Abandoned Thoughts

I was going to write several different things.  I realized they were all whiny, disconsolate answers of people blaming the world for their problems.  They were the thoughts of losers, and the thoughts of losers need to be plunged and scrubbed from our minds as quickly as possible.  The facts are facts.

1) I am expected to perform at work. 

2) No one cares what I think.

3) It is not my boss' job or responsibility to make me rich.

4) I am responsible for my own destiny. 

5) If I am mad at my destiny, then I am mad at my own choices.

6) I need to change my choices in order to succeed.

7) The choices I make must lead to action.

8) Those actions must lead me where I desire to go.

9) Before I can get anywhere, I need to figure out where I want to go.

So...  the facts are laid out, as best as possible.  I think Tom Stanley's The Millionaire Next Door pointed out that 80% of millionaires are first generation rich.  That means, to paraphrase Dave Ramsey, they started with nothing, did the right thing, and became rich.

Now why do I want to be rich?  Because if I am rich, then I can work when I want to work, and I can work on what I want to work on without having to worry about keeping the lights on and food in my stomach.  Instead of spending my spare time working on my desires, I can spend all my time working on my desires.  I'd much rather spend my time on what I want to rather than what I have to make a buck and put food on the table.  But that requires discipline to drag myself out of the laziness and apathy that surround the world and surround life.  It means dragging yourself out of what average life says and reinforcing your world with a different truth.

I'm not mad at marketing, but it pervades and eats at us.  I don't smoke cigars.  But working at an inbound call center that took orders for cigars forty hours a week made me think about cigars.  I didn't even take those calls.  I was stuck on PBS and some farm animal thing.  But the pervasiveness of what I listened to and what happened around me changed my thinking and made me change my behavior. 

The problem with me is that I've listened to the wrong people for too long, and I've got to beat those wrong thoughts out of my head, one thought and action at a time.