Think and Grow Rich test: Do you think more about success or failure?

September 29, 2009 by JD · 5 Comments
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 9. Do you devote more time to thinking about success or failure?

As with some of the previous questions I’ve answered in this series, my normal thoughts are different from what I’ve been doing lately. That’s one of the reasons I’m going through these questions and posting them online, instead of writing them in a notebook as I normally do.

For the last year, much of the time, I’ve been in a failure-focused mindset. It’s not something I have a lot of experience with and it’s made some tough times even tougher.

Normally, I have a “can do!” attitude and I’m focused on finding successful solutions to problems and to successfully achieving the goals I adopt for myself.

I’ve done many things over the years that others said would be impossible, and usually it wasn’t all that difficult. Yes, it took work, but more importantly, it took preparation and a plan.

When I set an important goal, I like to tell those around me. It releases it from my private little domain and shares it with the universe.

Some will look forward to my success and others to my failure. I’ve had experience with both.

When I decide that I want to do something, that’s one thing.

When I decide that I intend to do something, that’s a horse of a different color!

By setting an intention, I’ve focused on a goal and the next step is to come up with an analysis of what it will take to get from where I am to where I want to be when the goal is accomplished.

I try to identify the obstacles in my way, new things I’ll need to learn, ways in which I will have to change, other people who can provide advice and support, and all the other factors involved in seeing the overall view of what I intend to do.

Then, it’s a matter of identifying milestones and devising a plan to get to each of them.

This is a lot simpler than planning to build a skyscraper, for example, but I can still use some of the same techniques and tools, although my plans will be much less complex.

While I’m devising these plans and working to reach each milestone, I’m focused on successfully achieving the goal I set for myself.

There are times when I have to think about failure, because not all goals can be achieved. Sometimes we do fail, despite our best efforts. Sometimes we come to a place where we have to question whether the goal is still worth pursuing and/or whether we have the necessary skills and resources to bring it to fruition.

Failure is not all bad, however.

When we realize that there are some things we are not going to do, no matter how seriously we previously intended to accomplish them, it can be a very freeing experience to simply acknowledge that we failed and that we no longer intend to reach that goal.

That frees us up to reevaluate where we are and where we want to go.

Opportunities for success are all around us. We just have to pick the ones we really want and find a way to get them.

Some are easy, others are very difficult.

If we focus on failure, that makes even the easy tasks much more difficult.

If we focus on success, sometimes we find easy ways to accomplish things that initially appeared to be difficult.

Our mindset and how we approach a project have a lot to do with whether we will succeed or fail.

I prefer to focus on success.

What about you?

Do you devote more time to thinking about success or failure?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Do you envy successful people?

September 28, 2009 by JD · 5 Comments
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 8. Do you envy people who are more successful?

When I was younger, I think I did envy people who were more successful than I was.

Over the years, however, those feelings have disappeared.

I haven’t been a great success, but I’ve been able to do (mostly) what I have wanted to do for the last 20 years and I’ve done it on my own terms. While I haven’t accumulated lots of money, I’ve been able to decide what I want to do and then do it.

When I think of really successful people these days, I don’t envy them. I don’t even want to be like them.

I don’t try to model myself on anyone else.

I do like to learn about successful people and to be around them. I enjoy reading what they have to say and especially enjoy learning how (they think) they achieved the success they have.

I have learned, however, that I can’t just copy what someone else has done and expect to achieve the same success they have.

I think that’s one of the reasons that so many people who try to find success don’t find it, because they’re trying to do what someone else has done, instead of striking out on their own and following their own path.

It’s interesting to study the systems, procedures, and approaches successful people have used to build their empires, but that was what worked for them, with their particular personalities, skill sets, and abilities. It probably won’t work for anyone else who tries to emulate it.

At least, that’s what I think.

On the other hand, I believe it can be very effective to learn from successful people and to analyze what skills they had to acquire, what changes they had to make in themselves, and what kinds of people they had to associate with in order to find the success they were looking for.

Then, maybe I can identify some of the things I need to learn and to do when I adapt them to my particular path and goals.

