WAKE up and live,” is the title of Dorothea Brande’s inspirational book that has propelled a good number of people over the past half century to make the most of their lives. After all, we only have one chance, one life, which normally lasts three score and ten with a maximum of just over a hundred. By that time most of our friends would be gone and bodily aches and pains would hamper our every move. While it is within our control, especially for the young, what can help us enjoy a more fruitful life. In last Sunday’s Gospel Our Lord too assured us of help: “Seek and you shall find. Ask and it will be given to you. Knock and it will be opened to you.” The Lord helps those who help themselves. In developed countries, inspirational speakers is a big industry. And people are willing to pay because there are results. Are there any secrets in this? What would you give to be more successful? Every one has had some success. Are we using past successes to help toward present and future success?
Brande’s theory is that there is a will to fail in each one. It is comfortable and easy to fail. We do not have to exert effort. We are not the objects of envy. And there are a hundred alibis handy for rationalizing our failure. We can pass away our time in evening drinking sessions with fellow failures who agree we are victims of fate. We were not given the chance to be successful. We blame our parents, our poverty, our genes, and a number of other plausible reasons for our lack of success. It is a seed of failure in each one that Brande says is at the root of our being satisfied with our "puede na" or some form of fatalism. But she argues that if you think about it you shouldn’t be happy with "good enough" when you can be a succesful productive individual. On the spiritual side the more talent one has, the more resources he has at his command, the more successful one is, the more he can serve God and assist his neighbor. In this, of course, we need to remember spiritual poverty, meaning, that all our talents and riches are only lent to us by God for a hundred years or less. We have to ask Him every morning what He wants us to do with our riches and talents because we are only caretakers of these goods. The Lord is the owner. As in the parable of the talents, do we bury these talents or do we make them earn a hundred fold?
Brande has one powerful suggestion: Act as if it were impossible to fail. If you were assured of success, if it was impossible to fail, what would you have done? Then do that. She has another suggestion that works, namely, get into the mood of success. Think of the times in the past that you were successful in what you did. Maybe it was climbing a hill, patching up a quarrel, winning an oratorical contest, earning your first salary, landing a contract, winning the hand of your wife, and vice versa getting the attention of your crush, and a number of other instances of small and big successes. But get into that mood and let it influence your action. Our moods and feelings are often not within our full control but they are not completely out of our control. Once you have the mood of your own success and perhaps the success of our models, then act. Our actions will influence our mood. And we have more control over our movements. Act as if it is impossible to fail. There is no magic about this but the results can be magical. Seek and you shall find. What more can we ask when the Lord Himselff assures us of His help.
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