Part I - What is Success?

Life is strange.  You have choices in life that will determine your joy or pain.  You must be careful not to be deceived by appearances.  Nature holds the ultimate laws of life and the laws are relatively simple.  You must eat, you must drink, you must breath and you must sleep.  How you obey these laws will determine how you live life, but you have choices.  You can eat too much or maybe not enough.  You can eat the wrong things, drink what is not healthy for you, smoke tobacco that will injury your lungs or choose two-hours of sleep when you already know you need six or eight hours of sound sleep.

What do these laws have to do with success?  These laws influence the extent to which you live and enjoy life.  Real success is in the inner world---that world which money can’t buy.  Success is in the heart where true feelings reside.  The heart is rich when it throbs with joy.  It is rich when you have made the right decisions and you are receiving the benefits of joy and peace.  The heart is rich when it is in alignment with nature by breathing right, eating right and drinking what’s best for you and you are getting plenty of sleep.

If you can reflect for a moment on an apple tree whose design and purpose is to bring apples into this world with the help of the Creator.  The apple tree is not trying to be anything but an apple tree.  The apple tree is not competing with the peach tree or the pear tree.  The apple tree is responding to its original purpose, grow apples!

Success is about talking to a friend while listening to cool jazz or classical music.  Maybe its about just sitting quietly doing absolutely nothing.  In silence you can know what you really want—not just some quick-fix or some mundane answers to serious problems.  It’s about a more serious reflection on what you really want out of life.  One thing is for sure—it’s not worldly things that will produce the solutions—things create worry, anxiety and frustration.  Every real success is in the inner world.  It’s the inner world that money can’t buy.  What is success for you?