Do I envy successful people? Not anymore.

Do I try to learn from them? Yes, I do.

Do I try to copy them? Never.

What about you?

Do you envy people who are more successful?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-09-28

September 27, 2009 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Twitter

@patinkc Good morning, Pat. Are you still active with SendOutCards? I need your URL for an article I’m writing. I want to recommend you. #
Recommended reading: Screw Community – http://menwithpens.ca/screw-community #
@barbaraling Good morning, Barbara. I’m getting a good start on the day. Have fun with the mooses! #

Tags: tweets, Twitter

Think and Grow Rich test: Do you often feel self-pity?

September 27, 2009 by JD · 7 Comments
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 7. Do you often feel self-pity? If so, why?

Fortunately, except for very rare occasions, I don’t feel self-pity.

As a teenager, I remember the feeling now and then.

Most of my life, however, this has not been a problem.

Interestingly enough, however, this is something I’ve been fighting the last few months. In fact, there have been times that I have relished wallowing in self-pity, self-doubt, and being ready to give up.

I’m not going to go into all the things I’ve had to deal with over the last year, but it has been hard.

I recognize that I’m much better off than many people. I have no debt, didn’t lose a great job, have a place to live, didn’t lose my life’s savings, or encounter any other major disasters.

So, even on the days when I was feeling my worst, I was able to look at it objectively and realize that I wasn’t as bad off as I wanted to feel like.

Why am I feeling like this?

Originally, I thought that it was mainly as a result of the decline in the world economy and how it has affected my business, followed a few months later by Mom’s death and having to deal with the emotions and trying to settle her estate.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had trouble paying bills on time and a lack of income coupled with a rise in expenses has been difficult to deal with.

After caring for Mom full-time for over six years, her death was a hard blow. I’m still not over it and I still miss her a lot.

I’ve had a couple of health-related problems this year that have been difficult to overcome, but I’m making progress.

But, lately I’ve been trying to come to grips with all of this and the negative feelings that have been bothering me.

I’ve done more than my share of wallowing in self-pity and it’s time to turn my life around and get back on track.

So, as part of this process, I’ve been trying to understand why I have had such a difficult time dealing with things over the last year.

A few days ago, I had a flash of insight that I think may be closer to the truth than blaming things on the economy, Mom’s death, or my health problems.

I was doing fine until last July, and things declined rapidly after that.

I think I know why, now.

Mom’s health declined rapidly over a period of a couple of weeks last summer and we had to make the difficult decision of hospitalizing her for a few days. Then, after much discussion and trying to come up with alternatives, our family had to decide that she could no longer live at home and needed the skilled care that was only available to her in a nursing home.

We had faced this issue over six years ago following her cancer surgery, but I knew Mom never wanted to go into a nursing home. Her father and step-mother had endured terrible times during the last years of their life and I had promised her years ago that I would never do that to her.

So, I brought her home in 2002 and became her full-time, and only, caretaker. I was determined to care for her for the rest of her life and to help her live in her own home on her on terms.

It was devastating when I realized and had to accept that I was going to break that promise.

Mom was never again the same after moving into the nursing home.

The staff at the nursing home are not to blame for it. In almost all cases, they were helpful, cheerful, and did their best to care for her. I appreciate all they did during this difficult time in her life.

Still, Mom reacted very badly to the move. It was like watching a balloon slowly deflate.

She had always been talkative, inquisitive, friendly, and loved reading and watching TV.

Once she realized she couldn’t come home, she lost her appetite, stopped reading, didn’t watch TV, would barely carry on a conversation, and didn’t even seem to be very interested in the hummingbirds outside her room.

It was like she decided to die. In a few months, she did.

Breaking my promise to her and watching her slowly die just about did me in.

I’ve still not come to terms with being unable to care for her at home and that was exacerbated by not being able to be with her when she died.

I was sick with a fever, chills, and was throwing up when her doctor called and told me he didn’t think she would live much longer. There was no way they were going to let me into the nursing home while I was that sick.

