Natural Laws

“There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle.”
– Ralph Waldo Trine

“Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.”
– Miguel de Cervantes

In everything you do or want to do in life, you are always governed by law and not by chance. Natural laws are principles or explanations of why things are the way they are. Principles defined by Webster are “fundamental laws or facts of nature.” Out of the many you have read or will read about in this book, there is one, however, that is the foundational principle to all success.

It’s the Law of Cause and Effect, the Socratic Law of Causality enunciated by Socrates in 410 BCE. It is the one I want you to focus on most. It says that every event has a root cause as well as every event is also a cause set in motion, and so on. Everything happens for a reason. Everything is a matter of choice, and how you turn chance into choice depends on how well you recognize this law.

True success is not reaching a worthy ideal but in living it. It is to evolve. It is to become and not to have. As one sage put it, “Success is measured by who we are and not what we have.” Success is a label you put on a person who has achieved something that in your eyes is of significant value.

For instance, should you consider a person who meets a certain criteria to be successful? If so, all you are doing is looking at the end-result, one based on your perception of success. Do you know, for instance, if that person is living his worthy ideal? Do you know if that person is happy? Or should you, when you look at others who do not seem to lead affluent lifestyles, consider them failures?

The answer to all of these questions is no. You are only labeling them and doing so by merely scratching the surface. Literally.

Remember that the path to true success is an inward one. We will never be successful when feel that we have to measure it against something outside of ourselves, including and more importantly the perceptions of others.

In fact, many have achieved success but are often not considered successful. This is why I consider success and achievement as two separate entities. All successful people are achievers but not all achievers are considered successful. One is measured by its end-result while the other by its process.

Let me illustrate. One person has reached an annual income of $120,000 while another has reached only $25,000. Which one do you think is the more successful person? Most of you will have a tendency to say the $120,000 income earner is more successful because you are comparing end-results (or goals). You are not considering the process.

However, let’s say that the $25,000 earner went through a bankruptcy, suffered an illness, or had a series of accidents. Who’s more successful now? Not convinced yet? How about if I added that the latter also has greater peace of mind, feels a deeper sense of joy, loves his work, and finds a profound feeling of satisfaction with only $25,000. In other words, his $25,000 means more to him than $120,000 means to the other.

Now, who is the more successful person? You see, the $25,000 means more to the latter. The taste of success is sweeter to him. The value behind the achievement is greater. And that’s the key.

Essentially, success is not and should never be measured by the end-result or by how others feel about it, because the level of one’s success is deeply personal and based on how one feels in achieving it. It comes from neither the size of the goal nor its value to others. Ultimately, the level of your success is measured by how you personally value its achievement. Period.

“Mike,” some interviewer once asked me, “if you had to live your life over, what would you have changed?” I responded that I wouldn’t change anything. If I had to choose my parents or the way I wanted to live, I wouldn’t be where I am if I did, and I would certainly have to experience what I did in order to think that way in the first place.

Some of you may categorize that as having a positive attitude, but a positive mental attitude is more than simply being optimistic. It is based on the understanding and the application of natural laws. Stephen Covey illustrates this point extremely well. He says, “Some may be lost in their lives. If they have a positive mental attitude, they may be able to carry that loss. But they are still lost.”

In essence, positive thinking is the result of alignment and not the other way around. If you accept your setbacks as things that have happened to you for a reason and use them as propelling forces to reach that which you seek, you will become much more effective and, of course, successful.