Have you ever noticed how so many people just stay in the same place, mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually year after year after year?  The sad facts are that they continue to “hold their own” in their own minds, but the truth is that they keep slipping further and further behind as each year passes.  In an all too short period of time, the financial pressures mount higher and higher.  The cost of living keeps going up, but the fixed income stream on which they depend has less and less purchasing power.   Taxes, interest and inflation just keep increasing and gobbling up their dwindling incomes.  The same amount of dollars spent last year seems to buy only about half as much goods and services this year.  Does this scenario sound familiar?  This is not a good situation….Something has got to change….but what? 

YOU!…That is what….needs to change! 

You and you alone are the secret to new and different things, events, happenings and people coming into your life and into your circle of influence and making things new and different and improved.   

Now hear this,….before anything can happen to you in your life, some one and something has to move and change and grow and become different.  You are the catalyst.  You have to become the “change agent.” 

Now change is the one thing that so very few people want to have happen in their life.  Why?  Well, because change is going to require a person to put forth more effort than they want to put forth.  Change is going to stretch a person or two out of their comfort zones.  Change is going to cause or force someone or even many people to grow and improve their mental and physical capacities.  Change may produce some discomfort or, heaven forbid, some pain or even a great deal of pain.  It really makes no difference what comes before, during, or after any significant change, if change is needed then change most definitely should happen! 

No matter the condition or circumstance of anyone who truly wants and needs to change something in their lives in order to improve their position in life,…. first another person place or thing must be presented to them and made available for them to use in order to effect the desired change.  Because of this stated fact, the negative or lazy or cynic type person might argue, “Do you realize how offensive it would be to tell or offer people in lack or even in great lack that they could, in fact, have a better life?” 

My personal response to such a question is…..of course I realize it is possible to offend them in such a condition,…. but I should think that it would even offend them more if I had an ability to help change their life and improve their position and cared so little about them that I withheld my possessed information.  Our God-given directive is to love and serve other people all to the Glory of God.  I either believe or I don’t believe that statement of Truth.  If I truly believe in what I do with the knowledge and abilities God has gifted to me, then I had better be using those gifts to love and serve other people…..otherwise, I am a hypocrite!  And that,….I do not want to be! 

It is my belief that those less fortunate people who live in lack or great lack in our society have settled into that position primarily due to wrong thinking.  Their incorrect thinking has as its basis, destructive beliefs.  Such detrimental beliefs are what actually restricts them in a static position at a level of life that is not really what they want.  They have accepted and quite possibly have become comfortable believing a lie.  They settled for what they have instead of having more,…of having what they want.  They accepted their plight because they didn’t know that other and greater benefits were available to them.  Settling for less than could be available is a coping mechanism that frees people from the conscious stress, strain or anxiety of accepting their existing condition or situation. 

Once people have accepted their situation,…once they have settled into their existing condition or position, then they have to defend their position to keep from resurrecting the conscious awareness of stress.  People are offended when faced with the truth that challenges what they had accepted.  But here is Good News for you and for them….THE TRUTH THAT HAS THE MOST POTENTIAL TO SET US FREE ALSO HAS THE MOST POTENTIAL TO OFFEND! 

The late great Doctor Albert Einstein declared, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” 

The actual truth is that the type and kind of thinking that you used to get yourself into the problem that you presently have,……cannot be used to establish a solution that will ever get you out of that very same problem.  If nothing changes between your ears, then nothing will ever change before your eyes. 

Everything that occurs in your life is first preceded with some kind of a thought. 

OK, think first now.  People think the way they do because they believe that their thinking is right,…is correct,…is accurate.  Being challenged with the possibility that they could change the very circumstances they have accepted, initiates the defense mechanism to protect their ego by proving they and their thinking are right!  It then becomes more important for them to justify circumstances than to discover solutions when ego is the driving motivation.   They just can’t seem to admit that there could be a remote possibility that they could be wrong.  That is when the offense occurs. 

Just remember, regardless of the reasoning employed or the excuse used,…THE TRUTH THAT OFFENDS ONE MAY BE THE VERY SAME TRUTH THAT  SETS THOUSANDS FREE. 

As I said before, Success is Relative.  What is big money, great position, and of major importance,… to one person,… may be minor money, mediocre position and total insignificance to someone else.   Every person’s personal definition of Success is relative to where they started. 

There is, however, one common denominator that exists in every case of all people who start on their journey to success and who complete it, i.e. actually achieve their dreams and goals.  That “common ground” of all successful people is that it is never the external sources that determine our ceiling for success; it is always how we have been programmed, and what we have been led to believe by the influences around us.

Whether you are flat broke and penniless, moderately successful or multiplying your millions of dollars, God’s Laws of Success equally apply to you.  All of this discussion and the information and tools it contains, will work for you just as it has for all of the others who have gone before you down through the ages of time. 

You will use the same tools and ideas discussed no matter who you are, what your situation, what your race, color, or creed, and no matter where you are in life..  God is simply no respecter of persons.  

Permit me to inform you that I am well aware that as you read and reread this article, as you think about what is being discussed, and as you attempt to apply these points of information to your own personal situation, you will discover yourself being tempted to defend the very thinking that is currently holding you hostage to your current level of success or condition of lack. 

The fact is that you cannot be both Receptive and Defensive simultaneously.  One condition always precludes the other.  I fully understand that you do not have to accept everything I am saying at face value, but you do have to be willing to study, think, ponder, and consider the possibility of the things of which I speak. 

BUT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, YOU HAVE TO START ANY SEARCH WITH THE WILLINGNESS TO FIND THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT HAVE.   

You have to attempt to open any door with a commitment to walk through it.   

You have to be willing to give up what you presently have, in order to find something better! 

Never forget,…. 

The level to which you feel defensive and threatened is in exact and direct proportion to the degree your life will change and improve by you accepting these truths and putting them into use in your life! 

Peace and love to you all….Poppa Bear