Saturday, October 12, 2002

Take notice

When you understand how something works, that understanding enables you to exercise control over how it goes. Take notice of what’s going on with your own responses and you put yourself in a position to take full and powerful control of them.

Step back and watch objectively as you get angry, or become hungry for a snack, or are tempted to follow some course that is not in your best interest. Really take notice and you will see that there is a clear and observable separation between your response and the things to which you’re responding. There is no direct, hard-wired connection between what happens to you and what you do about it. That connection is always, at some level, under your control.

Realize that nothing automatically makes you angry, or envious, or despairing. These are simply ways that you choose to respond, and they are completely under your control. Watch carefully and you’ll see that nothing automatically makes you eat a bowl of ice cream, nothing automatically makes you say something spiteful. Even when the response has become such a habit that it seems automatic, it is, in reality, still a choice that you can control.

Observe yourself as you respond to the ups and downs of life, and you’ll see the enormous amount of control you have over the direction your life goes. The more responsible and intentional you become with that control, the more empowered you’ll be to go exactly where you want to go.

— Ralph Marston

Integrity On your way next

Copyright ©2002 Ralph S. Marston, Jr. All Rights Reserved. The Daily Motivator is provided for your personal, non-commercial use only. Other than personal sharing, please do not re-distribute without permission.