A Successful Life From Following The Rules
About the only things I get in the mail anymore are bills and
ads. Every week I get a newspaper thing with lots of store circulars
inside. Most people probably deposit that package as a whole in the
recycle bin without more than a glance. I guess I'm too curious to do
that. I go through it about has fast as I'm physically able to turn the
pages, but I look.
Some months ago, this junk-newspaper thing started including a Sudoku in its content and, for several weeks, I turned the page past it without slowing down. But I gathered that solving Sudokus was very popular and I decided to see what it was about. All I knew about it was that it was the activity engaged in by many people at work when they thought no one was looking or when the boss was out of the office. Like solitaire on the computer used to be, or still is. I did some quick research on the web and found out how to play Sudoku.
I tried to solve the next Sudoku delivered to my mailbox, and I enjoyed it. I thought it would take me 20 minutes but it took two hours, and when I was almost finished I realized that I had put the wrong number in one of the squares. I realized that I could waste a lot of time trying to solve Sudokus, so I haven't made a habit of it, but every once in a while I like a little challenge and I give it a go.
Yesterday, I was thinking about a Sudoku puzzle that I had thrown on my desk, thinking I would solve it some time if I had some time to relax. The thought hit me that to enjoy the puzzle you had to follow the rules. Every column must have each integer between 1 and 9, inclusive, represented only once. Same with every row. And same with every box of 9 squares as delineated by heavier black lines. Following the rules was the very crux of the activity. I could put a seven or a three in every available box and be done with the thing in two minutes flat. But that would be worthless. I wouldn't have accomplished anything. There would be no reason to even do that. Only by following the rules was there any validity in engaging in the activity.
Then, thoughts feeding on thoughts, I realized that life is exactly like that. It's so much like that, that if we follow the rules, we can predict the outcome of our days, weeks, months, years, and complete lives. If I follow the rules in a Sudoku game, I can guarantee that I will be successful. I will have the right numbers in the right places if I stick with it long enough. If I follow the rules of life, I will be the things I should and want to be, I will have the things I should and want to have, and I will do the things I should and want to do. I will experience success.
Success is scientific, and thus it is predictable. Obviously if we do the things that lead to success, we will be successful. If we don't, we won't.
So what is success? I imagine if you asked that question of ten people, fully eight of them would mention something about money, perhaps about large houses and expensive cars, maybe about clothes and acquaintances. Perhaps about prestigious jobs. It's possible that success is any part of that or even all of it for some people, but there is always the possibility that people who look "successful" don't have any money. Maybe people with large houses and expensive cars are in debt up past their eyeballs and worry themselves sick about it. Maybe the doctor or the lawyer or the CEO of a large company hates his job and wishes he had decided to be a teacher or a mechanic. Real life: I interviewed for a job a couple years ago with a trucking firm, and the interviewer told me one of their drivers was a physician. I had a friend whose father had a master degree in education, but preferred to work on bus engines.
Which is success? A doctor who hates his job or a truck driver who loves his job? Which is success? A teacher who hates his job or a mechanic who loves his job?
Success is not a place. Success is not a destination, per se. Success is arriving at a destination worth arriving at. Success is being in or near the right place all along the way toward that worthy destination. Success is then leaving that destination and striking out for another worthy place.
Not really arriving anywhere, but rather going through the motions is not success. Going through the motions looks like getting up and going to work, spending time at work until quitting time, getting home in the evening, having dinner, watching some television or spending time on the internet, paying some attention to the kids and telling them to get their homework done, going to bed, getting up the next day and doing it all again. Just enough money is paid for this lifestyle to keep the person receiving the paycheck from quitting, and the person works just hard enough to continue receiving the paycheck at regular intervals.
Granted, those who go through the motions end up with paid-for houses after some decades. Maybe they even have paid-for cars for short times here and there. Life in the developed countries is good enough that a person can get up a pretty good life after several decades simply by going through the motions. But we've also seen in the last years that it doesn't take much to lose all your physical possessions that you went through the motions for so long to obtain, and then you can be homeless and jobless. And we see more and more that the "powers that be" feel authorized more and more, from many decades ago, to try to take more control over what our lives will be like. By being successful we can retain more control over our own lives when others want to take that control away, or at least we can more effectively counter balance it (and I am not talking about money and other things thought of as "success". I'm talking about brain power, creativity, hard work, getting better on purpose every day).
Those who go through the motions and expect to be successful are like someone thinking it would be nice to play basketball in the NBA, but not doing what it takes to learn how to play the game or be good at it. And then expecting a game to show up at his house: two teams, refs, score keepers, cheer leaders, someone with a uniform for him, etc., so that he can be included. It's as ridiculous as a Sudoku showing up in his junk mail already solved for him. It isn't going to happen, and it wouldn't be worth anything to him if it did.
So life is most worth something to us if we follow the rules, which leads us to success. The rules always include living according to principles--those things that are best in every case such as intelligence, honesty, courtesy, thrift, persistence in doing well, etc. Past that, part of following the rules is learning what the rules are for each place we should and want to be. People who have only ever gone through the motions will even have to learn where they should want to be. Those who are not successful want a book or a person to tell them the three or four things they have to know to be successful, and life is not like that. They want life to be easy, and it isn't. It isn't supposed to be. They want to be successful if it isn't too hard, but it is hard. It's so hard that we have to work to our last day on Earth trying to achieve it, and we achieve it only if we are still trying when we take our last breath. Is it worth it? Of course it's worth it. The alternative is failure. Anything that's not success has to by definition be failure.
