As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, simplified

THOUGHT AND CHARACTER

You Are What You Think

There’s an old saying: “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” This simple idea covers everything about a person. It even affects every situation and event in their life. You literally are what you think. Your character is simply the total result of all your thoughts.

Thoughts Are Seeds for Actions

Think about a plant growing from a seed. Without the seed, there’s no plant. It’s the same with your actions. Every single thing you do starts as a hidden seed – a thought. Without that thought, the action couldn’t happen. This is true even for actions that seem sudden or unplanned. They also started as thoughts.

Action is like the flower that blooms from a thought. Joy and suffering are the fruits that grow from that flower. So, you gather the results – sweet or bitter – that come from your own thinking.

Your thoughts have made you what you are today. If you have bad thoughts, pain will follow you, just like a cart follows the ox pulling it. But if you hold onto pure thoughts, joy will follow you as surely as your own shadow.

Character is Built by Thought, Not Chance

People grow according to laws, like cause and effect. They aren’t just randomly put together. This rule of cause and effect works just as reliably in the hidden world of your mind as it does in the physical world you see around you.

A noble and good character doesn’t happen by chance or luck. It’s the natural result of making a continuous effort to think good thoughts. It comes from holding onto positive, uplifting ideas for a long time.
A negative and unpleasant character develops in the same way. It’s the result of constantly holding onto negative, harmful thoughts.

You Create Yourself Through Thought

You are the one who makes or breaks yourself. Your mind is like a workshop.

With your thoughts, you can create weapons that destroy you.
Or, you can create tools to build yourself wonderful states of joy, strength, and peace.

By choosing your thoughts wisely and using them correctly, you can rise to great heights. By misusing your thoughts or choosing poorly, you can sink very low. Your character falls somewhere on this scale, and you are the one who creates and controls it.

You Are the Master of Your Destiny

Of all the wonderful truths about the soul that people understand today, one is especially cheering and full of promise:

You are the master of your thoughts.
You are the shaper of your character.
You are the creator of your conditions, your environment, and your destiny.

Unlocking Your Potential

Because you have Power, Intelligence, and Love, and because you are the lord of your own thoughts, you hold the key to every situation. Inside you is the power to change and rebuild yourself. You can make yourself into whatever you want to be.

Becoming a Wise Master of Your Thoughts

You are always the master of your thoughts, even when you feel weak or out of control. In those times, you are like a foolish master who manages things badly.

But when you start to really think about your situation and look for the laws that govern your life, you begin to change. You become a wise master. You start directing your energy intelligently. You shape your thoughts to produce good results.

Becoming this conscious, wise master only happens one way: by discovering the laws of thought within yourself. This discovery requires:

Application: Trying things out.
Self-Analysis: Examining your own thoughts and feelings.
Experience: Learning from what happens.

Finding Truth Within

Getting valuable things like gold and diamonds takes a lot of searching and digging. In the same way, you can find every truth about yourself if you are willing to dig deep into the “mine” of your own soul.

You can absolutely prove that you are the maker of your character, the shaper of your life, and the builder of your destiny. To do this, you need to:

Watch your thoughts carefully.
Control your thoughts deliberately.
Alter your thoughts when needed.
Trace their effects on yourself, on other people, and on your life circumstances.
Link cause (thought) and effect (result) through patient practice and investigation.
Use every single experience – even the small, everyday ones – as a chance to gain self-knowledge.

This self-knowledge is true Understanding, Wisdom, and Power. In this area of life, the law is absolute: “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.” Only through patience, consistent practice, and persistent effort can you enter the Temple of Knowledge.

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES

Your Mind is Like a Garden

Think of your mind as a garden. You can either take care of it purposefully or let it grow wild. Either way, it will produce something. If you don’t plant useful seeds (good thoughts), then lots of useless weed seeds (bad thoughts) will naturally fall in and grow.

Just like a gardener takes care of their plot – removing weeds and planting the flowers and fruits they want – you can tend the garden of your mind. You can weed out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts. You can cultivate the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts, helping them grow toward perfection.

By doing this, you will eventually discover that you are the master gardener of your own soul and the director of your own life. You’ll also start to understand the laws of thought. You’ll see more and more clearly how your thoughts and mental habits shape your character, your circumstances, and your future.

