A Lesson that takes 3 seconds to learn and a lifetime to master.
This is my third installment of the "3 Second Lessons" taught to me by my grandfather. He was a philosopher engineer you might say, with a mind that could have helped shape the world. Maybe he yet will, as long as I continue to pass along his teachings. I feel it is my duty to pass these on and hopefully someone else, maybe even you, can learn and prosper from his wisdom.
I'll preface this lesson as I did the others before it with a backstory of how these "3 Second Lessons" he would teach me every day.
My grandfather always taught me what he called "3 Second Lessons". He said anyone can learn these lessons in 3 seconds and then spend the rest of their life trying to master them. He would repeat many of them over and over again when needed as I grew up. Most he would explain to me afterwards, other's his answer was always the same when I'd ask him what it meant, "Well son, the answer isn't the same for everybody, but you have 50 or 60 years to figure it out for yourself." I'd like to share this one with you today.
"Life begins with belief in yourself, continues with good choices repeated daily, and ends with a life you can be proud of."
This is without a doubt the lesson he taught most often. Every day at some point he would simply say "Life begins" and then I would repeat the rest back to him. I never truly understood why he drilled this so deeply into my very being when I was young. I had to get out in the world and get "knocked around" a bit to truly start to grasp what he was teaching me.
He would always say "If you don't belief in yourself, how can you expect someone else too?" Great question. If you let that sink in for a bit, it's actually quite profound. I know I've had more times than I can count in my life where I I've wanted someone else to trust or believe in me or my abilities, but upon reflection realized that I did not show the necessary conviction to cause them to do so.
"It all starts with belief." I can hear those words as I write this. "It all starts with belief." Anytime I need to make a decision in my life, these words echo in my mind. Focus and determination soon follow.
Though it all starts with "belief", belief is not enough. We must back up that belief with good choices. How do we make good choices? He would simply say, "make enough bad choices and you'll figure out what the goods ones are." I'm smiling right now just thinking about it. Man oh man it took we awhile on some things to figure out what the good ones were, lol. I know Einstein's definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, in essence, they were basically saying the same thing, just using different verbiage.
How do we know what a "good" choice is. This is how he explained it to me when as a young boy I asked that very question.
"Whatever your goal is, whatever you want in life, there is a road that takes you to it, no matter what it is, always know there is a road. Some choices you make get you further down that road, some choices take you off the road. Whether you achieve your goal is simply a matter of making the choices that take you further down that road. Day after day, week after week, month after month. Bad choices take you off the road, good choices keep you on the road. It's as simple as that. If a choice takes you off the road, simply don't do it."
It's so simple it's mind boggling. It's also very true. It all boils down to choice, which is technically "free will".
I could go on, but I want to keep this short, but I will say this. I have applied this lesson he taught me to Steemit, and I will stay the course. At first I wondered if I had anything of value to bring to the community and questioned my writing ability, I simply erased those thoughts and feelings with "Belief". I now have repeated this choice every day for 7 consecutive days by writing post, and will continue to do so. We all have different hopes and dreams, and I am a big believer in Steemit and what this platform and community can do. We all have something incredibly valuable to say, if we just "put it out there", this community will grow so fast and touch so many lives and who knows, just might help this world become a place we all can be proud of.
Like my grandfather told me so long ago, it only takes 3 seconds to learn, and a lifetime to master. I know I still have a long ways to go.