Fortunately, my ex-wife and daughter were able to be with her during her final hours and I find some consolation in that. I’ll be eternally grateful to both of them for caring for her during her passing.

Still, I feel that I betrayed and abandoned her. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get past this one.

Intellectually, I recognize that I did all I could and that moving her to the nursing home was better for her, but emotionally I just don’t feel it.

I think that is what put me on the downslope to self-pity and it has been very difficult to pull myself out of it.

Fortunately, I have a supportive family and friends who care. That has helped a lot, even more than I can express.

I’ll get through this and get back on track, but it has been much more difficult than I ever expected or even realized.

One surprising thing I learned during all this, however, is that there is a measure of enjoyment and even empowerment related to self-pity. I think this is one reason it is so hard to overcome.

It’s a perverse feeling because I could see myself wallowing in self-pity and feeling that I was justified, even though I didn’t understand why. The world had turned against me and there was nothing I could do. No matter how hard I tried, I was going from one crisis to another, week after week, and I’m still not out of it.

Fortunately, over time, I’m feeling the self-pity less and less and I’m able to recognize it when I approach it, so I’m getting better.

I can’t even imagine how much worse it would have been if my family and friends had not been supportive or if there were others who depended upon me during this time, because I would not have been able to help them.

I’ve made major adjustments in my finances, am taking my marketing business in a new direction, and I’m feeling stronger. So, things are improving and I don’t feel the attraction of relapsing.

Life is feeling better and I’m starting to regain my self-confidence and optimism. It’s just a matter of time and effort before the other things get better, too.

I’m starting to look forward to paying my bills early rather than late and I’m feeling like I have more to offer my friends and family.

I’m not there yet, but I’m back on the path to getting there.

What about you?

Do you often feel self-pity? If so, why?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Does life seem futile and hopeless?

September 27, 2009 by JD · 1 Comment
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 6. Does life seem futile and hopeless to you?

I’ll have to admit to feeling this way now and then, but not very often. There may have been a half-dozen times over the last 30 years that I felt this way. In most cases, it was a feeling I was able to overcome in a few days or a couple of weeks, at most.

In almost all cases, this was preceded by dramatic, life-changing events, some of which hit me out of the blue with little warning. Some of these events were breaking up with one of the loves of my life, divorce, bankruptcy, and an unexpected downturn in my business.

Only once, that I can remember, did this feeling of despair and hopelessness overtake me for no specific reason that I could identify.

Even when things are going poorly, I still try my best to remain positive, hopeful, and optimistic.

There are times when I struggle with this, however, but still don’t descend into the depths of depression.

I can’t take all the credit, however. I was fortunate to be born into a loving family, have had great friends, have been able to do what I want most of the time, and live in a country that is blessed with peace and good fortune.

I’m not sure how well I would cope if I had lived under different circumstances. If I lived in a place torn asunder by war, famine, poverty, disease, and all the other ills I could name, it would have been much, much more difficult to have my current outlook on life.

I admire, greatly, people who have gone through those adverse conditions and still were able to rise to great heights.

What about you?

Does life seem futile and hopeless to you?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Do you deliberately avoid anyone?

September 27, 2009 by JD · 5 Comments
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 5. Do you deliberately avoid anyone? Why?

This is another easy-to-answer question for me.

In general, I do not deliberately avoid anyone.

There are two specific and several general exceptions, however.

I won’t name any names, but there are two specific individuals I will go out of my way to avoid because their actions in the past have been so disruptive in my life. Fortunately, this is easy to do.

In general, I will avoid people who are:

actively unhappy most of the time,
gossipers,
cynics,
dishonest,
quick to settle their differences with violence,
hard to get along with,
disruptive,
unlikely to follow through with their commitments,
not positive influences on me and others.

Rather than spending my time avoiding the types of people mentioned above, I think it is more accurate to say that I try to associate more with positive people.

I gravitate to people who are:

supportive,
helpful,
knowledgeable,
honest,
reliable,
trustworthy,
interesting,
intelligent,
hard-working,
open-minded,
peaceful,
and possess other similar traits.

