Mastering The Art Of Success

(^) Mastering the Art of Success
No one probably demonstrates that better than Dr. Michael Le Beuf
of the University of Louisiana at New Orlean s. He tells a story about a
Cajun man who was going fishing on the bayou in his pirogue. It seems
he rowed out to a tree stump, tied off, wetted his l ine, and ate his
sa ndwich. About that time, there was a knock on the side of the boat.
When he looked down there was a snake with a frog in its mouth.
Feeling sorry for the frog, he grabbed the snake, s et the frog free, and
was feeling proud of himself. Now he started to feel sorry for the snake
whose lunch he had set free. So he looked around for a crumb of his
sa ndwich. Finding none, he gave the snake a drink of the Old Crow he
had in his back pocket. Now the frog was happy, the Cajun was happy,
and the snake was really happy. He went back to his fishing and in a
short while he heard another knock on the side of the boat. He looked
down; and there was that snake with 2 frogs in its mouth! A silly story
you may say, but the behavioral principle is identical in the human
experience.
When we listen to a news broadcast, without realizing it we are
being bombarded by negative energy. The weather forecaster says 30
percent chance of storms instead of 70 percent chance of fair weather.
Why not say 70 percent chance that the sun will shine all day? The
news story is the 20 percent of students using drugs, not the 80 percent
red-blooded a ll-American students, a thletes, and volunteers.
In the definition of the word “news” we find such modifiers as
“s trange, unusual, and unfamiliar.” I say, if news is negative and news is
the unusual and it can all be said in thirty minutes, minus twelve
minut es of commercials, then most everything e lse must be okay. Being
positive is not an attainment, but a lif estyle. It is a byproduct of he althy
self-image.
If we see ourselves as deserving a continuing bounty of good things,
th en everything affects us in a positive manner. All our actions are in
tu ne with our self-image. A man who considers himself a victim of
ci rcumstances is actually the creator of his circumstances. A pioneer in
self-image psychology, Prescott Lecky, tells us that ideas that are
inconsistent with our ego system are rejected.
Use your imagination to place yourself where you want to be and
give yourself want you want to have. Meditate and daydream with