Some months ago, this junk-newspaper thing started including a Sudoku in its content and, for several weeks, I turned the page past it without slowing down. But I gathered that solving Sudokus was very popular and I decided to see what it was about. All I knew about it was that it was the activity engaged in by many people at work when they thought no one was looking or when the boss was out of the office. Like solitaire on the computer used to be, or still is. I did some quick research on the web and found out how to play Sudoku.
I tried to solve the next Sudoku delivered to my mailbox, and I enjoyed it. I thought it would take me 20 minutes but it took two hours, and when I was almost finished I realized that I had put the wrong number in one of the squares. I realized that I could waste a lot of time trying to solve Sudokus, so I haven't made a habit of it, but every once in a while I like a little challenge and I give it a go.
Yesterday, I was thinking about a Sudoku puzzle that I had thrown on my desk, thinking I would solve it some time if I had some time to relax. The thought hit me that to enjoy the puzzle you had to follow the rules. Every column must have each integer between 1 and 9, inclusive, represented only once. Same with every row. And same with every box of 9 squares as delineated by heavier black lines. Following the rules was the very crux of the activity. I could put a seven or a three in every available box and be done with the thing in two minutes flat. But that would be worthless. I wouldn't have accomplished anything. There would be no reason to even do that. Only by following the rules was there any validity in engaging in the activity.
Then, thoughts feeding on thoughts, I realized that life is exactly like that. It's so much like that, that if we follow the rules, we can predict the outcome of our days, weeks, months, years, and complete lives. If I follow the rules in a Sudoku game, I can guarantee that I will be successful. I will have the right numbers in the right places if I stick with it long enough. If I follow the rules of life, I will be the things I should and want to be, I will have the things I should and want to have, and I will do the things I should and want to do. I will experience success.
Success is scientific, and thus it is predictable. Obviously if we do the things that lead to success, we will be successful. If we don't, we won't.
So what is success? I imagine if you asked that question of ten people, fully eight of them would mention something about money, perhaps about large houses and expensive cars, maybe about clothes and acquaintances. Perhaps about prestigious jobs. It's possible that success is any part of that or even all of it for some people, but there is always the possibility that people who look "successful" don't have any money. Maybe people with large houses and expensive cars are in debt up past their eyeballs and worry themselves sick about it. Maybe the doctor or the lawyer or the CEO of a large company hates his job and wishes he had decided to be a teacher or a mechanic. Real life: I interviewed for a job a couple years ago with a trucking firm, and the interviewer told me one of their drivers was a physician. I had a friend whose father had a master degree in education, but preferred to work on bus engines.
Which is success? A doctor who hates his job or a truck driver who loves his job? Which is success? A teacher who hates his job or a mechanic who loves his job?
Success is not a place. Success is not a destination, per se. Success is arriving at a destination worth arriving at. Success is being in or near the right place all along the way toward that worthy destination. Success is then leaving that destination and striking out for another worthy place.
Not really arriving anywhere, but rather going through the motions is not success. Going through the motions looks like getting up and going to work, spending time at work until quitting time, getting home in the evening, having dinner, watching some television or spending time on the internet, paying some attention to the kids and telling them to get their homework done, going to bed, getting up the next day and doing it all again. Just enough money is paid for this lifestyle to keep the person receiving the paycheck from quitting, and the person works just hard enough to continue receiving the paycheck at regular intervals.
Granted, those who go through the motions end up with paid-for houses after some decades. Maybe they even have paid-for cars for short times here and there. Life in the developed countries is good enough that a person can get up a pretty good life after several decades simply by going through the motions. But we've also seen in the last years that it doesn't take much to lose all your physical possessions that you went through the motions for so long to obtain, and then you can be homeless and jobless. And we see more and more that the "powers that be" feel authorized more and more, from many decades ago, to try to take more control over what our lives will be like. By being successful we can retain more control over our own lives when others want to take that control away, or at least we can more effectively counter balance it (and I am not talking about money and other things thought of as "success". I'm talking about brain power, creativity, hard work, getting better on purpose every day).
Those who go through the motions and expect to be successful are like someone thinking it would be nice to play basketball in the NBA, but not doing what it takes to learn how to play the game or be good at it. And then expecting a game to show up at his house: two teams, refs, score keepers, cheer leaders, someone with a uniform for him, etc., so that he can be included. It's as ridiculous as a Sudoku showing up in his junk mail already solved for him. It isn't going to happen, and it wouldn't be worth anything to him if it did.
So life is most worth something to us if we follow the rules, which leads us to success. The rules always include living according to principles--those things that are best in every case such as intelligence, honesty, courtesy, thrift, persistence in doing well, etc. Past that, part of following the rules is learning what the rules are for each place we should and want to be. People who have only ever gone through the motions will even have to learn where they should want to be. Those who are not successful want a book or a person to tell them the three or four things they have to know to be successful, and life is not like that. They want life to be easy, and it isn't. It isn't supposed to be. They want to be successful if it isn't too hard, but it is hard. It's so hard that we have to work to our last day on Earth trying to achieve it, and we achieve it only if we are still trying when we take our last breath. Is it worth it? Of course it's worth it. The alternative is failure. Anything that's not success has to by definition be failure.
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