Your Outer World Matches Your Inner World

Your thoughts and your character are deeply connected. And since your character can only express itself through your environment and circumstances, your outer life conditions will always match your inner state.

This doesn’t mean your circumstances at any single moment show your entire character. But it does mean that your current situation is closely linked to some important thought pattern inside you. For now, that situation is necessary for your growth.

You Are Where You Are by Law

Every person is in their current position because of the law of their own being. The thoughts you have built into your character have brought you exactly where you are. There is no randomness in how your life is arranged. It’s all the result of a law that doesn’t make mistakes. This is true for everyone, whether they feel unhappy with their surroundings or content with them.

Circumstances Are for Learning

As a being who is constantly growing and evolving, you are in your current situation so you can learn and grow. As soon as you learn the spiritual lesson that any particular circumstance holds for you, that circumstance will change and make way for new ones.

From Victim to Master

You get pushed around by circumstances only as long as you believe you are just a product of outside conditions. But when you realize that you have creative power within you, you understand something crucial. You realize you can control the hidden “soil” (your mind) and “seeds” (your thoughts) from which circumstances grow. When you grasp this, you become the rightful master of yourself.

Proof: Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

Anyone who has practiced self-control and self-improvement for a while knows that circumstances grow out of thought. They will have noticed that changes in their life situations happened in exact proportion to changes in their mental state.

This connection is so strong that when a person seriously works on fixing their character flaws and makes quick, significant progress, they often go through a rapid series of changes in their life circumstances.

Your Soul Attracts Its Own

Your soul attracts the things it secretly holds onto – both the things it loves and the things it fears.

It rises to the level of its highest hopes and dreams.
It falls to the level of its lowest, uncontrolled desires. Circumstances are simply the way your soul receives what belongs to it, based on its inner state.

Thoughts Grow into Reality

Every thought-seed you plant or allow to take root in your mind will eventually produce its own results. Sooner or later, it blossoms into an action. That action then bears its own fruit of opportunity and circumstance.

Good thoughts bring good results.
Bad thoughts bring bad results.

The outer world of your circumstances shapes itself according to your inner world of thought. Both pleasant and unpleasant situations are actually factors working for your ultimate good. Like a farmer reaping a harvest, you learn from both suffering and happiness.

Your Dominant Thoughts Determine Your Destination

By following your deepest desires, hopes, and thoughts – the ones you allow to guide you – you eventually arrive at their fulfillment in your outer life. This happens whether you are chasing illusions based on impure thoughts or steadily walking the path of strong, high goals. The laws of growth and adjustment are always at work.

You Are Responsible for Your Situation

A person doesn’t end up in extreme poverty or in jail because of bad luck or unfairness. They arrive there by following a path of negative thoughts and harmful desires.
A person with a pure mind doesn’t suddenly fall into crime because of outside pressure alone. The criminal thought was secretly grown in their heart long before, and the right opportunity simply revealed its hidden power.

Circumstance reveals you to yourself; it does not make you.

It’s impossible to experience negative situations and suffering without having negative tendencies. It’s also impossible to experience virtue and true happiness without consistently cultivating virtuous thoughts and goals.

Therefore, as the lord and master of your thoughts, you are the maker of yourself. You are the shaper and author of your environment. Even from birth, your soul begins attracting conditions that reflect its own nature – its purity or impurity, its strength or weakness – through every step of life’s journey.

You Attract What You ARE, Not What You WANT

People don’t attract the things they merely want; they attract the things they are. Their passing whims, fantasies, and ambitions often get frustrated. But their deepest, innermost thoughts and desires are consistently fed with their own kind, whether good or bad.

The force that shapes your destiny is inside you – it is you. You are the only one who can truly limit yourself.

Your thoughts and actions can be like jailers, imprisoning you if they are negative and harmful.
Or, they can be like angels of Freedom, liberating you if they are positive and noble.

You don’t get what you simply wish and pray for. You get what you truly earn. Your wishes and prayers are answered only when they align with your actual thoughts and actions.

The Meaning of “Fighting Circumstances”

So, what does it mean when people say they are “fighting against circumstances”? It means they are constantly struggling against an effect on the outside, while continuing to feed and protect its cause inside their own heart.

That cause might be a conscious bad habit or an unconscious weakness. Whatever it is, it stubbornly holds the person back and signals that something needs to change within them.

Improve Yourself to Improve Your Life

Many people want to improve their circumstances, but they are unwilling to improve themselves. Because of this, they remain stuck.

