We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.
Author: Katee Bolt
Mom, educator, entrepreneur, advocate…create, write, travel and dream. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
I grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas, playing all the sports and doing all the country girl things. My husband was my college sweetheart, we met in Tennessee, we have three kids, a dog, and a cat…we’re loving life and have made our “home” in South Florida.
If I have to be honest, life keeps happening and I have allowed it to get me a bit off kilter since the class ended last spring. Yet I know what I need to do and I have the tools to help me get to where I am going. I’m so thankful for MKE, I have no idea what I would be doing right now if I hadn’t taken the step to make the time to work on me 3 years ago. Yes, life happens, we keep going one way or another. Wouldn’t it be better if we did life with less struggle and more triumph? Leave a comment if you want to join me on the adventurous journey this fall. You won’t regret it!
Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence; the bliss of growth; the glory of action; the splendor of beauty; for yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision: but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day! —From the Sanskrit
As I read this week’s lesson, a song from the past kept coming to mind, especially when reading the above quote.
“Seize the day, seize whatever you can. Life slips away just like hourglass sand. Seize the day, pray, for grace from God’s hand, then nothing will stand in your way.”
I went back and listened to the song and reread the lyrics. So much MKE embedded in here! So hard to put to words all of it, so have a listen for yourself:
When reading the lyrics, it speaks of those who seized the day and to those who didn’t. And just like the author, I agree with the last portion….
“Well one thing I’ve noticed wherever I wander Everyone’s got a dream he can follow or squander You can do what you will with the days you are given I’m trying to spend mine on the business of living”
What are you doing with your time? Are you Emerson or Carlyle? In harmony or discord? Are you looking for the good in order for you life to become a symphony of peace and harmony?
Mental diet…start over as many times as you need, as often as necessary…become the person you are meant to be!
Visualization is the process of making mental images, and the image is the mold or model which will serve as a pattern from which your future will emerge.
Make the pattern clear and make it beautiful; do not be afraid; make it grand; remember that no limitation can be placed upon you by any one but yourself; you are not limited as to cost or material; draw on the Infinite for your supply, construct it in your imagination; it will have to be there before it will ever appear anywhere else.
Make the image clear and clean-cut, hold it firmly in the mind and you will gradually and constantly bring the thing nearer to you. You can be what “you will to be.”
You can be what you will to be.
You ARE already what you have willed to be also.
What has your will led you to so far? Is it where you want to be? Are you living the life you want to live? Whatever life you have, you have created. If you are not where you want to be, create a new life with your will.
Your habits determine your success. Control your subby, change your habits, change your life.
It seems so simple, and yet so many just don’t do the work to get there, to the place their heart desires. It takes stepping out of your comfort zone and changing your habits, facing your fears, eliminating distractions, and stopping procrastination. What new habit can you use to replace an old habit that is keeping you from making your life clear, beautiful and grand?
“The knowledge that if we infringe upon the rights of others, we become moral thorns and find ourselves entangled at every turn of the road, should be an indication that success is contingent upon the highest moral ideal, which is “The greatest good to the greatest number.” Aspiration, desire and harmonious relations constantly and persistently maintained will accomplish results. The greatest hindrance is erroneous and fixed ideas.
To be in tune with eternal truth we must possess poise and harmony within. In order to receive intelligence the receiver must be in tune with the transmitter.
Thought is a product of Mind and Mind is creative, but this does not mean that the Universal will change its modus operandi to suit us or our ideas, but it does mean that we can come into harmonious relationship with the Universal, and when we have accomplished this we may ask anything to which we are entitled, and the way will be made plain.“
This year…2020…so full of differing opinions and diverging ideas/ideals. According to MKE, the experts are the ones to share opinions…
Infringing upon the rights of others…some focus in on this. But let’s keep going…
“The greatest good to the greatest number.” That is where to focus in order to aspire to greatness, having harmonious relations, putting behind us the erroneous and fixed ideas.
In order to be a self-directed thinker, I must be willing to change my ideas and conceptualizations of what “I” think about something. I must be in tune with eternal truth by possessing poise and harmony within myself. That is a tall order, but definitely one that will bring about the greatest good for myself, which in turn can be shared outward toward others.
“The mind, which pervades the body, is largely the result of heredity, which, in turn, is simply the result of all the environments of all past generations on the responsive and ever-moving life forces. An understanding of this fact will enable us to use our authority when we find some undesirable trait of character manifesting.
We can consciously use all the desirable characteristics with which we have been provided and we can repress and refuse to allow the undesirable ones to manifest.
Again, this mind which pervades our physical body is not only the result of hereditary tendencies, but is the result of home, business and social environment, where countless thousands of impressions, ideas, prejudices and similar thoughts have been received. Much of this has been received from others, the result of opinions, suggestions or statements; much of it is the result of our own thinking, but nearly all of it has been accepted with little or no examination or consideration.
The idea seemed plausible, the conscious received it, passed it on to the subconscious, where it was taken up by the Sympathetic System and passed onto be built into our physical body. “The word has become flesh.””
This section of Haanel blew my mind. I grew up with the biblical idea of “visiting the sins of the father unto the third and fourth generation” and I never understood how a loving God could punish so many generations for the misdeeds of one person. As an adult I have been determined to work on “breaking the cycle” of poverty and negativity that seems to have plagued the past couple of generations of some of my family members.
This is my 3rd time through MKMMA, and now as a Guide. This was the first time this section hit home for me and made me realize that the cement has been piling on for generations because what my parents piled on me was partially what their parents piled on them and on and on. I know as a parent I have piled cement on my own children and I am working to take as much off of them as possible before they get out into the world on their own. That is a challenging task, but we have begun to have some deep conversations about how things were and how my mindset has evolved through the years.
Knock off that cement of the previous generations! Do it now!!!
Katee Bolt 
You must be logged in to post a comment.