I don’t know what your plan is for 2012, but this is my plan.  Read it over and see if it makes sense to you.

OK, this year is going to be my first, full year of consciously being loving and forgiving to everyone I possibly can be, forgiving myself when I slip up, learning from my mistakes and doing better the next time.  I AM happy now, but I want to be successful in all of the different areas of my life, and I now know that the way to get there is by being truly helpful to others.

Being truly helpful to others means, to me, to help others become successful in all areas of their lives, too, but not by putting “the cart before the horse,”  thinking that the way to become happy is to first achieve success of one form or another.  Albert Schweitzer said, “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”  I think he was correct.

I will teach that “the key to happiness is forgiveness” of yourself …by first loving and forgiving others.  And I will benefit because I learn whatever I teach!  To be truly helpful, I must also talk to people, developing a relationship with them, thus helping them get to know, like and trust me, and to treat each person as the individual he/she is.  It is a principle, an eternal truth, that everyone must first forgive in order to be happy, to be truly happy, yet I also realize that everyone has different pasts and presents and different things and people that need to be forgiven.

It is necessary in all of my efforts to be truly helpful to not have a personal agenda, thinking about how someone can help me get what I want because of what I give them. Two reasons to not have a personal agenda come to my mind.  One, the other person will pick up on it and not want my help, and second, my own subconscious will pick up on it, too, and continue to sabotage my success.  Not having a personal agenda is  like “walking-a-tightrope” kind-of-thing to me, and I have been finding it takes practice and time to get better, to not become discouraged and give up too early.  I will continue to meditate on the “Slight Edge” philosophy of success in life.

A crucial factor, I believe, in eliminating my personal agenda is in trusting a Higher Power, The Power, the Power of Love,  whatever you want to call It, to arrange all of the things in my life to “work together for good” when I demonstrate my love to this Power by loving and forgiving all people, individually, with no exclusions.  I haven’t gotten there yet, but just by honestly attempting to do this, I have found that my subconscious mind gives me credit for my attempts and stops its sabotaging ways.

However, this is not the way I have been taught to become successful.  I have been taught to trust in my own efforts and in my own intelligence.  I have been taught that “if it’s to be, it’s up to me.”  Well, now I believe that I have a Controlling Partner in my life Who wants to help me in achieving happiness and success, not that I can sit by and do nothing, either.  It really is a partnership.

Being truly helpful isn’t about helping others accumulate more “things” that are destined not to produce happiness for them, but  helping others to realize who they really are and exactly how to get the happiness they long for by “paying it forward.”  It has been said, “We get what we give in life,” not the other way around as we may have been taught, deliberately or otherwise.

As Zig Ziglar once said, “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”  And basically, what does everyone really want? Happiness, right?  So, first, I will teach people what it takes to be happy.  Then, and only then, can I help them become successful.

Yes, people can become “successful” and not be happy, and we all probably have known such people, but why would anyone want that scenario in life?  Why not be happy AND also be successful if you have the choice?

Finally, I am not, and neither will I be, worried or concerned about my needs and desires.  I  just know and have faith that they will be taken care of by Someone Who cares for me more than I do for myself, and has promised that “all things work together for good” when I love Him and His creations, my brothers and sisters on this planet.

– Bob Turrou

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