Neither the list of negative nor positive attributes are intended to be all-inclusive. They are just general examples of what I’m talking about.

Of course, none of us is perfect. We all possess a mix of positive and negative attributes, but I prefer associating with those who are mostly well towards the positive side of the scale.

What about you?

Do you deliberately avoid anyone? Why?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Are you sarcastic and obnoxious?

September 26, 2009 by JD · 1 Comment
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 4. Are you sarcastic and obnoxious?

Finally, an easy question to answer.

No, I am not.

At one time in my life, when I was much younger, I had a rather sarcastic sense of humor, but I think that mostly was to disguise the insecurities I was feeling as I was learning to make my way in the vast wide world.

Over time, I found that I enjoyed encouraging people and helping them to improve much more than the slight enjoyment I got from criticizing and tearing them down.

I never made a conscious decision to quit being sarcastic, I don’t think, but one day I noticed that it wasn’t part of my activities and hadn’t been for some time.

I don’t think I’ve ever been obnoxious, but for a truthful answer to that, I guess you’d have to talk to people that know me. I hope I never was.

What about you?

Are you sarcastic and obnoxious?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Do you make mistakes?

September 26, 2009 by JD · 1 Comment
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 3. Do you often make mistakes in your work?

I think this is a difficult question to answer.

Do I make careless mistakes?

No.

Do I continue to make the same mistakes over and over?

No.

Do I make mistakes in my work?

Yes, I do.

When I make a mistake, I try to analyze it, learn from it, and move forward. Sometimes it’s harder to learn a necessary lesson than it is other times.

For example, over the last few years, I’ve created a lot of blogs on a lot of different platforms. I’ve tried Blogger, WordPress, Manilla, Mambo, PHP-Nuke, and quite a few others.

I wanted to learn all I could about the pros and cons of the different platforms. While I did that, I think it was mostly a waste of my time and effort.

I would have been much better off concentrating on two or three blogs and building them over the years.

Still, I learned some valuable lessons and won’t make this mistake again.

So, I think it’s fair to say that I rarely make careless mistakes, but I sometimes make strategic or tactical mistakes.

Isn’t that a necessary part of learning and growing?

Are you failing your way to success?

I’ve heard (or read) many successful people say that they failed their way to success. I think this generally means that they tried many different things to accomplish what they wanted to achieve and most of them failed.

However, by continuing to try new techniques, methods, and approaches to the problem, eventually they found something that worked well for them.

Thomas Edison is the most famous example, in that he failed to make a light bulb about 10,000 times before he succeeded.

However, if you read the background on this story, it’s not totally true. In fact, he found many ways to make a light bulb successfully. Some worked better than others, but he considered one of them a success because it combined energy efficiency, bright light, long life, and the ability to be mass produced.

(I’m writing this from memory. I should probably take a moment to check to see if I’m correct.)

Ok, that was interesting. I just went and did some reading and my memory seems to be pretty much on the mark.

The one thing I left out was that Edison also had a commercially-viable way to generate and distribute electric power that would make his light bulb work. That makes it a real distinction from other light bulbs that worked well in the laboratory, but would never have sufficed for paying customers in the real world.

I was also reminded that Edison was a proponent of direct current electricity, and because of the short distribution length (a little over a mile) it was only commercially viable in central business districts of cities.

So, truthfully, he succeeded several times along the way, before finding the right combination of factors that he considered to be successful.

Therefore, I believe that part of the process of educating ourselves and finding ways to achieve our goals almost always entails making mistakes in our work.

The real importance of the process is being able to identify your mistakes, learn from them, and not repeat them in the future.

Is it wrong to make mistakes in your work?

I would hope that we do more things right than wrong, especially when we have some experience in what we’re doing.

But, I believe that making mistakes is an intrinsic part of accomplishing new things.

Overall, I try not to make more mistakes than are necessary, but that’s a nebulous criterion.

What about you?

Do you make mistakes in your work? Do you think they are necessary or avoidable?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Do you find fault with others?

