Scroll One
Today I begin a new life.
Today, I shed my old skin, which had too long suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity. Failure no longer is my payment for struggle, just as nature made no provision for my body to tolerate pain, neither has it made any provision for my life to suffer failure. In the past, I accepted failure as I accepted pain, now I reject it, and I am prepared for wisdom and principles to guide me out of the shadows into the sunlight of wealth, position and happiness, far beyond my most extravagant dreams. Only principles endure, and these I now posses, for the laws that lead me to greatness are contained in these scrolls. What they teach me is more to ‘prevent failure’ than to ‘gain success’, for what is success other than a state of mind? Which two among a thousand wise men will define success in the same words, yet ‘failure’ is always described but one way. Failure is one’s inability to reach goals in life, whatever they may be. In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus the first law I will obey is I will form good habits and become their slave. As a child I was slave to my impulses, now I am a slave to my habits. I have surrendered my free will to the years I have accumulated habits and the past deeds of my life have already marked out a path, which threatens to imprison my future.
My actions are ruled by appetite, passion, prejudice, greed, lust, fear, environment, habit; And the worst of these tyrants is HABIT. Therefore, I must be a slave to good habits.
And how do I accomplish this difficult feat? Through these scrolls it is done, for each scroll contains a principle, which drives a bad habit from my life and replaces it with one which brings me closer to success.
Herein lies the secret of all my accomplishments. As I repeat these words daily, they soon become a part of my active mind, but more important, they also seep into my other mind that mysterious source which never sleeps, which creates my dreams and often makes me act in ways I do not comprehend. As the words of these scrolls are consumed by my mysterious mind, I begin to awake each morning with a vitality that I have never known before. My vigor increases. My enthusiasm is on the rise. My desire to meet the world overcomes every fear I once knew at sunrise, and I am happier than I ever believed it possible to be. Eventually, I find myself reacting to all situations which confront me as I was commanded in the scrolls to react, and soon these actions are easy to perform. Thus, a new and good habit is born.
Today I begin a new life and make the solemn oath to myself that nothing retards my new life’s growth. I lose not a day from these scrolls, for that day cannot be retrieved, nor can I substitute another for it. The few moments spent each day on this new habit are but a small price to pay for the happiness and success that will be mine. Never do I allow the brevity of each scroll nor the simplicity of its words to cause me to take the scroll’s message lightly. Thousands of grapes are pressed to fill one jar with wine. So it is with these grapes of wisdom from the ages. Only the pure truth lies distilled in the words to come.
Today my old skin has become dust. I’d walk tall among men, and they know me not. But today I am a new individual with a new life!
Posted on May 3, 2012
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