to a problem. Find the problem you were created to solve.
