BE DETERMINED

CONSISTANCY AND DETERMINATION

When I was growing up, my best friend’s name was Brian. He was a boy genius and his mother made him study every day. I used to get mad that he couldn’t come out to play more often. Why did he have to study every day? Well, he eventually got a science scholarship at Cooper Union. That’s why he studied every day.

  The best athletes train every day. Great writers clear at least one hour a day off their schedules just to write. Inventors work for years, putting in hours each day, to invent something amazing. Just as these great examples do, we need to keep constantly in practice and strengthen our faith daily or our devotion will weaken and we won’t become what we are capable of becoming.

If you’ve ever been really determined to do something—whether it’s get rich or win a trophy or get cast in that big acting role—you know that you won’t do it with a half-hearted effort. You know that success in anything worth having takes daily commitment; otherwise the dream will ultimately wither and fade.

            We must live what we preach. We can’t find enlightenment and evolve to something better than we are with a part-time, sporadic effort. Just like the body needs exercise every day to maintain its fitness, a spirit needs to be nurtured every day in order to become a powerful soul. Going to church once a week or chanting a ritual once a month will not do the job. It takes commitment for someone to become greater than they are. If you want to walk on a higher plane, you need to climb another rung of the ladder every day; otherwise you’ll never reach the top.

The Native American Indians have a lot of rituals which they pass down to their children and encourage the next generation to keep in practice or they may find themselves only going through the motions and losing the heart of the tradition. Buddhists chant every single day, without fail. Often for hours per day. Of course, most people don’t have that must time anymore but even modern city Buddhists try to fit in a half hour of chanting each day.

            So my advice is to live it, don’t just talk it! If you want to be a better person, do something every day that makes you a better person. If helping other people makes you feel you are evolving as a person, then try to do a favor for someone every day. If you feel you need to pray or chant or do a ceremonial dance or whatever makes you feel connected to a greater universe—do it! Even if you can’t fit it in every day, do it as much as possible.

            Don’t let your soul atrophy and don’t lose what you’ve gained by being complacent. You need to feed and exercise your soul constantly if you want to become an evolved, enlightened being.