The person who is willing to face difficult self-improvement (self-crucifixion) will always succeed in reaching the goal they truly care about. This applies to both worldly goals and spiritual ones. Even someone whose only goal is to get rich must be ready to make big personal sacrifices to achieve it. How much more true is this for someone who wants to achieve a strong, balanced, and peaceful life?

Examples of How Thoughts Create Circumstances

Let’s look at a few examples:

The Unhappy Poor Man: Imagine a man who is very poor and desperately wants better surroundings and comforts. However, he avoids work whenever possible. He feels justified in trying to cheat his employer because he thinks his wages are too low. This man doesn’t understand the basic principles of real prosperity. He’s not just unprepared to escape his misery; he’s actually attracting more misery by living out lazy, dishonest, and weak thoughts.
The Sick Rich Man: Consider a wealthy man suffering from a painful, ongoing illness caused by constantly overeating. He’s willing to pay a lot of money to get rid of the illness, but he refuses to sacrifice his desire for rich, unhealthy foods. He wants to enjoy these foods and have good health at the same time. This man is unfit to have health because he hasn’t learned the first principles of a healthy life.
The Dishonest Employer: Think of an employer who uses dishonest tactics to avoid paying fair wages. Hoping to make bigger profits, they cut their employees’ pay. This person is completely unprepared for true prosperity. When they eventually find themselves bankrupt in both reputation and finances, they blame circumstances. They don’t realize they alone created their situation.

These three cases illustrate a simple truth: people are the cause of their own circumstances (though often unconsciously). While aiming for a good outcome, they constantly block it by encouraging thoughts and desires that clash with that outcome. We could list many more examples, but it’s not necessary. You, the reader, can trace the action of these thought-laws in your own mind and life if you choose to. Until you do that personal work, just hearing about external facts won’t be truly convincing.

Judging Others is Difficult

Circumstances can be very complex. Thoughts are often deeply rooted. What brings happiness varies greatly from person to person. Because of this, you can’t fully judge another person’s inner state just by looking at the outside of their life (though they might know it themselves).

A person might be honest in some ways but still face hardship.
Another person might be dishonest in some ways but still gain wealth.

People often jump to conclusions: they assume the first person failed because of their honesty, and the second succeeded because of their dishonesty. This is usually a shallow judgment. It wrongly assumes the dishonest person is almost entirely bad, and the honest person is almost entirely good.

With deeper knowledge and wider experience, we see this judgment is wrong. The dishonest person might have good qualities the honest person lacks. The honest person might have negative habits the dishonest person doesn’t have.

The honest person reaps the good results of their honest thoughts and actions, but also suffers the consequences of their negative habits.
The dishonest person similarly gathers both the suffering and the happiness that result from their own mix of thoughts and actions.

Suffering Comes From Your Own Flaws

It feels good to believe you suffer because you are virtuous. But until you have removed every sick, bitter, and impure thought from your mind, and washed every negative stain from your soul, you can’t truly know or claim that your suffering comes from your good qualities instead of your bad ones.

Long before you reach that state of perfection, as you progress on the path, you will discover the Great Law. This law works in your mind and life, and it is absolutely just. It cannot give good results for evil actions, nor evil results for good actions. Once you have this knowledge, looking back at your past ignorance, you will know that your life is, and always was, justly ordered. You’ll understand that all your past experiences, good and bad, were the fair results of your own evolving self.

Unbreakable Laws of Thought

Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results.
Bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results.

This is like saying corn can only produce corn, and weeds can only produce weeds. People understand this law in the natural world and work with it. But few understand that this law works just as simply and reliably in the mental and moral world. Therefore, they don’t cooperate with it.

The Purpose of Suffering

Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some area of your life. It’s a sign that you are out of harmony with yourself and with the Law of your being.

The one and only purpose of suffering is to purify – to burn away everything that is useless and impure within you. Suffering stops for the person who becomes pure. There’s no point in heating gold after all the impurities (dross) have been removed. A perfectly pure and enlightened person could not suffer.

Harmony Brings Blessings, Disharmony Brings Suffering

The circumstances you face with suffering are the result of your own mental disharmony.
The circumstances you face with peace and joy (blessedness) are the result of your own mental harmony.

Blessedness, not material wealth, is the true measure of right thought. Misery, not lack of material wealth, is the true measure of wrong thought.

