The Strangest Secret by Earl
Nightingale
George Bernard Shaw said,
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t
believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people
who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find
them, they make them.”
Well, it’s pretty apparent,
isn’t it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he
was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.
Conversely, the person who
has no goal, who doesn’t know where he’s going, and whose thoughts must
therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry – his life becomes one of
frustration,fear,anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing… he
becomes nothing.
How does it work? Why do we
become what we think about? Well, I’ll tell you how it works, as far as we know.
To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.
Suppose a farmer has some
land, and it’s good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may
plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn’t care. It’s up to the
farmer to make the decision.
We’re comparing the human
mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn’t care what you plant
in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn’t care what you plant.
Now, let’s say that the
farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is
nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he
plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes,
waters and takes care of the land…and what will happen? Invariably, the land
will return what was planted.
As it’s written in the Bible,
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
Remember the land doesn’t
care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So
up come the two plants – one corn, one poison.
The human mind is far more
fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the
same way. It doesn’t care what we plant…success…or failure. A concrete,
worthwhile goal…or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But
what we plant must return to us.
You see, the human mind is
the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our
wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.
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