Thoughts for the Day
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
---Henry David Thoreau
"An army of deer led by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions led by a deer."
---Philip II of Macedon
"There are better things ahead than any we leave behind."
---C.S. Lewis
"Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be or not."
---Nathaniel Hawthorne
Do It Anyway
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
----------Mother Teresa----------
Benchmark News
Home Federal Bank will be opening their new, convenient, Bald Cypress branch in October. They will be moving their current Wal-Mart location off of Fairview to this new location. Benchmark Construction finished the job in record time.
Success Is Easy, But So Is Neglect
by Jim Rohn
People often ask me how I became successful in a six-year period of time while many of the people I knew did not. The answer is simple: The things I found to be easy to do, they found it easy not to do. I found it easy to set the goals that could change my life. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to read the books that could affect my thinking and ideas. They found it easy not to do. I found it easy to attend the classes and the sermons and to get around other successful people. They said it probably really wouldn't matter. If I had to sum it up, I would say what I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. Six years later, I'm a millionaire and they are all still blaming the economy, the government, and company policies, yet they neglected to do the basic, easy things.
In fact, the primary reason most people are not doing as well as they could, and should, can be summed up in a single word: neglect.
It is not the lack of money---banks are full of money. It is not the lack of opportunity---America, and much of the world, continues to offer the most unprecedented and abundant opportunities in the last six thousand years of recorded history. It is not the lack of books---libraries are full of books, and they are free! It is not the schools---the classrooms are full of good teachers. We have plenty of ministers, leaders, counselors and advisors.
Everything we would ever need to become rich and powerful and sophisticated is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply neglect.
Neglect is like an infection. Left unchecked, it will spread throughout our entire system of disciplines and eventually lead to a complete breakdown of a potentially joy-filled and prosperous human life.
Not doing the things we know we should do causes us to feel guilty, and guilt leads to an erosion of self-confidence. As our self-confidence diminishes, so does the level of our activity. And as our activity diminishes, our results inevitably decline. And as our results suffer, our attitude begins to weaken. And as our attitude begins the slow shift from positive to negative, our self-confidence diminishes even more? and on and on it goes.
So my suggestion is, when given the choice of "easy to" and "easy not to," that you do not neglect to do the simple, basic, "easy" but potentially life-changing activities and disciplines.
Jim Rohn turned 79 years young September 17th!