A person can be rich but cursed with misery.
A person can be poor but blessed with peace.

Blessedness and riches only go together when the riches are used rightly and wisely. A poor person only falls into misery when they view their situation as an unfair burden.

Finding the Right Balance

Extreme poverty (indigence) and excessive, uncontrolled desire (indulgence) are two opposite extremes of misery. Both are unnatural and result from mental disorder. You are not in the right condition until you are a happy, healthy, and prosperous being. Happiness, health, and prosperity come from finding a harmonious balance between your inner world (thoughts, character) and your outer world (circumstances).

Stop Blaming, Start Building

A person only truly begins to mature when they stop whining, complaining, and blaming. Instead, they start searching for the hidden justice that governs their life. As they adjust their mind to this governing principle, they:

Stop accusing others for their condition.
Build themselves up with strong and noble thoughts.
Stop fighting against circumstances.
Start using circumstances as tools for faster progress and for discovering their hidden inner powers and potential.

The Universe is Just

Law, not confusion, is the ruling principle of the universe. Justice, not injustice, is the heart and soul of life. Righteousness, not corruption, is the shaping and driving force in the world.

Since this is true, all you need to do is put yourself right, and you will find that the universe is right. During this process of self-correction, you’ll discover something amazing: as you change your thoughts about things and other people, those things and other people will change in relation to you.

The Proof is Within You

The proof of this truth lies within every single person. Therefore, you can easily investigate it through regular self-reflection and self-analysis.

Let a person radically change their thoughts, and they will be astonished at the rapid transformation in the material conditions of their life. People think thoughts can be kept secret, but they can’t.

Thought quickly turns into habit.
Habit solidifies into circumstance.

Here’s how it works:

Negative Examples:
- Harmful, animalistic thoughts —> Habits of drunkenness, uncontrolled desires —> Circumstances of poverty, disease.
- Impure thoughts —> Draining, confusing habits —> Distracting, difficult circumstances.
- Thoughts of fear, doubt, indecision —> Weak, hesitant habits —> Circumstances of failure, poverty, dependence.
- Lazy thoughts —> Habits of uncleanliness, dishonesty —> Circumstances of filth, begging.
- Hateful, critical thoughts —> Habits of blaming, violence —> Circumstances of injury, persecution.
- Selfish thoughts —> Habits of self-seeking —> Circumstances that are more or less distressing.
Positive Examples:
- Beautiful thoughts —> Habits of grace, kindness —> Pleasant, cheerful circumstances.
- Pure thoughts —> Habits of moderation, self-control —> Circumstances of restfulness, peace.
- Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, decisiveness —> Strong, capable habits —> Circumstances of success, abundance, freedom.
- Energetic thoughts —> Habits of cleanliness, industry —> Circumstances of pleasantness.
- Gentle, forgiving thoughts —> Habits of gentleness —> Protective, preserving circumstances.
- Loving, unselfish thoughts —> Habits of helping others —> Circumstances of reliable, lasting prosperity and true riches.

Choose Your Thoughts, Shape Your World

Continuing a particular way of thinking, whether good or bad, will absolutely produce results in your character and circumstances. You cannot directly choose your circumstances. But you can choose your thoughts. By doing so, you indirectly, yet surely, shape your circumstances.

Nature helps you experience the results of the thoughts you encourage most. Opportunities appear that quickly bring both your good and bad thoughts to the surface.

Take Control

Let go of your negative thoughts, and the world will soften towards you, ready to help.
Put away weak and unhealthy thoughts, and opportunities will spring up everywhere to support your strong decisions.
Encourage good thoughts, and no harsh fate can keep you bound to misery and shame.

The world is like your personal kaleidoscope. The changing patterns of colors you see moment by moment are perfectly adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.

You Have the Power

You will become what you decide to be. Don’t let failure hide behind the poor excuse of “environment.” Your spirit rejects that limitation and is free.

Your spirit can master time and space. It can overcome luck and chance. It can tell even powerful Circumstance to give up its throne and serve you instead.

The human Will – that unseen force born from an immortal Soul – can carve a path to any goal, even if mountains stand in the way.

Don’t be impatient with delays. Wait like someone who understands. When your spirit rises up and takes command, even the powers of the universe are ready to support you.

