As A Man Thinketh
Living on Purpose, to me, means that one understands that he can choose his own reactions to any situation. To do this, a person must introspect and find out the nature of his thoughts. There is a classic book by James Lane Allen, As a Man Thinketh, which builds off the following maxim, “As a man thinketh, in his heart so is he.” The book aptly demonstrates how a person’s thoughts determine his actions, and therefore his character.
Section four, Thought and Purpose, begins like this:
“Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment… They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pityings...”
Mr. Allen explains that even the material goals we set for ourselves are just fine to strive for, if only to give us a purpose. He calls devoting oneself to attaining a purpose a “royal road to self control” because in focusing on attaining a goal, one must put away fanciful diversions of thought, and even if one fails in achieving it, one has gained a strength of character.
If you have trouble with aimlessness in your life, take heart. Mr. Allen says, “The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth that strength can only be developed by effort and practice, will, thus believing, at once begin to exert itself, and, adding effort to effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to develop, and will at last grow divinely strong.”
“As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.”
What an exquisite metaphor for living on purpose! Thoughts must indeed be cultivated in order to shape a noble character. We must understand that we don’t have to own every thought that crosses our minds. We can examine them and put the negative thoughts down, as if we would put down an earthworm we picked up. That examination of thought is called developing the watcher, and it is made easier with the Holosync brain entrainment program.
Just as I would encourage everyone to develop the watcher and cultivate their thoughts for proper growth, I would also encourage everyone to try the Holosync program because it eases the job of self improvement, even if you are not naturally introspective.
If you have a high speed internet connection, you can download a free audio version of As a Man Thinketh at Learnoutloud.com (about 60MB and about an hour long). Then you can burn it to CD and listen during your commute to work, or while excercising, or cooking. While you're at Learn Out Loud, go ahead and check out all the other great free titles they have to offer.
I think this book should be the core of every self improvement library. Get it and mark it up with your highlighter!
