You Can Have Anything You Want, But You Can't Have Everything You Want

Here it is, the chapter that was foretold to you so many times. The phrase "you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want sums up this whole section of the book.

You can have anything you want: No dream is too big to achieve. If one other person has achieved it, you can be the second. If no other person has achieved it, you can be the first. Dream big, dear reader, dream big.

But you can't have everything you want: We live in a finite world for a finite period of time, but with an infinite. imagination. Our imagination can create more wants than a computer can generate random numbers. We're not going to have time for all the wants we want.

There are those who say, "I want it all!" We wonder, if they ever got it all, where would they put it? When would they find the time to use it all, or even the time to learn how to use it all? One begins to get images from Citizen Kane — warehouse after warehouse stuffed with art treasures, purchased but never uncrated.

In fact, we can't "have it all" — there's simply not enough time. To make "having it all" a goal is not realistic. Long before we get "it all" we run out of time, energy and resources. Maybe that's why people who "want it all" often look so tired.

More often, however, we encounter people who don't want enough. Oh, they may want enough in the sense of a little here and a little there and all the littles add up to "enough." Unfortunately, many of those littles aren't what they really want — they're littles they think they should want because somebody said they should want them. If they had their heart's desire — the Big Want — they would gladly "sacrifice" most of the little littles.

We have only so much time and so much energy and so many resources, and we're going to spend them on something. The tragedy in most people's lives is that they spend that time, energy and resources doing something other than their heart's desire.

We are, of course, never given more time. We all have 24 hours each day. We're going to spend that time doing something. Why not spend it pursuing our dreams? Energy and resources come in, as needed, to fulfill the purpose.

It's when we have too many purposes ("I want to visit Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Denver, all in one day"), or purposes that conflict with each other (try starting from Kansas and going to New York and Los Angeles simultaneously), that we run up against "you can't have everything you want."

Yes, we are worthy of visiting any of those cities, but not all of them at once. Most people, however, rather than choosing one, just give up and stay in Kansas. "I can't have anything I want," they sigh.

They can have anything they want, but they can't have everything they want. There is more to life than Kansas. The key is choosing what we want most (our heart's desire), letting go of everything else we want (for now), and moving (mentally, emotionally and physically) toward our goal.

The choosing, letting go and moving is what we're going to look at next. It is, in fact, the essence of how to DO IT!

⇐ Предыдущая6789101112131415Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: