A man receives a salary sufficient to keep him and his family fairly comfortable. Then comes a promotion and an advance in salary double that from before. Does he lay the extra income away in savings and investments and continue living on as before? He does nothing of the sort. He must get a new car. The wife needs new things. They must improve their quality of life, yet now the house is too small. They must have a house with more rooms. At the end of the year is he better off with the increase? The more he gets, the more he wants, on and on the story goes, ad infinitum.
A man selects the girl of his choice, believing he cannot live without her. After he gets her he is not sure that he can live with her. If a man remains a bachelor he wonders why he is so stupid as to deprive himself of the joys of married life. If he marries, he wonders how she happened to catch him off guard long enough to “trap” him.
The god of destiny cries out, “You fool. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. How familiarity breeds contempt.”
Life’s greatest inconsistency is the fact that most of that which we believe is not true. Opportunity may be found wherever one really looks for it, and nowhere else. Do not worry that the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. Nature intended it to be so. Thus does she allure us and groom us for the life-long task of growth through struggle. Resign yourself to your decisions in life or continue in the pursuit of that which seems unattainable—the choice is ours to make. The only enduring satisfaction is that which comes to the person who keeps alive in his heart the HOPE of future achievement—keeps alive in his mind his definite purpose—and executes his plan of strategy through his constant efforts irrespective of his fears and failures in the pursuit of beauty, happiness and contentment; all of which are simply mere states of mind. If this were to die, write “finished” across the human heart. The sin is limitation.
- Except from The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill