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON HEALTH AND THE BODY

Your Body Obeys Your Mind

Think of your body as a servant to your mind. It follows the mind’s orders, whether those thoughts are chosen on purpose or happen automatically.

If you allow harmful thoughts, your body quickly moves toward sickness and decay.
If you focus on happy and positive thoughts, your body becomes filled with youthfulness and beauty.

Health and Sickness Start with Thoughts

Just like your life circumstances, your physical health has its roots in your thoughts.

Sickly thoughts will naturally lead to a sickly body.
Fearful thoughts can be deadly. Intense fear has killed people as quickly as a bullet. Fear also constantly harms thousands of people more slowly but just as surely.
People who live in fear of getting sick are often the ones who do get sick.
Anxiety quickly weakens the whole body. It makes the body vulnerable to disease.
Impure thoughts, even if you don’t act on them physically, can damage your nervous system over time.

Positive Thoughts Build a Strong Body

On the other hand, strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up your body, making it strong and healthy. Your body is like a delicate, adaptable instrument. It readily responds to the thoughts that impress upon it. Your habitual ways of thinking will produce their own effects on your body, whether good or bad.

Purity Inside and Out

People will continue to have health problems as long as they hold onto unclean thoughts.

A clean heart leads to a clean life and a clean body.
An impure mind leads to an impure life and an unhealthy body.

Thought is the source of your actions, your life, and how you show up in the world. If you make the source (your thoughts) pure, everything that flows from it will be pure too.

Thoughts Affect Habits and Desires

Changing your diet won’t fully help you if you don’t also change your thoughts. When you make your thoughts pure, you naturally stop craving unhealthy or impure food.

Clean thoughts lead to clean habits. Someone claiming to be holy but neglecting basic hygiene isn’t truly living purely. If you have strengthened and purified your thoughts, you don’t need to obsessively worry about harmful germs.

Guard Your Mind to Protect Your Body

If you want to protect your body, guard your mind.
If you want to renew your body, beautify your mind.

Thoughts filled with negativity rob your body of health and grace. These include thoughts of:

Malice (wanting to harm others)
Envy (jealousy)
Disappointment
Hopelessness

A sour look on someone’s face doesn’t happen by accident; it’s created by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that spoil appearance are often drawn by foolishness, uncontrolled anger, and excessive pride.

Your Face Reflects Your Thoughts

I know a woman who is 96 years old but has the bright, innocent face of a young girl. I also know a man, not yet middle-aged, whose face is etched with harsh lines.

The woman’s appearance is the result of a sweet and sunny attitude.
The man’s appearance is the result of inner turmoil and discontent.

Let in Joy and Goodwill

Think about keeping a house healthy. You need to let fresh air and sunshine freely into the rooms. It’s the same for your body and mind. A strong body and a bright, happy, peaceful face can only come from freely allowing thoughts of joy, goodwill, and serenity into your mind.

Look at the faces of older people. Some wrinkles show sympathy and kindness. Others show strength and pure thoughts. Still others are carved by uncontrolled passions. Can’t you tell the difference? For those who have lived well, old age is calm, peaceful, and gently softened, like a setting sun. I recently saw a wise philosopher on his deathbed. He was only old in years. He died as sweetly and peacefully as he had lived.

The Best Medicine: Cheerful Thoughts and Goodwill

There is no medicine like cheerful thought for clearing away the body’s illnesses.
There is no comfort like goodwill for scattering the shadows of grief and sorrow.

To constantly live in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy is like locking yourself in a prison you built yourself.

But thinking well of everyone, being cheerful with everyone, and patiently learning to find the good in everyone – these unselfish thoughts are like gateways to heaven. Dwelling day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abundant peace to the person who thinks them.

VISIONS AND IDEALS

Dreamers Shape the World

The dreamers are the ones who save the world. Just as the invisible world supports the visible one, people are nourished by the beautiful visions of their quiet dreamers, even through trials, mistakes, and everyday struggles. Humanity needs its dreamers and cannot forget them or let their ideals die. We live in their dreams; we recognize them as the future realities we hope to one day experience.

Think about composers, sculptors, painters, poets, prophets, and wise thinkers. They are the creators of the future, the architects of a better world (“heaven”). The world is beautiful because people like them have lived. Without them, working humanity would lose hope and direction.

Hold Onto Your Vision

If you cherish a beautiful vision or a high ideal in your heart, you will achieve it one day.

