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Good Afternoon. Here is a great thought for the day:

Think of a ship leaving a harbor. And think of it with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take — it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there.

Now let's take another ship — just like the first — only let's not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let's give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you'll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach — a derelict. It can't go anyplace, because it has no destination and no guidance.

It's the same with a human being.

Here's the key to success and the key to failure: we arrive at the destination we've mapped. We become what we think about. Now, let me repeat that: We become what we think about.

Throughout all history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It is only on this point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement.

Consider what Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, said:
"A man's life is what his thoughts make of it."

Benjamin Disraeli said this:
"Everything comes if a man will wait. A human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment."

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this:
"A man is what he thinks about all day long."

William James said:
"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."

And he also said:
"We need only act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief."

He also said:
"If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly."

In the Bible, you'll read in Mark 9:23:
"If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way:
"This is one of the greatest laws in the universe, fervently do I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned upon me much later in life, and I found it to be one of my greatest — if not my greatest — discovery, outside of my relationship to God . . . The great law briefly and simply stated is that if you think in negative terms, you will get negative results." "That is the simple fact," he went on to say, "which is the basis of an astonishing law of prosperity and success. In three words: Believe and Succeed."

William Shakespeare put it in this way:
"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

George Bernard Shaw said:
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Now, it stands to reason that a person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that's what he's thinking about. And we become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry — his life becomes one of frustration, anxiety, fear, and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing.

Why do we become what we think about?

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

Remember, the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants — one corn, one poison. The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant... success... or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal... or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety, and so on. But what we plant it must return to us. You see, the human mind is the last great, unexplored continent on Earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.

So decide now. What is it you want? Plant your goal in your mind. It's the most important decision you'll ever make in your entire life.

Have a wonderful day.

"Each morning is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When the sun rises tomorrow this day will be gone forever, in its place will be something you have left — may it be something good. Follow your heart, it knows what to do."

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