September 24, 2009 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 2. Do you find fault with other people easily?

On the surface, this is an easy question and I feel comfortable saying that the answer is “no.”

I do my best to look for the best in others and to encourage them to do even better.

Below the surface, however, is a mixed bag of answers.

Disillusioned as a young adult

I grew up as an idealist in an idealistic family. I really believed the things I believed, with no questions.

However, as I grew into adulthood, things got much more complex and the simple ideals and ideas no longer sufficed.

I was born in 1952 and became an “adult” in 1970. The 60s and 70s were rough on lots of people and very rough on me.

I learned that Presidents lie, police aren’t always our protectors, religions aren’t simple, and that most people “look out for number one.”

I was disturbed by all the fights related to civil rights and could not understand why we weren’t already equal, even though I grew up in the deep south with segregated water coolers and all the other signs of intolerance and hatred.

Fortunately, I never learned those things from my family.

I still get tears in my eyes when I think of the students who were killed at Kent State.

I learned lots of other things that I won’t go into here, but they shaped my outlook on life to a great extent.

Questioned everything

I didn’t just question authority, I questioned reality.

I delved deeply into religion, metaphysics, philosophy, science, and many other subjects over a twenty-year period and found many more questions than answers.

As a result, I learned not to take much of anything at face value.

The benefit of the doubt

When I met new people, I would almost always give them the benefit of the doubt. I believed I could trust them unless they proved otherwise.

Sometimes this is a good thing to do, other times it really isn’t.

I learned to be more perceptive and to trust my gut instincts more. I learned to get closer to trustworthy people and avoid the others.

This was a hard lesson for me to learn. Maybe it was easier for you. Maybe it was harder.

So, I look for the best in people unless they show me they can’t be trusted.

What does “find fault” mean?

Does it mean that we recognize others’ failures and short-comings and learn to deal with them?

Or does it mean that we go out of our way to be nit-picky and to find faults even where they may not exist?

I know people who are always gossiping about others and will tell very different stories to their face as opposed to when they are talking behind their backs.

That’s what I think of when I hear “find fault.”

For some people, it’s practically a hobby. They love finding faults in everyone they know and they’re happy to tell you all about them.

I avoid these people like the plague. I’m certainly not one of them.

Do I find fault with other people easily?

Overall, the answer is a definite “no.”

Still there are times when I don’t do as well as I would like with this.

I still think there is a difference between actively finding fault and being realistic in our appraisals of others.

Do you find fault with other people easily?

So, what do you think?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich test: Do you complain about feeling bad?

September 24, 2009 by JD · 5 Comments
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 1. Do you often complain about “feeling bad?” If so, why?

In all the years that I’ve been taking this test, I’ve almost always answered “no” to this question.

I’ve been blessed with a life of good health, strength, very few doctors visits, and almost no hospital visits.

However, if I’m going to be truthful – and there is no reason to do this if I’m not – then I have to change my answer to “yes” this time.

When I was younger, I did a lot of physical labor, including working for several years paving roads and pouring concrete sidewalks as well as miles and miles of curb and gutter.

Other than spring and fall allergies, which can sometimes be severe, I’ve lead a pretty healthy life.

It’s not that I don’t get sick. I had pneumonia a few times as a child and teenager and I tend to get most of the colds and flus that come around, but usually they have been relatively mild.

It all changed a few years ago

On the day before Thanksgiving about five years ago, or thereabouts, I was repairing the concrete steps and sidewalk on Mom’s house.

As the afternoon progressed, I started running a fever and got to feeling progressively worse. I had been feeling fine before noon.

I managed to finish the job and clean the tools and put them away.

Then, I lived on the couch for the next week.

I was Mom’s full-time caretaker, so, no matter how bad I felt, I still had to help her and prepare her meals. There were a few days when it was very difficult to do these things, and I certainly didn’t want to eat anything.

I remember one day that I didn’t have the strength to walk to the kitchen and actually crawled there. Still, I managed to prepare Mom’s meals and help her with the other things she needed.

Other than that, all I did was sleep. Mom was very worried, to say the least.