Christopher Columbus held a vision of another world, and he found it.
Copernicus imagined many worlds and a larger universe, and he revealed it.
Buddha envisioned a spiritual world of pure beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it.

Nourish Your Inner World

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the inspiration that stirs in your heart, the beauty that takes shape in your mind, and the goodness that surrounds your purest thoughts.

From these inner treasures, all wonderful conditions and positive environments will grow.
If you remain true to them, your world will eventually be built according to their pattern.

Desire Leads to Achievement

To truly desire something is the first step to obtaining it. To aspire towards something is the first step to achieving it.

Should a person’s lowest desires be fully satisfied while their highest hopes starve from lack of support? No, that is not how the Law of life works. That situation cannot last. The principle is: “Ask and you shall receive.”

Become Your Dream

Dream lofty dreams. As you dream, so you will become.

Your Vision is the promise of what you will one day be.
Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you will eventually reveal or accomplish.

The greatest achievements started as dreams. The mighty oak tree sleeps inside the small acorn. The bird waits inside the egg. And in the highest vision of the soul, your potential greatness stirs. Dreams are the seeds of reality.

Rise Above Your Circumstances

Your current situation might be difficult, but it won’t stay that way for long if you identify an Ideal and consistently strive to reach it. You cannot travel forward mentally while standing still physically. You cannot change your inner world without your outer world eventually changing too.

Imagine a young person facing poverty and hard labor. They work long hours in an unhealthy place, have little schooling, and lack social graces. But this person dreams of better things. They think about intelligence, culture, grace, and beauty. They imagine and mentally build up an ideal life. The vision of greater freedom and opportunity takes hold of them. A feeling of restlessness pushes them to act. They use all their spare time and limited resources to develop their hidden talents and potential.

Soon, their mind changes so much that the old workshop no longer suits them. It becomes so out of sync with their mental state that it drops out of their life, like taking off an old coat. As opportunities appear that match their growing abilities, they leave the old life behind forever.

Years later, we see this person as a mature adult. They have become a master of certain mental forces, using them with worldwide influence and great power. They handle huge responsibilities. When they speak, lives are changed. People listen intently and reshape their own characters. Like the sun, this person becomes a stable, shining center around which many other lives revolve. They have realized the Vision of their youth. They have become one with their Ideal.

You Will Realize Your Vision Too

And you, the reader, will also realize the Vision held in your heart (not just an idle wish). This vision might be low or beautiful, or a mix of both. You will always be drawn toward what you secretly love the most.

You will receive the exact results of your own thoughts. You will get what you earn – no more, no less. Whatever your environment is now, you will eventually fall, stay the same, or rise based on your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal.

You will become as small as your controlling desire.
You will become as great as your dominant aspiration.

As Stanton Kirkham Davis beautifully said: You might be doing simple bookkeeping now, but one day you could walk out the door that seemed like a barrier to your dreams and find yourself speaking powerfully to an audience, inspiring them. You might be a shepherd now, but wander into a city, find a master artist’s studio, learn quickly, and eventually become a master yourself – the same person who recently dreamed big dreams while tending sheep. You might put down your tools as a carpenter to take on the task of improving the world.

Success Isn’t Luck or Chance

People who are thoughtless, ignorant, or lazy often only see the surface effects of things, not the deeper causes. They talk about luck, fortune, and chance.

Seeing someone get rich, they say, “How lucky!”
Noticing someone become knowledgeable, they exclaim, “How fortunate!”
Observing someone’s good character and influence, they remark, “Chance helps him so much!”

They don’t see the hidden story:

The trials, failures, and struggles these successful people chose to face to gain experience.
The sacrifices they made.
The determined efforts they put forth.
The faith they practiced to overcome huge obstacles and realize their heart’s Vision.

These observers don’t know the darkness and heartache; they only see the light and joy and call it “luck.” They don’t see the long, hard journey; they only notice the pleasant destination and call it “good fortune.” They don’t understand the process; they only perceive the result and call it “chance.”

Effort Determines Results

In all human activities, there are efforts and there are results. The strength of the effort determines the size of the result. Chance plays no part. Gifts, powers, and possessions – whether material, intellectual, or spiritual – are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts brought to completion, goals accomplished, visions made real.

Become What You Envision

The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you place on a throne in your heart – this is what you will build your life by. This is what you will become.