“Every man is where he is by the law of his being. The thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err. This is just as true of those who feel “out of harmony” with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.” ~James Allen, As A Man Thinketh.
Written in his book, As A Man Thinketh, James Allen is saying that your circumstances, good and bad, are a result of your own thoughts. Surprised? While it may seem hard to believe and may even possibly come as a shock, it’s wonderful news. What James Allen is saying presupposes that you have more control over your tomorrows than you may have ever perhaps realized.
As we learn laws and live by them, we come to see just how much God’s hand is in everything around us. God is a god of order; this is an orderly universe. Outcomes and situations that seem sometimes so random or difficult to predict, are not so random and difficult to predict after all. If we learn the laws and live by them, we can expect our lives to take dramatic leaps forward towards greater prosperity.
The “Getting Personal” series has been renamed: “The Young and the Thoughtless”! If you missed the first “post” of this new series, read it here. I hope that my husband and I can be considered Young still, but not “without Thought” having learned the lessons we will be sharing with you!
With that, I present you with the next installment of this blog series…
But first! a summary of where we left off:
“…I had finally conceded… but to my surprise, while attending these seminars, a speaker said something that actually saved my marriage. What was shared didn’t make us rich, but it rescued our relationship. Who would have expected such an outcome from a seminar about money?”
– The Young and the Thoughtless | Episode 1 – Humble Beginnings
So, to get started with our story here today, let me say this: trip aside, our relationship was already experiencing considerable strain for several reasons.
The first, I was 5 months pregnant with our first baby, was cranky, and felt very uncomfortable. Secondly, we were still driving the old ’69 Volkswagen Beetle, travelling to the Phoenix Valley in June (with the heater stuck, ON, if you remember). Third, we had spent our only savings to make the trip and I was still trying not to feel so upset about that. Additionally, I was still grappling with some anxiety after having gone off the road a year before, when my husband had fallen asleep at the wheel. And to top it off, for all the money we’d dished out for the event, our hotel accommodations were nowhere near as agreeable as I’d otherwise expected them to be. To say the least, I was not impressed.
Trevan was frustrated with my negativity and took it personally every time I grasped the seatbelt at any sign, near or far, of traffic danger while we motored down the freeway.
When we were finally sitting in the seminar we’d driven all this way for, the negativity continued. We scrutinized everything… said by everyone. We scrutinized the music that was played. We felt it was our moral obligation to judge whether these people were people of integrity. The whole time our dispositions were very uptight, and our inclination was to be very judgmental. And, why not? The love of money was the root of all evil, after all… and we had to be on our guard that we didn’t get too caught up in materialism!
We only wanted money so that I could stay home with the baby when he was born. We wanted to get out of debt. We didn’t care about fancy cars (although if we had been honest with ourselves, we might have recognized the difference a nice car – a safe car – would have made on my attitude during the trip.)
So, what about the speaker that “saved our marriage,” like I said? Well, he, Andy Andrews, happened to be a comedian, hired to break up the seriousness of the meeting and keep us all awake. And he did his job well. He is a phenomenal entertainer, has performed at the White House, and has been lauded for his wholesome, family-friendly content. I truly remember close to nothing of that entire 3-day seminar… except for the one small quip made by this man, Andy Andrews.
I’m no comedian and can’t redeliver what he said as cleverly as he said it, but in sum, he very briefly poked fun at women’s faulty depth perception. In near perfect imitation, he seemed to be mimicking ME, and the highly distressed behavior I’d been exhibiting just a day or two before in the car.
He laughed at how someone might pull into the lane in front of another car, maybe 300 yards ahead of it, and how any woman in the passenger seat, observing the merging car, would, “*gasp*!”
In response, and white with panic, the driver would then exclaim, “What’s wrong?!!” To which the woman in the passenger seat would invariably answer, “They cut right in front of us! We almost crashed!”
At Andy’s humor and the eruptions of laughter around us, it was impossible for me to continue stewing on everything I felt was wrong with the trip. Like carbonated soda exploding from a shaken bottle, my pent-up emotions came pouring out in the form of uproarious laughter. Trevan and I could not stop laughing, and just like that, the stress and anger melted away and couldn’t stay when all space in our minds was being taken up by the glorious humor of human experience.
We came home from the conference with a lighter attitude toward our struggles, and a firm resolve to never miss another opportunity for personal growth. The facts didn’t change, our income hadn’t changed either, but our outlook had definitely been altered. And that was only the beginning!
To see how quickly we could regress, be sure to watch future posts for the next installments of “The Young and the Thoughtless.” Do the little lessons we had to learn compare with the lessons you’ve learned, have yet to learn, or are in the process of learning now? I’ve heard it said that we will be tested time and again with the same problem until we finally learn the lesson contained in it—challenges do not have to be endless!
“As the progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.” ~James Allen, As A Man Thinketh.
For the next episode of “The Young and the Thoughtless”, use the navigation links below.
- Rare Faith What we do to ourselves - April 19, 2024
- Rare Faith Waiting for the other shoe to drop - April 15, 2024
- Waiting for the other shoe to drop - April 12, 2024
