Positivity XIII

You know I've met a lot of people in my life who kept trying to convince me why they were/are so unlucky, jaded and just unsuccessful. There are others who say this and then launch into a "money is the root of all evil" talk. Of course some of us know, this is an evident misquote.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." -- King James Version, the Bible.

They say to me that they were destined to be unsuccessful forever because they lacked a lot of luck. How strange to bury yourself six feet under without death's arrival first. But that is precisely what negative people do. They kill their joy and want to rob others of theirs. Some people are vehemently against anyone who's done well and enjoys monetary riches. They adamantly find fault with these people saying they were "lucky", may "become a bad person later" or that these people were born with a silver spoon to begin with anyway. But what about the guys who have dropped their silver spoons along the way? It is also a choice isn't it? To regain them or to sulk and join the rest of the complainers.

There are also some guys who were unlucky pretty much their whole lives but that doesn't deter their goal pursuing spirits and dreams. They could have been lucky that one time you saw them succeed because they have toiled so much they know how to manage the situation when the right opportunities come. The negative people are already so busy thinking of why life is cruel and why they just cannot understand tragic accidents happen to them, they may not even realize when their golden opportunities do come.

Ingvar Kamprad wasn't born the son of some tycoon. He wasn't perfect either. In fact he had dsylexia, but he was not going to say, because he had a problem therefore it handicapped his will and spirit. He was born on a farm in Sweden and he started out selling matches to his neighbours on a bicycle. Later he realized he could sell them at a low price and still make a profit, he progressed to selling fish, christmas decorations and even ball point pens. These items were not glamourous items, he was not selling BMWS nor goldbars, nor did he create the products. He had to start somewhere because he didn't have much to begin with.

Of course that was how IKEA was born.

In March 2009, Forbes estimated his fortune at 22 billion making him the 5th richest person in the world.

Someone once said that "money cannot buy happiness" but someone else also said that "money if used well can also be made to transform lives, that is why it is also called change." (I remember Jason Chau's blog)

You can have all the luck in the world, all the riches to begin with, but if you're always going to be negative and think you don't want to settle for shattered hopes, then you already know just how much you will always have. What the others did not know was that they would have THAT much success just by dreaming, having faith and believing.

And faith. Faith is something that you cannot fathom, cannot see directly in situations when the reality can be piercing. But that is why it is a force not to be reckoned with. My faith in God these days is pretty simple. I just dismiss whatever distractions or bad thoughts of losing, of failures, or fear that come my way. Fear is usually more scary than failure. Once you fail, you know how it is. It is the scary thought, the fear of actually losing when you have abundance that intimidates. It's a psychological thing. Now if you extracted yourself out of the situation and put other things, like making a friend smile or working the garden for someone, even if those flowers weren't yours and they bloomed, you know you're smiling anyways because someone else was delighted.