The Lavender Light

The Timeless Wisdom of Will Rogers

July 8, 2008 on 9:20 pm | In Inspiring Quotes | No Comments

I received this recently from Insights of the Day by Bob Proctor.  It’s a wonderful piece, please enjoy it.

Will Rogers’ Secret

A magic way to win more friendships that no one can resist; even hardened criminals can be won over this way.

“I never met a man I did not like,” said Will Rogers. Many people thought this was just another funny Rogers’ remark, but one time when I met him with Amon Carter, of Fort Worth, I asked him, “Surely you can’t like everybody?”

I knew he must meet bores, cheats, fourflushers just like the rest of us do. How can he possibly like even them?

Will was famous as a funnyman; but he was also a wise philosopher and he could be most serious when he wanted.

“Of course I don’t approve of all the things that people do,” he said, “but there is some goodness and some cussedness in all of us.”

He continued, “If you know a man well enough you can always find something good in him and you can always find something interesting about him. It is just a matter of what you are looking for!”

“But what about the narrow-minded people? What about gossips? The people who do petty, mean little things? Do you like them, too?” I persisted.

“I once read somewhere,” he said, “where someone asked Abe Lincoln that same question – why he refused to get mad at the people who abused him, ridiculed him and tried to discredit him.”

“Lincoln replied that people’s actions spring from their character and that many factors beyond their control went into making up their character – where they were born, the people they had associated with, and a lot of other things.”

“Therefore,’ said Lincoln, ‘you shouldn’t become angry with a person who blocks your path any more than you would with a tree which the wind blew across the road.’”

Will Rogers had no more reason for hating a person who happened to have been unfortunate enough to have acquired a habit of gossip than he did for hating a person who was foolish enough to neglect his teeth.

He didn’t like gossip. Few people do; and he didn’t like pettiness. He looked upon them as foolish behavior rather than evil behavior.

I am convinced that Will Rogers really did like every person he ever met.

There is an interesting thing about liking people, and that is they in turn like you. If you must start a rumor about somebody start it by saying, “I sure like that person.”

This gets back to them and they say, “Well, I always liked him, too.”

Another funny thing about gossip is that if they tell you things about others, you can just bet they will tell others things about you.

While there is always a temptation to listen to gossip, just remember while you are on the listening end this time with this gossiper, the next time you will be on the receiving end when the gossiper gets elsewhere.

Beware of the Gossip!

Avoid the company of the gossip. Don’t give them a chance to be with you, find something out about you, then carry that story into another circle.

I am convinced that this trait of his character was largely responsible for Will Rogers being the most universally liked person I have ever heard about.

Will Rogers liked everybody and everybody liked Will Rogers!

Elmer Wheeler
From How to Sell Yourself to Others

Thought and Character – Opinions

July 8, 2008 on 8:48 pm | In As A Man Thinketh by James Allen | No Comments

“Man is made or unmade by himself, in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy, strength and peace.”

Your thoughts create your reality.  It’s that simple.  Especially your opinions, the thoughts you hold onto, cherish or revere and repeat to yourself over and over again create your life before you.  Some of your ideas were conditioned into you by authority figures in your life and other thoughts are a result of our life experiences, successes and failures. Our reactions flow forth from a source, for the most part, unfamiliar to us and while most will defend them to the end, others look in the mirror as if to ask, “what was I thinking?”

A friend once told me that if I didn’t get down off my fence, straddling and stand for something that I essentially stood for nothing.  I’d agree.  When you stand for nothing, anything is possible.   When you stand for something, it can get in the way of everything.  How do you stand?

We don’t have opinions, opinions have us.

Does that mean we don’t have values? No it doesn’t.  Values are important and help guide us if properly utilized.  Values aren’t what were talking about, it’s everything else we carry around that hinders our ability to achieve.  Can some opinions be mislabeled as values?  I know I’ve done it and failed as a result.  Values seem to be basic life fundamentals and are few while opinions are distractions to life fundamentals and are many.

Sound familiar?

Your mind will work either way for you.  Toward success or toward failure, it’s your choice and two sides of the same coin.  Many don’t understand why events happen in their lives as they do.  I didn’t but now I understand it well.  With that understanding comes faith in whatever happens being for the highest good.

You don’t get that which you want, you get that which you are.  Your opinions make up who you are.  What are yours?  Do your opinions of the world around you promote your cause or defeat your cause?  You’ve got your results as the barometer, how’s it reading at the moment?  Are you all that you want to be?  Only you can know.  Be honest, assess yourself and change is possible.

That’s my opinion, what’s yours?