So why didn’t you go to the hospital or doctor?

It’s been over 10 years since I’ve had health insurance and I simply could not afford to get medical help.

When I finally got out of credit card hell over 15 years ago, I swore that I would never get in debt again, and I haven’t. In fact, if it comes down to it, I’d rather be dead than living in debt.

So, since I could not afford a “visit” to the doctor or hospital, it was up to me to get better or not.

It took about a week, but eventually, I was back on my feet and even eating a bit.

A couple of weeks later, I was pretty much back to normal.

Except, that I wasn’t

I thought I was back to normal, but the truth is that I’ve never again had the strength or stamina I used to have before that illness.

Now, it’s all I can do to work for a half-hour or so, and then I have to rest. Previously, I could put in 16- to 18- hour work days and be ready to go again the next day.

These days, I can’t even manage to mow the grass.

I don’t want attention for feeling bad

I know people who spend their days talking about what’s wrong with them, and I don’t want to be one of those people.

I try not to talk about feeling bad, but sometimes it feels like the right thing to do, like when I was explaining why I haven’t done much on my blogs this month.

But, I don’t want to be defined by illness and bad health.

I want to be as positive as I can, but I also have to be realistic.

The truth is that I can’t do what I used to do and I’m not nearly as healthy as I once was.

More health problems this year

Earlier this year, I went through another round of health problems and got progressively weaker over several months. At one point, I got to where I could barely hobble from one room to the other using a cane, and seriously considered using Mom’s old walker.

I got to where it was a chore to buy groceries and had to use a cane everywhere I went, so that meant I went even less than I wanted.

My daughter and brother got really worried about me, but after a month or two, I began to grow stronger. I’m still worse off than I was a year ago, but much better than six months ago.

Is it an excuse when you tell the truth?

So, I have to wonder out loud. Am I just making excuses when I tell you that I’ve been too sick this month to do much work?

Would I be better off lying and saying everything is great, even when it’s obvious that it isn’t?

Do we expect an honest answer when someone asks us how we’re doing?

If you asked Zig Ziglar how he was doing, he’d likely say something like, “Better than good, and that’s an understatement.”

Is this a matter of being honest, or is it a matter of defining your expectations and taking action to realize them?

Did saying he was better than good actually make him better than good?

The power of positive and negative thoughts

I’ve watched people who were experiencing declining health.

Some refused to admit it and kept up a positive stream of thoughts until the day they died. They were a pleasure to be around and I usually felt better after visiting them.

Others dwelt upon their bad health and constantly complained about it. I always felt drained after visiting them, and swore I’d never become one of them.

Even if positive thoughts won’t change your condition, they can change the environment in which you live and can greatly affect those around you.

I have to come to terms with this

Most people don’t see me as happy, and, truthfully, it’s been a long time since I’ve really felt happy. I’m comfortable, and mostly satisfied, but not happy.

I try to remain positive and to encourage as many people as I can.

But, when someone asks me how I am, I generally tell the truth.

On a good day, I’m “finer than frog hair split three ways.”

On a bad day, I’m “not feeling well.”

I’d much rather talk about the good days and concentrate on feeling good, rather than tell you how I feel on the days I’m not doing so well.

Is it better to lie?

Sometimes I think it really is better to answer some questions with a lie.

If a truthful answer is setting you and those around you up for a negative experience, is it better to lie?

I don’t know.

I would never advocate lying about serious questions, however.

If someone asked me if I would help them do something, I would never say yes, unless I fully intended to do it. If I really didn’t plan on helping them, I’d give them a straight answer so they could find someone else.

However, I’m wondering if it is better all around to just answer “Great!” whenever I’m asked how I’m doing or how I feel.

Committed to complaining less about everything

I’m going to make a strong commitment to complain less about everything, especially about feeling bad.

I won’t lie, but I will do my best to keep the complaining at a minimum.

What about you?

Do you often complain about “feeling bad?” If so, why?

Act on your dream!

Tags: Napoleon Hill, self-assessment, test, Think and Grow Rich