Tag Archives: James Allen

A Straight Pathway to Achievement

A Tuesday night soccer game. Before the game, I was a little worried how our team would play. We were missing three players and would take the field with one less player than our opponent. At game time, I realized neither team would have any substitutes. It would be eight versus nine with the winner standing at the top of the league standings.

After 5 minutes of play, we went down 1-0. The star player on the other team scored the first goal. Oh no! This could get ugly fast. Yet, our team didn’t surrender. They never gave up and continued to run and play hard. Our defense collected themselves and became relentless in their pursuit of the ball. And in the proudest of dad moments…

My son, Alec, began to shine. He coached his teammates on what to do and where to go. He took over on offense with multiple break-a-ways. He  employed a few tricks that left the defenders watching him as he passed them by. After the dust settled, Alec had four goals on the tally sheet. We won 4-1.

Sometimes, a player gets lucky. Other times, a player just has a little more natural talent. But this performance wasn’t luck. It wasn’t natural talent. So, what was it? What separated him from the rest of the pack?

Having conceived of his purpose, a man should mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right or the left.

James Allen

Last season, Alec was good. He was one of the four best players on the best team in the league. He finished the season with one or maybe even two goals. He was happy to win and happy to provide key passes to the goal scorers. But he wanted more. He wanted to capitalize on the “oh so many close” shots. Last season was when he started to really get hungry.

During the offseason when he wasn’t in school or wrestling, Alec was outside kicking the ball until the sun went down. He would bring his iPad outside with him, watch a video, and then practice what he saw over and over until he learned the skill. If the weather kept him indoors, he was watching more videos, watching games, or playing soccer on his Nintendo Switch. Soccer was his focus, and it was laser sharp.

Of course, I love to see his work bear fruit. But what impresses me the most is seeing his work ethic. He found something he is passionate about. And to become the best version of himself, he never looked to the right or the left. He marked out his pathway and began the journey only the most dedicated are willing to take.

I spend so much of my time teaching and working with him. But watching him practice, I realized he was really teaching me. At his age, I never worked as hard as he did. And as an adult, I tend to waver from one pursuit to the next. I am a middling Jack-of-a-bunch-of-stuff, but a master of nothing. Alec, on the other hand, is on a path to mastery that I can only hope to be on one day. He is becoming my inspiration to be better, to try harder. Maybe, there will come a time that I can be like him.

Bound by Anxiety

I was living a nightmare. It was a bad rendition of George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.” I was in my late 20’s. I had a decent job. But with all the debt I racked up from the Army, I was struggling to get by. Every cent I earned hardly covered my living expenses. It certainly was not enough to get ahead. I was miserable and saw no light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of buckling down and proactively doing something about my situation, I took what little money I had, bought some booze, and did my best to check out from reality.

I wanted to get better, yet I didn’t know how. I was stuck at the bottom of the pit I had dug for myself with no visible means of escape. Life was miserable. I was miserable.

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. -James Allen

James Allen

My external situation was dire. The person I had become was one that I did not like. What I needed was a miracle. And that miracle, it was one that only I could provide. I needed an internal miracle. The process was slow. It began with letting go of the past, then I had to remove the shackles of an uncertain future, and finally I had to concentrate on the present.

To affect the external, one must look at correcting the internal. If not, one might remain bound by anxiety.

Feature photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

More than Praying

I was maybe ten or eleven, when I first read the following passage from the Bible:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.

Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.

Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number.

So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this.

So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice,

I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.

Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings.”

I Kings 3:5-13

It was one of those first “aha” moments I remember. God told Solomon he could have anything he wanted. What did Solomon ask for? He did not ask for wealth, honor, or riches, but for understanding and wisdom. And God gave him wisdom, maybe more than anybody else. On top of the wisdom, He gave Solomon all the things he didn’t ask for, making him one of the wealthiest kings of history.

At that young age, I thought I found the key to conquering the world. From I Kings and Solomon’s writings in Proverbs, I had the secret formula for wisdom. All I had to do was ask for it. I got down on my knees and with all the might I could muster closed my eyes and prayed, “Oh Lord, I beg you, give me the wisdom of Solomon.” Okay, so I know it was no small request. But if you are going to go big, you might as well go all the way.

For ten years I continued that prayer. And for years, God laughed at me and said, “Foolish child, am I some desert genii here to obey your wishes?” I could imagine his laughter. It wasn’t scorn so much as it was amusement at my silliness. What did I expect to happen? Would I one day wake up to become the sage of this generation?

In time, those prayers were put to the side. I was getting older and other priorities grabbed my attention. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I was reminded of those youthful prayers. After all, it was back in those days that the seeds were planted. And like well-preserved seeds, they began to come to life after a little nourishment.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Are my prayers being answered by God? No doubt, this could be a debatable topic that both sides could argue. Maybe Solomon woke up one day with an extraordinary amount of wisdom, but that doesn’t usually happen to ordinary guys like me. Wisdom is available to the masses, but it doesn’t come without a price. You must work for it. It is earned, not given.

There is a step to wisdom. Over the years I read it over and over, but it took time for it to sink in. Consider these words from Proverbs:

For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (2:6)

The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin. (10:14)

Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge. (23:12)

Buy the truth and do not sell it —wisdom, instruction and insight as well. (23:23)

Over and over, Solomon repeats these words.

Knowledge and understanding. Plant the seeds of knowledge within your mind. Nourish it with understanding. Reap the fruits of wisdom. Prayer alone won’t do the trick. Wishing with all your might is not good enough. As James Allen said, our wishes and prayers are only answered when they harmonize with our thoughts and actions.

Keep Dreaming

Hope 10/19/2019

I have been thinking about dreams lately. My dreams at night have become more and more vivid. Not only vivid, but stimulating enough to activate my mind and keep it awake for several hours afterwards. This is a bummer if I have only been asleep for ten minutes, which is what happened to me earlier in the week.

I have a friend in Ireland who told me about her recurring dreams. I am in her dreams, but in them I refuse to climb up a mountain with her. It reminds of me of my own recurring dreams. I used to love those types of dreams, because I always woke up feeling like a completed the next chapter of a book. And though my dreams are very different than my friend’s, they have one thing in common. They are both completely random. On that day at that particular time, the mind pulled that dream out of nowhere, allowed it to run its course, and then casually placed it back in the hidden closet from which it came. The sleeping dream is completely random. And try as you might, you have no ability to influence its outcome.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. –T.E. Lawrence

I used to spend more time thinking about my sleeping dreams than I ever did on my waking dreams. What a shame, because I was focusing on something I had no control over. Why focus on something I can’t control, when I could focus on the things I can control. One is magical in that you can’t control it or touch it. You can only watch it and hope the story turns out good. The other is magical in a totally different sense. You can imagine it, shape it, and write your own narrative. You can control it from the beginning and even see it through to its completion. The waking dream that becomes reality is truly magical, and the magician is the dreamer who chooses to keep her eyes open.

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be.” –James Allen