“Place the front door where the back door is now!”
“Make your bedroom the kitchen.”
“Place your kitchen platform here on the right.”
“Close this window or put a mirror on the opposite wall.”
I watched the man holding the compass giving instructions to those who had just bought a flat.
“Will there be prosperity in this house?”
“Prosperity if the door is placed a little to the right.”
“Troubles?”
“No troubles if you close that window permanently.”
“Success?”
“Plenty if you do not follow my instructions fully!”
I went back to my own house and held my dog’s ear.
“What are you doing?” asked my dog.
“Getting rid of my troubles,” I said.
“By holding my ear?”
“My friend John told me it would happen. He said if I held your ear every morning it would give me luck!” I said laughing and my dog laughed with me. I watched from the window as the man with the compass got into a rickshaw and left.
Says Maltrie Babcock: ‘One of the commonest mistakes and one of the costliest is thinking that success is due to some magic or something or other we do not possess.’ Success is generally due to holding on, and failure to letting go. You ‘decide’ to learn a language, study music, take a course of reading, train yourself physically.
Will it be success or failure?
It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word ‘decide’ contains. The decision that nothing can overrule, the grip which nothing can detach will bring success. Remember the Chinese proverb, “with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes satin.”
The world has a way of giving what is demanded of it. If you are frightened and look for failure and poverty you will get them, no matter how hard you may try to succeed. Lack of faith in yourself, in what life will do for you, cuts you off from the good things of the world.
Expect victory and you make victory. No window moved or wall built up will ever make a victor of you. No amount of holding my dog’s ear either.
So very often during my business days I would watch a carpenter or small contractor, losing an order because of coming late, and when informed that he had not got it because of his inefficiency would look up and say it was his ‘bad luck day!’
“Sorry!” I would tell him, “It’s just because you did not put in effort to get the order!”
What about you and me? Let’s not blame bad luck or fate for no business during this lockdown period. Blame yourself for not seizing new opportunities that many others grabbed!”
Remember Bezos increased his billions, while others lost theirs..!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
