I’ve spent a good portion of the last several years of my life talking, mostly complaining, about how I don’t like how things are.  Looking back though now, I’m realizing that I don’t have anything to show for my thoughts.  Mostly because they were just complaints.  There’s not a lot anybody can do with that.  The thought occurred to me last night as I was falling asleep, “How will I be known?”  By the things I’ve complained about, or the things that I’ve done something about?  How will I be known?  By what I’ve done.

It’s not always easy to know what to do, but looking back on the good things that I have in my life, a common thread is that I did something, anything.  These things lead to more action.   In Walden, Henry David Thoreau said, “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”

It has become clear to me recently that I will be known by, I will know myself by, and I will find success in endeavors by, the fruits of what I’ve done,  not by what I’ve complained about.

In order to find success, we must apply ourselves and act.  Only then do we call on unseen forces, whether they be nature, the universe, shared consciousness, or heaven.   I will act.